Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Location: Café Rouge, Southbank – Early December, Late Afternoon

John was trying.

He really was.

Jeanette was lovely — smart, patient, very into Dickens, and impressively tolerant of Sherlock-related outbursts. She also wore practical shoes, taught Year Six, and had an honest-to-God Pinterest board for Healthy Relationship Habits.

Which made it all the more unfortunate that John had accidentally ordered something with beets in it and was trying very hard not to gag while pretending to enjoy her monologue on Victorian handwriting.

He was nodding politely — halfway through a heroic “Mmm, yes, fascinating” — when the air didn’t just shift. It turned.

That’s what it felt like when Enola Holmes walked into a room.

Even a room that wasn’t technically hers.

“John,” Jeanette asked, tilting her head. “Are you okay?”

He blinked. “Huh? Yeah. Fine. Just thought I saw—”

And then he did.

Enola Holmes.

Black wool coat. Maroon scarf. Hair too perfect to be accidental. Lipstick one shade too bold for daylight. Walking like someone who’d just won a duel without wrinkling her blouse.

Michael trailed behind her, one hand in his pocket, the other holding a folded map and a pastry bag. He wore sunglasses. Indoors. In December. Like a bastard.

“Oh God,” John muttered. “They’re on a date.”

“What?” Jeanette turned, curious.

And then — eye contact.

“John!” Enola smiled, bright and warm and terrifyingly civil. “What a surprise.”

Jeanette glanced up, catching sight of the tall woman approaching like she’d stepped off the cover of a Burberry espionage special.

John stood too fast. “Enola. Michael. Wow—this is… unexpected.”

Enola’s gaze swept the café with polite calculation. “Is it? You’re usually a creature of habit. One cappuccino and whatever’s on the winter set menu, yes?”

John gave her a look that landed somewhere between fond and for the love of God, stop talking.

Michael lingered behind her, hand still in his coat pocket. “Afternoon,” he said mildly, nodding at John. Then to Jeanette, “Hi.”

John cleared his throat. “Right. Enola, Michael — this is Jeanette. Jeanette, this is Enola Holmes.”

Jeanette tilted her head. “Holmes?”

Enola extended a hand, pleasant and poised. “Sherlock’s sister.”

Jeanette’s eyebrows lifted. “Wait, really? But you’re… normal.”

Enola’s smile didn’t waver. “I get that a lot.”

Michael added dryly, “Give it five minutes.”

John snorted into his tea.

Jeanette shook Enola’s hand and glanced at Michael. “And you’re…?”

“Michael. I’m the one they never talk about.” He smiled. “Much healthier that way.”

Enola leaned in, voice warm. “Lovely to meet you. I promise we didn’t come to crash your date. This was just a pastry run.”

“She made me try seven bakeries,” Michael said. “For science.”

Jeanette grinned. “You’re welcome to join us. If you don’t mind John going on about seasonal menus.”

John gestured helplessly. “I like consistency.”

“Mm,” Enola said, sliding smoothly into the seat beside Michael. “Says the man whose last three girlfriends have been teachers.”

Jeanette’s eyes narrowed playfully. “Wait, you two have met before?”

Enola blinked back, innocent. “No. Just guessing.”

Michael, bless him, reached for a croissant like he believed carbs could deflect chaos.

Jeanette laughed. “So, what do you two do, then? For work?”

“Oh,” Enola said lightly, “I’m in cyber security. Very dull. Protocol design, internal breach audits.”

Michael added, “And I consult on government security projects. Infrastructure. Risk assessments. Nothing cloak-and-dagger. Sadly.”

“Mostly PowerPoints and disaster drills,” Enola said, mock-tragic.

Jeanette nodded. “That… actually sounds useful.”

“It pays the bills,” Michael said, biting into the croissant. “Also lets us sneak off for pastries midweek. Worth it.”

Enola leaned in, elbows relaxed. “And you teach, yes?”

Jeanette smiled. “Year Six. It’s noisy. But good.”

Enola tilted her head. “You must be excellent at it. You’ve got that calm-centre thing. That don’t-eat-the-glue energy.”

Jeanette burst out laughing. “That’s… exactly what I aim for, actually.”

John, meanwhile, looked like he was trying to physically will the conversation to stay normal.

Enola caught it — of course she did — and shot him the smallest, softest glance across the table.

Then, to Jeanette again, “And he’s behaving himself, I hope?”

Jeanette smirked. “Mostly. Though he did panic-order something with beets.”

Michael winced. “Rookie move.”

Enola gave John a mournful shake of her head. “You absolute fool.”

Jeanette laughed into her wine. “To be fair, he looked so confident. Like he’d just solved the stock market.”

“Classic Watson hubris,” Michael said, stretching out lazily. “Tragic but consistent.”

John pointed a fork at him. “I’ll have you know I’m evolving.”

“Into what?” Enola asked. “A beetroot?”

Michael nodded solemnly. “I’ve seen worse transitions.”

Jeanette covered her smile with a hand. “He survived a week with my Year Six class. We had Career Day.”

John groaned. “Don’t.”

“Oh no,” Michael said, grinning. “Do.”

“He wore a tie,” Jeanette said, eyes gleaming. “Talked about battlefield medicine. Had a slideshow. They called him Doctor Warlock for three days.”

“Which I will never live down,” John muttered, stabbing his food with quiet dignity.

“They drew him in crayon fighting a dinosaur,” Jeanette added cheerfully.

“I looked fantastic,” John said. “Very heroic pose.”

“Wrong number of arms,” Jeanette said.

“Still,” Enola said, sipping her tea, “an excellent origin story.”

Jeanette tilted her head, studying her. “So, do you and Sherlock actually… talk? Like, regularly?”

Enola shrugged. “Talk is a strong word. We have what I’d call scheduled collisions. Usually when he’s bored, annoyed, or thinks I’ve hacked something.”

Michael added, “She has. Every time.”

“I’m efficient,” Enola said.

Jeanette’s brows furrowed. “So you’re really siblings.”

“Full siblings,” Enola confirmed, tone light. “He got the curls. I got emotional regulation.”

John choked on his drink.

Michael smirked behind his cup. “And people think I’m cold.”

Jeanette grinned. “No, seriously, you’re… kind of the opposite of what I expected.”

“Oh, I know,” Enola said. “It’s my greatest strength. People assume Sherlock’s the dangerous one. Very useful.”

There was something so disarming in her delivery — that sparkle of irony — Jeanette wasn’t sure whether to laugh or raise a glass in warning.

Instead, she asked, “So… do you live around here?”

“Sort of. Just back from some time off,” Enola replied, skipping over the topic like a smooth stone. “Still adjusting to the time zone. And the grocery prices.”

Michael raised a brow. “And not carrying knives in your boots.”

“Still debatable,” Enola muttered into her cup.

John gave her a look. “You're not still—?”

“Relax, Doctor Warlock,” she said, with a wink. “It’s for lemons. Very serrated lemons.”

Michael leaned forward. “We missed this, you know. The quiet chaos. London’s brand of civilised absurdity.”

“You call this civilised?” John asked.

Michael glanced toward a man walking a ferret in a pram. “Comparatively.”

Jeanette giggled, then looked between them. “You two seem… I don’t know. Balanced.”

Enola tilted her head. “Do we?”

Michael glanced at her, then back at Jeanette. “We keep each other in check. Mostly.”

“She once electrocuted my hand to make a point,” he added.

“You were being very obtuse,” Enola said, not the slightest bit sorry.

John squinted. “You let her?”

Michael shrugged. “She was right.”

Jeanette looked delighted. “God, you two are terrifying.”

“And yet,” Enola said, folding her hands neatly, “we’re the stable ones.”

John snorted. “Now I know you’ve been on holiday.”

A ripple of quiet laughter passed between them. Comfortable. Just enough space for the past to sit without scraping the walls.

Michael leaned back and looked at John — really looked at him.

“I’m glad you’re doing well,” he said, quietly.

John blinked. “Oh. Thanks.”

“Seriously. It suits you,” Michael added, nodding briefly at Jeanette, then back. “This. You. Being grounded.”

Jeanette raised an eyebrow, amused. “Is this a compliment or a warning?”

Michael smiled. “Bit of both.”

John gave him a dry look. “You haven’t changed.”

Michael shrugged. “Didn’t need to.”

“Don’t encourage him,” Enola said, her eyes still on Jeanette. “He already thinks he’s charming.”

“I am charming,” Michael muttered.

Jeanette gestured between them. “You two really are disturbingly well-matched.”

Enola’s expression shifted — not a smirk or a mask, just something soft and real at the edges.

“Yes,” she said quietly. “We are.”

Michael didn’t say anything — just gave her a look that said everything.

Then he stretched, glanced at the bar tucked in the back, and stood. “We’ve technically extended our stay. That calls for a drink.”

“Oh no,” John muttered. “This always ends with either a chalk outline or a very long phone call to Mycroft.”

“I only made that call once,” Enola said. “And to be fair, the yacht deserved it.”

Michael was already walking. “What do you want, love?”

Enola tapped her lip, considering. “Something simple. Neat scotch. No gimmicks. If it has a flower in it, I’m sending it back.”

He grinned. “You like flowers.”

“I like them on plants, not in my drink like a romantic salad.”

Michael gave a low laugh and turned to the bar.

As soon as he was out of earshot, Jeanette leaned in, voice careful. “Can I ask you something without it being weird?”

Enola smiled pleasantly. “No promises. But go ahead.”

Jeanette glanced at John, then back. “Do you have the thing? The deduction thing? Like Sherlock?”

John instantly looked like someone had swallowed a wasp. “Oh God.”

Enola blinked. “The thing?”

“You know,” Jeanette said, gesturing vaguely, “the whole staring-at-people-and-telling-them-their-wifi-password-from-their-shoelaces thing.”

“Ah.” Enola looked down at her drink, lips twitching. “That.”

“She does,” John muttered.

“I can,” Enola said evenly. “But I try not to. Not unless someone asks. Or I’m bored. Or someone’s lying and I need to prove a point.”

Jeanette laughed. “So it’s like a party trick.”

John coughed. “More like a courtroom exhibit.”

“It’s more intrusive than it looks,” Enola said. “Sherlock does it because it’s instinct. Reflex. For me, it’s more like a blade. Just because you can use it doesn’t mean you should.”

Jeanette tilted her head. “But you don’t seem like him.”

“I try very hard not to.”

No venom — just clarity. Like someone saying they preferred tea without sugar.

Jeanette, still curious: “So… do you see things? About people? Right now?”

Enola smiled. “Would you like me to?”

Jeanette hesitated — eyes flicking to John for backup.

John held up both hands. “Don’t. Just—don’t ask her to do the thing. You’ll regret it.”

“No, I’m curious,” Jeanette said. “What do you see?”

Enola took a breath. And then:

“You haven’t slept properly in three nights,” she said gently. “Your classroom radiator’s broken — you keep forgetting to report it. There’s a student named Callum who’s playing up because he thinks it’ll make you laugh. You haven’t told your mother about John because you’re worried she’ll make it weird. And your left heel’s blistered because you tried to stretch out new boots too quickly.”

Jeanette stared.

John stared.

Enola sipped her tea.

Michael returned with two drinks and caught the silence like a grenade mid-air. “…What did I miss?”

Enola smiled sweetly. “A party trick.”

Michael handed her the scotch. “You didn’t.”

“She asked.”

Jeanette blinked several times. Then burst into laughter. “Okay, that was… unnerving. But really impressive.”

“I try to keep it subtle,” Enola said, lifting the glass. “You’re not a puzzle. You’re a person. I like to respect the difference.”

Michael raised his glass in mock salute. “And that’s why she’s better than Sherlock.”

John muttered into his drink. “Please don’t let him hear that.”

“I hope he hears it,” Enola said. “It’ll give him something to do besides composing violin dirges about Irene Adler.”

Michael winced. “That again?”

“I wasn’t going to say anything,” John groaned. “But yes. It’s all been very… sonata-in-D-minor lately.”

Enola turned to Jeanette. “See what I mean? Normal is relative.”

Jeanette laughed again. “I think I like your version of normal better.”

“Terrifying,” John muttered. “All of you. Utterly terrifying.”

“Drink your beer, Watson,” Michael said cheerfully. “You’re just bitter because you were out-deduced by a twelve-year-old at a school assembly.”

“Once,” John snapped. “And I still say she had inside information.”

Jeanette clinked her glass lightly against Enola’s. “To terrifying women, then.”

Enola’s smile went sharp and fond. “I’ll drink to that.”

They all sipped in companionable silence — the kind that settles after the chaos, when everything’s too peaceful to trust, but warm enough to enjoy.

Michael shifted, tilting his head toward Enola. “So. Have we decided what kind of microwave meal we’re burning for Christmas?”

“Oh absolutely,” Enola said. “Something festive. Pasta bake with a tiny plastic tree stabbed into it.”

Michael nodded solemnly. “Classy.”

John blinked. “That’s your plan for Christmas?”

“We’re also watching Home Alone,” Enola said. “All of them. Even the straight-to-DVD ones.”

Michael grimaced. “That’s the true punishment.”

“Exactly,” she said. “A meditative exercise in suffering. Very on-brand.”

Jeanette laughed, but John just stared. “That’s it? You’re not… travelling? Going anywhere weird? Stopping a civil war in Moldova?”

“No,” Enola said. “We’re staying in. I bought socks.”

Michael raised his glass. “Matching ones. We’re practically domesticated.”

John squinted. “You’re telling me that you two—whose idea of a relaxing weekend probably involves encrypted code and glaring at satellites—are just staying in and watching Christmas movies like you’re some sort of… Pinterest couple?”

Enola tilted her head. “I’ll have you know I own three scented candles.”

Michael looked at her. “That’s why the place smells like cinnamon and violence.”

“I don’t like it either,” she muttered. “But it’s festive.”

John slumped a little. “God. I don’t know what’s worse. You trying to kill me or pretending to be normal.”

“I was normal for one afternoon,” Enola said, sipping again. “It was horrible. I cleaned things.”

“I think we should frame that,” Michael murmured.

Jeanette smiled into her glass. “Well… we’re having a little get-together. Nothing fancy. John said it’s usually Molly, Lestrade, Sherlock, Mrs. Hudson…”

“And the ghosts of Christmas trauma,” John muttered.

Jeanette ignored him. “I thought — since we’ve already met — it might be nice if you joined us?”

Enola blinked, a little thrown. “Oh. That’s… kind of you.”

Jeanette shrugged. “I don’t know many people in this circle. And you two don’t scare me the way Sherlock does.”

“Bad instincts,” John whispered.

Jeanette smiled. “You don’t have to, obviously.”

Enola glanced at Michael.

He raised an eyebrow, gave her a lazy nod. Your call.

She turned back. “Ehh… John?”

He looked up. “What?”

“You’re the last one I expected to hear it from,” she said. “But were you really going to invite us?”

John hesitated.

Then, somewhat sheepish: “Actually… yeah.”

“Really?”

John scratched the back of his neck. “Well, after the whole… unorthodox situation you two got out of recently… I thought it might be good. For you. For Greg. For all of us.” He glanced at Michael. “You too.”

Michael raised his drink. “I’m a delight at social gatherings.”

“You threatened Lestrade with a cheese knife at the last one,” John muttered.

“And he’s never mispronounced charcuterie since,” Michael said.

Enola bit back a grin. “So. Christmas party with murder-adjacent acquaintances. Is that the vibe?”

“Pretty much,” John said.

She leaned back. “Well. I suppose I can make time for something catastrophically awkward. And I like Molly.”

“She likes you,” John said. “Which is suspicious.”

Enola sighed. “Then it’s settled. I’ll bring something sweet.”

Jeanette smiled. “Homemade?”

“God no. I’ll steal something from a pâtisserie and repackage it with twine.”

Michael nodded. “Festive subterfuge.”

John took a long sip. “I still can’t believe you’re just doing food and films.”

“We may make a gingerbread crime scene,” Enola offered.

“And sedate the neighbours if they play Mariah Carey again,” Michael added.

“But otherwise?” Enola said. “Yes. Just… nothing.”

John looked at them both for a long moment. Not with suspicion. With quiet, wary disbelief.

And then, softly:

“…You two are terrifying.”

Michael smiled. “Merry Christmas, Watson.”

Later That Night – Just Outside the Pub

The air had that particular bite of a London December — cold enough to sting, not quite enough to snow. Pavement shimmered with slick reflections from the streetlamps, and the group spilled into it like a mismatched ensemble exiting stage left.

“Should I call a cab?” Jeanette asked, hugging her coat closer.

“No,” John said, offering a gallant but slightly unsteady arm. “I’m in that special post-three-pints stage where I think I’m invincible.”

Michael, just whiskey-loose enough to regain that undercover elegance, moved smoothly to Enola’s side as she lit a cigarette.

“You think we’ve blown our ‘pretend to be normal’ cover?”

Enola took a slow drag and exhaled upward. “Darling, we spent two hours in a pub without anyone being detained or stabbed. That’s basically a Christmas miracle.”

“Still,” Michael said, leaning against the wall, “I could fake an allergic reaction to lager. Really lean into the fragile civilian routine.”

They stopped at the corner — paths splitting. Taxis in opposite directions. Different orbits, at least until the next crisis or invitation.

Jeanette stepped in for a hug — warm, a little awkward, and surprising. “It was really nice meeting you.”

“You too,” Enola said. Then, softer: “You’re good for him.”

Jeanette blinked. “You think?”

“No,” Enola said, lighting a second cigarette. “But you’re trying. That counts.”

Jeanette laughed. “You’re blunt.”

“I’m trying not to be.” A pause. “Merry Christmas, Jeanette.”

John glanced between the two and then at Michael. “If you do come… bring the good wine. Sherlock doesn’t share.”

Michael gave a mock wince. “We’re not idiots.”

They began to part. But just before they turned away, Enola called after John.

“Hey.”

He stopped. Looked back.

Her voice had none of its usual sharpness. No mask. No bite. Just something quieter. Something real.

“…Thanks. For asking us.”

John nodded once, voice low. “Thanks for not poisoning anyone.”

Michael raised a finger. “Yet.”

They parted with tired smiles — the kind that say everything without needing to linger. I see you. I know what it took to get here. Let’s not waste it.

And beneath the London sky — cold, clear, a little too still — everything felt almost peaceful.

Even if the scent of cinnamon and violence lingered faintly in the air.

221B Baker Street – That Night

The door opened with a sigh and a thunk of keys on the table. The warmth inside hit John like a wall — central heating, overworked radiator, and the faint smell of something herbal and probably illegal smouldering in the fireplace.

Sherlock didn’t look up from the violin. He was mid-saw through something tragic in D minor, wearing a dressing gown that managed to look both expensive and offended to be worn indoors.

“You’re late,” Sherlock said.

“Thank you, clock,” John replied, hanging his coat. “I was on a date.”

“I deduced as much. Lipstick on your collar. Floral-scented hair on your shoulder. And your expression’s somewhere between satisfied and resigned. Jeanette again, then?”

John looked in the mirror. “Jesus. I thought I wiped that off.”

“You did. Poorly.”

Sherlock kept playing — faster now, discordant, passive-aggressively musical.

John didn’t rise to it. He filled the kettle, flicked it on. The hum of boiling water filled the space.

Then, casually: “I invited Enola and Michael to the Christmas party.”

The music stopped.

Sherlock froze mid-stroke. Bow suspended.

John glanced over. “It’s not a big deal—”

“Yes, it is,” Sherlock snapped. “It’s a very big deal. Do you remember the last time they were in a room with people for more than twenty minutes?”

“No one died,” John offered.

“Someone went missing.”

“That was a coincidence.”

“That was Greg.”

John paused. “…Okay, yes, that part wasn’t ideal. But he turned up. Eventually.”

Sherlock set the violin down. Not gently.

“Why would you do this?” he demanded. “Why would you voluntarily invite a psychopath and the man who once disarmed a tripwire with a teabag to a party with snacks and civilians?”

John poured the tea, calm. “Because I like them. Because Enola’s your sister. And because frankly, I think we could all use a bit of goodwill before one of you sets something on fire.”

Sherlock’s jaw clenched. “She’s not going to bring a knife, is she?”

“She always brings a knife.”

“Then we should hide the rest,” Sherlock muttered, already mentally inventorying the flat’s most stab-able objects.

John raised an eyebrow. “We don’t exactly keep the cutlery under lock and key.”

“We should,” Sherlock snapped. “Especially around them.”

He flopped into the armchair with the drama of someone attending his own funeral. “We’re going to need extra wine.”

John sipped his tea. “Already planned for it.”

Sherlock groaned, one arm flung dramatically over his eyes.

John smiled into his mug. “Merry Christmas, mate.”

Sherlock muttered something that sounded suspiciously like bah humbug — in four languages.

Chapter Text

221B Baker Street – Christmas Eve, 7:03 PM

Mrs. Hudson had just topped off Greg’s wine when the knock came. Not the usual hurried staccato of clients or Mycroft’s imperial knuckle thud — no, this was… cheerful. Rhythmic. Almost like a carol in Morse code.

Jeanette glanced up from the cheese board (which was 60% cheddar, 30% panic, and 10% olives). “Was that… festive?”

John opened the door. “Oh God.”

Enola Holmes was standing there in a matching Christmas jumper set with Michael. Red, glitter-threaded, and somehow loud without sound. Hers read Jingle Babe. His, horrifyingly, read Sleigh Daddy. The jumpers featured a reindeer doing a wheelie on a motorbike.

John blinked like he’d been slapped with a migraine wrapped in tinsel.

Michael grinned, holding up a bottle of wine. “We brought bribes.”

Sherlock, from the armchair, didn’t look up. “You’re trying too hard.”

“Why, thank you,” Enola said sweetly, breezing in with a gift bag that jingled like it was booby-trapped. “And Merry Christmas to you too, Grinch.”

Michael followed, cradling a boxed dessert like a live detonator. “Also brought a bûche de Noël. Enola made me carry it because she doesn’t trust my coordination near doorframes.”

“You dropped a warhead once,” Enola reminded him, setting the bag down.

“It didn’t go off.”

“That’s not a defence.”

Greg, already halfway through a glass, looked up from the sofa. “Hey! Look at you two — didn’t think you did holidays.”

“We don’t,” Michael said. “We do coordinated operations with cake.”

John took the box, eyeing the label. “You made this?”

“I did,” Enola said. “Shocking, I know. Try not to collapse from the domesticity.”

Greg leaned forward, cautious. “Okay but… not to offend — this isn’t one of your experimental bakes, is it? No mystery ingredients?”

Enola narrowed her eyes.

Greg backpedaled. “I mean, just — not something you’ve used to, uh… gain trust and then deliver justice via plated symbolism?”

John groaned. “Greg.”

“What?! I’m still in therapy for that! I can’t even look at ham anymore.”

“We work in cyber security,” Enola said smoothly. “I promise, no symbolism. Just cake.”

Michael nodded solemnly. “And I’ve personally verified it’s 100% human-free.”

Greg stared. “...You mean like, it’s not—?”

“Greg,” John said, louder.

Greg raised both hands, sheepish. “Right. Sorry. Just… nice jumper, Enola.”

Jeanette, ever-graceful, stepped in. “You’re both matching. That’s adorable.”

Sherlock groaned. “It’s threatening.”

Greg stage-whispered to Jeanette, “You should’ve seen the last time they wore matching gear. I think I blacked out and woke up in Latvia.”

Sherlock finally looked up, eyes narrowing at the jingling gift bag. “And what tactical contraband have you wrapped in glitter?”

Michael shrugged. “Festive misdirection.”

Enola smiled. “Gifts.”

“Surprise gifts,” Michael added.

Mrs. Hudson reappeared with a tray of mince pies. “I do hope one of them’s for me.”

“There’s a lockpicking kit in there with your name on it,” Enola said.

Mrs. Hudson lit up. “Oh, I do love something useful.”

Sherlock frowned. “Which part of national security involves wine and artisan dessert?”

“Public engagement,” Enola offered, unfazed.

“And distraction,” Michael added.

Jeanette bit into a pie. “It’s working.”

Greg peered into his wine. “Is this safe to drink, or should I be checking for subtle poisons and emotional trauma?”

Michael patted him on the shoulder. “It’s Christmas, Greg. You only get one of those.”

“Which one?” he muttered.

Enola leaned forward, tone lightly scolding. “Michael, stop tormenting the poor man.”

She reached into the gift bag and drew out a long, elegant bottle wrapped in tissue and tied with a deep red ribbon.

“Greg,” she said, offering it like a peace treaty, “the Château Pétrus is for you.”

Greg blinked. “Wait—what? As in… the Pétrus?”

“The 2003,” Enola confirmed, pleased.

John nearly dropped his tea. “Bloody hell, that bottle costs more than your car, Greg.”

Greg took it carefully, like it might explode or vanish. “This is… wow. I mean. Thank you.”

“You’ve had a rough year,” Enola said, settling back. “And you survived your first audit with me. So… guilt.”

Greg looked genuinely touched. “That’s… possibly the weirdest but nicest reason I’ve ever received wine.”

Michael nodded. “It’s how we express affection. Wine and selective trauma acknowledgment.”

Enola turned toward John. “Where’s Molly, by the way?”

John checked his phone. “Running late. Texted about twenty minutes ago — said she’s still getting ready. Emotional prep. Not showing up until she looks like she meant to be here.”

Sherlock, still sulking, muttered, “Sounds like my last autopsy.”

“She’ll be here soon,” John added. “Told us not to start without her.”

Jeanette smiled. “That’s sweet.”

Michael nodded toward the kitchen. “Does that include cake?”

“No one’s touching the cake until Molly gets here,” John said. “There are rules.”

Sherlock scoffed. “We’re enforcing dessert protocol now?”

Enola sipped her wine. “Of course. This is a civilised gathering.”

Greg, still cradling the Pétrus, beamed. “Best damn civilised gathering I’ve ever attended.”

Mrs. Hudson leaned in with a twinkle. “If it stays civilised through pudding, I’ll be impressed.”

Enola smirked. “Depends when Sherlock snaps.”

Sherlock didn’t look up. “Soon.”

Michael raised his glass. “Then we’d better behave until then.”

Enola smiled — soft and sharp. “How uncharacteristic of us.”

The flat was warm in the chaotic, lived-in way only Sherlock’s could manage — books stacked under fairy lights, chairs dragged at odd angles, and enough alcohol circulating to make the floor feel less slanted than it really was. Jeanette was teaching Mrs. Hudson how to take selfies with the mince pies. Greg was still reverently holding the Château Pétrus like a relic. John, in a slowly wilting Santa hat, moved between cups like a man determined to keep everyone half-sober and semi-coherent.

Sherlock sat perched on the run like an offended gargoyle, fiddling with his violin strings and pretending not to hear any of it.

“Sherlock,” Mrs. Hudson called sweetly, “play us something lovely, would you?”

He gave her a look usually reserved for international assassins.

Enola, lounging on the armrest of Michael’s chair, added in a gentler tone, “You could always play the one Mum liked. You know. The one you tortured us with every Christmas.”

Sherlock’s eyes flicked toward her — cool, calculating. “That wasn’t a request.”

“No,” she said simply, “it was a memory.”

He didn’t reply. Just stared. But he turned, adjusted the violin, and without another word began to play We Wish You a Merry Christmas — flawlessly, of course, though with enough bite to suggest that murder was still a holiday option. He ended with an unnecessarily dramatic flourish and a bow, as if to dare someone to applaud.

Mrs. Hudson clapped anyway. “Oh, lovely, Sherlock. But I do wish you’d worn the antlers.”

“Some things,” Sherlock muttered, “are best left to the imagination.”

Greg leaned toward Michael, wine sloshing slightly. “I’ve got Photoshop. I can fix that in post.”

Michael grinned. “Send me the high-res. I’ll have it framed by Boxing Day.”

Sherlock, now back at the desk with the intensity of a man who’d just remembered he hates everyone, sighed loudly. “John, your blog counter’s stuck again.”

“Oh no,” John groaned, deadpan. “Christmas is cancelled.”

“And you’ve got a photograph of me in that hat.”

“People like the hat.”

“No they don’t. What people?”

Before John could answer, the door swung wider with a rush of cold air and the soft clatter of shopping bags. The entire room turned in that particular way people do when they’re not expecting anything but secretly hoping for a little drama.

Molly Hooper stepped inside.

And she looked… not like Molly.

Her hair was styled in soft curls, makeup subtle except for the sharp red lipstick. The black dress clung in all the right places, silver beading along the neckline catching the fairy lights like stars. Heels. Earrings. A hint of perfume that didn't scream for you, but whispered it.

Enola leaned toward Michael. “She dressed like that for Sherlock?”

Michael’s brow lifted. “If she wanted to murder him with regret, she’s nearly there.”

“Sorry I’m late,” Molly said breathlessly. “It said just to come up, so I…”

Mrs. Hudson lit up. “Oh, Molly, dear! In you come!”

John perked up immediately. “Molly! Let me help—”

“I’ve got it,” she said, easing one of the bags onto the nearest table. “I was just… preparing.”

Michael raised a brow. “For what, prom?”

She shot him a look, but took the wine he offered. “You’re just in time. There’s a Yule log in the kitchen, but it’s under divine protection until you arrive.”

“Ooh, the Yule log!” Molly brightened. “That looked like pâtisserie quality.”

“I made it,” Enola said flatly.

Molly blinked. “You… cooked?”

“I’m full of surprises,” Enola replied smoothly. “This one involves ganache.”

“Are we sure you’re not secretly nice?” Molly asked.

“Dangerously festive,” Michael added. “I’m filing a complaint.”

Jeanette reached for another mince pie. “They’re the most terrifyingly normal people I’ve ever met.”

“That’s the brand,” Enola agreed. “We’re festive but deeply unstable.”

Molly laughed, relaxing a little. “I’m glad you came.”

“Had to,” Enola replied. “Greg’s been threatening to gift me another bottle of guilt if I didn’t show up.”

John nudged her. “Molly was actually just asking about you earlier. Something about whether you were the reason Greg’s finally sleeping again.”

Enola raised an eyebrow. “I’m the reason he stopped sleeping. Michael fixed it.”

Michael raised his glass. “I specialise in trauma management.”

Molly, clearly trying to lighten the mood, turned toward Mrs. Hudson. “How’s the hip?”

“Still atrocious, thanks for asking.”

“I’ve seen worse,” Molly chirped. “But then again, I do post-mortems—Oh! Sorry, that was—”

Sherlock snapped, “Don’t make jokes, Molly.”

She flushed. “No. Sorry.”

She turned quickly to Greg. “Didn’t expect to see you — I thought you were off to Dorset?”

“First thing tomorrow,” Greg said smoothly. “Me and the wife. Back together, all sorted.”

“No,” Sherlock said without missing a beat. “She’s sleeping with a PE teacher.”

The room dropped several degrees.

Greg’s jaw tightened.

Michael leaned in to Enola. “Five quid says someone hits him.”

“Ten says it’s John,” Enola whispered, eyes flicking toward where he stood refilling glasses with the quiet resignation of a man clinging to cheer with both hands.

Michael tilted his head. “Really? I’d bet on Greg losing it.”

“No,” Enola replied, lips curling. “He’s full of wine and denial. But John? He’s overdue for a saintly meltdown.”

Michael smirked. “We should’ve brought popcorn.”

Molly, still nursing her wine and doing her best to nudge the room back toward holiday civility, turned to John with a hopeful smile. “So, you’re off to your sister’s, yeah? First time in a while?”

John nodded. “Yeah. First time in ages. She’s been doing well lately. Off the booze. I thought… I’d try.”

“That’s really lovely,” Molly said.

Enola, perched near the bookcase, her glass delicately balanced in one hand, smiled — polite, precise. “That’s great to hear.”

Michael stood beside her, quiet. But the glance he shared with Enola spoke volumes. They both knew Harriet hadn’t stopped drinking. Just hid it better now. Neither said a word. Enola sipped her wine.

And then—

Sherlock scoffed. Loud enough to cut through the Christmas lights.

“Shut up, Sherlock,” John said flatly, not even looking up.

“She’s not off the booze. She’s drinking in moderation and lying to you about it. You’re pretending not to notice because hope is less painful than truth.”

Molly winced.

Enola muttered under her breath. “Jesus, Sherlock…”

But Sherlock’s attention had already shifted, his gaze zeroing in on Molly like she was a newly uncovered crime scene.

“You look different,” he said.

Molly blinked. “Oh. Um… thank you?”

“Hair curled,” he went on. “Foundation heavier, but well-applied. Lipstick — red, recent, unfamiliar. New purchase. Dress — black, form-fitting. Silver beading. Coordinated jewellery. Heels you don’t normally wear. You’ve calculated this.”

“Sherlock,” Enola snapped.

He ignored her.

“This is deliberate,” he continued. “You’re dressing for someone tonight. Not for comfort, not for social norm. This is performance.”

Enola stepped closer, voice cold. “That’s enough.”

“She's trying to feel powerful,” Sherlock said. “To be seen. She’s meeting someone, and she wants him to see her — not as she is, but as she wishes to be perceived.”

Molly's face froze. The room tensed.

“And you’re reciting it like a lab report,” Enola said, now fully in front of Molly, blocking Sherlock’s view. “Do you even hear yourself?”

“I’m observing facts.”

“No, you're reducing a person down to fabric and colour palettes,” she snapped. “You’re not seeing her. You’re sorting her.”

“She dressed for effect,” Sherlock said icily. “Everything about her is curated.”

“And everything you said is flawed,” Enola shot back. “You think the foundation is heavier? It's not. It's a different brand — higher pigmentation, better match to her winter tone. The curls aren’t new. They’re natural — she just enhanced them. And that dress? That’s not a ‘costume.’ It’s hers. She wore it two months ago to a medical conference in Oxford.”

Sherlock blinked, caught off-guard.

“She didn’t wear it for him,” Enola went on, unrelenting. “She wore it because she wanted to feel good. Because she’s always stitched into lab coats and grief, and tonight — just this once — she wanted to feel beautiful. Not for someone else. For herself.”

“You’re guessing.”

“I’m remembering,” Enola said, sharp. “And so should you. She’s your friend.”

Sherlock faltered for a beat — just one.

Then turned to the table of gifts. His eyes locked onto the red box tucked neatly at the top of Molly’s bag.

“You’re going to see him tonight,” he said, quieter now. “The man you’ve been dating. The one that gift is for.”

“Sherlock—” John warned.

“The wrapping,” he pressed. “Perfect corners. Symmetrical bow. Satin ribbon. Not your usual style. You wrapped that with care.”

“Stop,” Molly said, her voice thin.

Sherlock continued. “The red matches your lipstick. That’s not coincidence. That’s intention. Either subconscious mirroring… or calculated signal. You want him to notice.”

Enola’s voice was low and furious. “You’re not deducing. You’re cornering her.”

He picked up the box.

Enola’s hand twitched like she wanted to knock it from his fingers — but then he turned it over.

His voice caught.

The label said: To Sherlock. Love, Molly.

Silence.

Every single person in the room froze.

Sherlock stared at it.

Molly stared at the floor.

Enola stared at Sherlock — and for the first time all evening, she looked rattled.

“You always say such horrible things,” Molly whispered, her voice shaking. “Every time, you’re just so mean. Always. Always.”

Sherlock didn’t speak. His mouth opened. Closed.

Enola moved so fast the wine in her glass barely rippled. She plucked the box from his hand — gently, firmly — and returned it to the table.

“You’re a bloody genius, Sherlock,” she said, voice low and livid. “You couldn’t wait ten minutes to remind someone that you see everything. Even the things they didn’t want you to.”

Sherlock shifted.

A blink. A change.

His voice was quieter now.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and for once, he sounded like he meant it. “Forgive me.”

The apology landed like glass shattering on marble.

Greg blinked. “He’s malfunctioning.”

John just stared.

Michael tilted his head. “Well. That’s new.”

Sherlock looked directly at Molly.

“That was unkind,” he said. “And uncalled for.”

Then — no hesitation, no calculation — he leaned in and pressed a single kiss to her cheek.

No performance.

No deduction.

Just presence.

“Merry Christmas, Molly Hooper.”

Molly didn’t answer. Just stood there, frozen, glass in hand, blinking back a storm of things she didn’t want the room to see.

And then—

“Ahh—!”

The gasp was loud, breathy, and thoroughly mortifying.

All eyes whipped toward Molly…

Just in time to see her slap both hands to her mouth in horror.

“Oh God, no, that wasn’t— I didn’t—!”

Sherlock, deadpan, reached into his coat pocket and pulled out his mobile. “No, it’s fine. That was me.”

Greg blinked. “My God. Really?”

Sherlock didn’t even glance at him. “My phone.”

“Ahh,” Michael echoed with wicked delight, mimicking the sound just under his breath and nearly choking on his wine. He leaned into Enola, grinning. “Okay, I’m officially having the time of my life.”

John looked skyward. “Of course you do.”

Sherlock’s eyes flicked to the screen.

ON-SCREEN TEXT: Mantelpiece.

John, already bracing for it, muttered, “Fifty-seven.”

Sherlock glanced over. “Sorry?”

John nodded toward the phone. “Fifty-seven of those texts. Just the ones I’ve heard.”

Sherlock gave him the look of a man personally offended by arithmetic. “How thrilling that you’ve counted.”

Michael leaned down slightly to Enola and whispered, delighted, “I’m changing my bet.”

Enola, still watching Sherlock with the exhausted horror of a sibling witnessing their family in public, narrowed her eyes. “To what?”

Michael grinned. “You. You’re going to kill him. Right here. In front of the tree.”

“I’m considering it,” she muttered. “Honestly, how am I related to this man?”

“Genetic lottery,” Michael said. “Bad dice roll.”

Sherlock, meanwhile, had spotted the small red parcel sitting neatly on the mantelpiece — a bow perched on top like a smug little crown.

He crossed the room in quick, focused strides and plucked the box from its place like it had personally offended him.

Jeanette leaned toward John. “Should I ask what’s happening?”

John didn’t look up from his drink. “Don’t.”

Sherlock studied the wrapping. Not identical to Molly’s — but close. Same colour palette. Same kind of care. The shade of red matched something too precisely to be coincidence.

His mind filled the gaps.

Irene Adler. Lipstick. Red. Signal.

Sherlock’s mouth tightened.

“Excuse me,” he said abruptly, already turning toward the kitchen.

John blinked. “What’s wrong? Sherlock?”

“I said—” Sherlock snapped, pushing through the door, “—excuse me!”

Michael watched him vanish like a fox through brush. “And off he goes, following the scent of unresolved emotional trauma.”

Greg exhaled slowly. “Well. That took a turn.”

Enola, one hand still curled loosely around her wineglass, stared at the now-empty threshold where her brother had disappeared.

She looked tired.

Not angry. Not surprised. Just tired.

And then, almost to herself, she said, “Every damn year.”

Michael clinked his glass gently against hers. “Happy holidays, darling.”

She drank.

Chapter Text

Sherlock’s bedroom was dim and still — the only light came from the narrow lamp at the side of the bed, casting shadows across old case files, scattered newspapers, and an untouched cup of tea now gone cold.

He sat at the edge of the bed, unwrapping the small red parcel with precise, careful fingers. The paper tore clean. The ribbon slipped free.

And inside —
The leopard-skin phone.
Irene Adler’s.

He stared at it like it had grown fangs.

Then the sound hit him.

“Ahh—”

The same soft, breathy gasp that had echoed through the living room earlier.

Sherlock flinched.
Snatched his mobile from the pocket of his dressing gown and checked it.

ON-SCREEN TEXT: Merry Christmas, Mr. Holmes.

His jaw tightened.

And then—
He was dialling.

Mycroft’s study was a world away from the warmth and noise of 221B. Cold and cavernous, wood-panelled walls and a fireplace that crackled more out of obligation than comfort.

Mycroft sat in a leather armchair, wrapped in silence — chosen, not fallen.

His phone buzzed.

He didn’t look surprised.
Just tired.

He answered it with a sigh.
“Oh dear Lord, we’re not going to have Christmas phone calls now, are we? Have they passed a new law?”

Sherlock sat upright, the phone pressed tightly to his ear, the gift box still open at his feet.

“I think you’re going to find Irene Adler tonight,” he said, voice low.

Mycroft didn’t miss a beat.
“We already know where she is. As you were kind enough to point out, it hardly matters.”

“No.” Sherlock’s gaze drifted to the floor.
“I think you’re going to find her dead.”

Behind him —
The faintest creak at the door.

Sherlock turned.

John stood in the doorway, one hand on the frame, watching quietly. He’d heard enough not to ask questions. But he asked one anyway:

“You okay?”

Sherlock stared at him. Still. Cold.
“Yes,” he said.

Then stepped forward and, without another word, shut the door in his friend’s face.

The sitting room hadn’t moved much since Sherlock vanished.
But something had changed.

The air had gone dense — not heavy with silence, exactly, but with the kind of unease that makes you sip your wine slower and glance at the door too often.

Molly was the first to speak.

“I should go,” she said quietly, setting her glass on the side table with deliberate care. “I… I can’t stay here.”

No one argued.
No one blamed her.

Enola, still standing, watched her like a hawk — tired, quiet, but sharp-eyed beneath it all. Her voice, when it came, was softer than usual.
“You okay to get home?”

“I’ll grab a cab,” Molly said, smoothing her coat with hands that trembled faintly. “It’s not far.”

Michael moved toward her, half a step.
“Do you want someone to—”

“I’m fine,” she said gently, but firmly.
“I just… need to not be here right now.”

Greg, awkwardly balancing his mostly-empty wine glass and coat in one hand, cleared his throat like he’d swallowed something jagged.
“Think I’ll head out too,” he muttered. “Early start tomorrow. You know.”

No one reminded him it was Christmas Day.

He didn’t want the reminder, and no one wanted to be the one to give it.

Jeanette offered Molly a soft hug.
“Text us when you’re home, yeah?”

Molly nodded. Smiled.
A tiny, cracked thing. Then she left — the door shutting with the kind of click that didn’t echo, just settled like dust.

Greg followed after. With a quick goodbye and a vague wave, he vanished into the stairwell, muttering something about traffic on the motorway that no one really believed.

Enola moved to the window, wine glass still in hand. She leaned against the frame — not dramatically, just because the weight of the night had started to settle behind her ribs.

John exhaled deeply beside her.
“That was…”

“Exhausting?” Enola offered.

“Yeah.”

Michael flopped into the nearest chair, his own glass now abandoned on the floor.
“I was promised cake and awkward holiday tension. That was a psychological hostage situation.”

Jeanette was still sitting, arms folded, trying to make sense of the ice-cracked fallout from the earlier warmth.

“Does it always go like this?”

John let out a low, bitter laugh.
“No. Sometimes it’s worse.”

Enola didn’t respond.

Not to John. Not to Michael. Not to anyone.

Because she’d just seen the flash of black against the streetlight through the fogged glass — the sleek glide of a government car pulling to the curb.

Mycroft.

She watched him exit the vehicle — long coat buttoned tight, hands behind his back, jaw clenched in a way that only someone who knew him well would read as strained.

He didn’t come up. Didn’t knock.

He just stood beside the car, beneath the lamp, and looked up.

Waiting.

Sherlock came down the stairs exactly then — coat on, scarf tight, expression unreadable.

He didn’t say goodbye.
Didn’t acknowledge the people in the room behind him.

He opened the door, stepped out into the night, and shut it behind him like it weighed nothing.

But Enola was still watching.

From behind the curtain, she watched her older brother cross the pavement and approach the other one. Watched Sherlock pause at the edge of the car as Mycroft — still motionless — lifted his eyes toward the flat.

They didn’t speak.

Not out there.

But something passed between them — a glance sharp as a needle, old as blood. One brother looking for something he’d never say aloud. The other refusing to answer.

Enola stood still, one hand braced on the window frame.

And Mycroft’s eyes shifted — upward, just enough to find hers.

She didn’t flinch.

Her chin lifted slightly.
The question in her stare wasn’t warm, but it was real:

What happened?

Mycroft didn’t blink. His jaw tightened.
And the flicker that crossed his face wasn’t quite a wince, but close enough.

His answer was clear.

What did you do?

They stared at each other through glass and frost and a decade of unfinished business.

No words.
None needed.

Then the car door opened.

Sherlock got in.

The door shut.

And Mycroft followed.

The vehicle pulled away like a black shadow down Baker Street, tires whispering over damp stone.

Enola stepped back from the window.

John handed her the last of the wine.

Michael didn’t say anything.

No one did.

Not for a long, long minute.

Then John’s phone buzzed.

Just once. Short and sharp.

He frowned, pulling it from his pocket, thumb already moving across the screen before his mind caught up.

Text from Anthea:

IRENE ADLER FOUND DEAD. NEED-TO-KNOW ONLY. BODY CONFIRMED.

John stared at it.
Stared like he’d forgotten how to blink.

“Shit,” he muttered.

Enola turned her head.
“What is it?”

He didn’t answer right away.

Still reading. Still processing.
Still trying to find the part where this was a joke.

Michael leaned in.
“Something wrong?”

John’s voice came out hoarse.
“It’s… Irene Adler. She’s dead.”

Enola blinked.
“Who?”

John turned slowly toward her, face etched in disbelief.
“You don’t know who that is?”

She raised a brow.
“I’m not God, John. Contrary to popular opinion, I don’t have omniscient clearance.”

Michael gave a small, dark chuckle.
“We’re only allowed three miracle deductions per week. She used hers on the Yule log.”

But Enola ignored him.

She turned her glass absently in her hand, watching the dregs of wine settle, eyes sharpening as the pieces began to slide into place.

“I do know,” she said slowly, “that Mycroft gave Sherlock a case involving… compromising photos.”

She glanced at Jeanette — a subtle flick of the eyes, polite, careful — before continuing.

“Photos involving someone… important.”

John nodded, warily.
“Yeah.”

Enola’s voice cooled — not unkind, just clinical.
“I assumed it was one of Mycroft’s distraction tactics. Keep Sherlock chasing shadows so he wouldn’t interfere with the last national security mess.”

Jeanette tilted her head.
“You mean the…?”

“Yep,” John said quickly, cutting her off before the sentence could finish.

Michael cleared his throat, noting the tension in Enola’s jaw.
“We thought you’d finished it.”

John blinked, as if insulted on behalf of both logic and narrative structure.
“What? No.”

He set his glass down, rubbing the back of his neck.
“That case was a disaster from day one.”

Enola raised an eyebrow.
“Go on.”

John sighed.
“Right. Mycroft pulled us in — dragged us to Buckingham Palace, made us sit like naughty schoolboys while a palace official explained someone had taken… compromising photographs with Irene Adler. A dominatrix.”

Jeanette choked on her wine.

John pressed on.
“They wanted to recover them quietly — for national security reasons. Sherlock was bored until he saw her file. She called herself ‘The Woman.’ And he took the bait. Completely.”

Michael muttered,
“That’s on-brand.”

“We go to her place,” John continued, “try to bluff our way in — and she walks in fully made-up, fully armed, and completely naked.”

“Charming,” Enola said flatly.

John nodded grimly.
“Sherlock couldn’t deduce a thing. She caught him off guard. Toyed with him. Eventually, I triggered the fire alarm so he could locate her safe.”

He gestured vaguely.
“Turns out it had a booby trap. Real gun. Real consequences. Killed one of the Americans who’d broken in. We barely disarmed the rest.”

“And the password was?” Enola asked, though she already looked like she regretted it.

John hesitated.
“Her measurements.”

Michael covered a snort with his wineglass.

Enola’s mouth tightened.
“Oh, for God’s sake.”

Michael whistled.
“And you say we cause drama.”

“She got away,” John said. “Drugged Sherlock, walked right out the window, took the phone with her.”

He hesitated, then added — a little defensively:
“Later, she added her number to his contacts. Set her messages to play that... sound. You know the one.”

“Ahh,” Michael supplied helpfully, grinning.

John shot him a look.

“She sent messages,” John continued. “Played him for months. We weren’t even sure whose side she was on. Then she disappeared…”

He trailed off.
The weight of implication settled into the room like fresh dust.

Enola waited, but he didn’t continue.

She frowned, swirling the last of her wine.
“And?”

Michael glanced toward her.
“And now she’s dead.”

Enola looked between them.
“Yes. I got that part. What I don’t understand is… why he looked like someone had ripped out his spine when he saw that parcel.”

John and Michael exchanged a glance — brief, silent.
One of those ‘who’s explaining this?’ looks.

Michael sighed.
“Because she mattered to him.”

“I gathered,” Enola said. “I just don’t know why.”

“She got under his skin,” John said gently. “Challenged him. Matched him.”

“So did Moriarty,” Enola replied flatly.

Michael snorted.
“Not like this.”

“They spoke for what — thirty minutes? She drugged him. Knocked him out. Stole state secrets.”

John raised a hand.
“There were… other encounters.”

“Yes,” she said slowly, “and in those, she also lied to him, manipulated him, and broke into his flat.”

“She returned his coat,” Michael offered, oddly diplomatic.

“She stabbed him,” Enola said, incredulous. “Metaphorically. Possibly literally. And this was his… what? Emotional awakening?”

“She left an impression,” John said.

“Bruising usually does.”

Michael laughed under his breath.

“I’m serious,” Enola said, throwing up a hand. “You talk like she was some enigmatic legend. She was a dominatrix with a good camera and decent acting skills.”

“She was more than that to him,” John said quietly. “She was unpredictable. Dangerous. Clever.”

“Again,” Enola snapped, “Moriarty.”

Michael tilted his head.
“Moriarty never made him hesitate.”

“And she did?”

“Badly.”

Enola looked at them both, genuinely baffled.
“She compromised him.”

“Yes.”

“Humiliated him.”

“Yes.”

“Made him doubt himself.”

“Exactly.”

Enola blinked.
“You’re describing emotional damage.”

Michael raised his glass in mock salute.
“Welcome to love.”

“That’s idiotic.”

“That’s human,” John said, quieter now.

“She saw him,” Michael added. “Not just the performance. The structure underneath it. She knew what he was — and she liked it.”

Enola crossed her arms, visibly uncomfortable now.
“I don’t like this conversation.”

“You asked.”

“I asked why he looked like someone shot his dog. Not for a poetic dissection of Sherlock Holmes’ attachment dysfunction.”

“She mattered to him,” John said, voice softer. “And now she’s dead.”

Enola looked away, jaw tight.
She wasn’t angry — not in the usual way.

Just… off-balance.

Like someone had shaken a foundation she didn’t know she relied on.

Michael studied her for a moment.

“You don’t like not understanding him,” he said.

“I don’t like knowing there are variables I can’t account for,” she muttered.
“Especially in him.”

John raised his brows.
“Because you need to control him?”

“No,” Enola said.
“Because I need to protect him. And I can’t do that if he’s off making irrational choices based on… pheromones and voice modulation.”

Michael, very softly, said,
“Sometimes the irrational ones are the ones that stay with you.”

“I don’t want to hear that from you either.”

He smiled and bumped her shoulder with his.
“Too late.”

John watched them for a moment, then looked toward the hallway — toward where Sherlock had vanished, where the echo of silence now hung like mist.

“She broke something in him,” he said quietly.
“Not permanently. But it’s there.”

Enola didn’t answer.
Her eyes were still fixed on the floor.

She didn’t understand it.
She didn’t want to.

But now she had to factor it in.

A new variable.

One that didn’t fit in any algorithm.

And the worst part?

It mattered.

Chapter Text

The corridor at Barts was long and cold, lit by fluorescents that flattened every colour into grey. The kind of place where sound echoed too much, and time felt paused—like it wanted to give you time to fear what was next.

Sherlock walked in silence, Mycroft beside him. Their coats rustled, their steps matched, and the only thing more chilling than the air was the reason they were there.

Inside the morgue, Molly stood waiting by the slab.

She looked up as they entered, eyes tired but composed.
“It’s okay,” she said, answering Sherlock before he could speak.
“Everyone else was busy with… Christmas.”

She winced at her own words. Said too much. Again.

“You didn’t have to come in,” Sherlock said quietly.

Molly gave a small shrug, already reaching for the sheet.
“It’s fine.”

She peeled it back slowly, revealing the face.
“Her face is a bit… you know. Bashed in. Might be difficult.”

Sherlock leaned forward. Mycroft stayed still, hands folded behind his back.

They didn’t flinch.

“Is it her?” Mycroft asked flatly.

Sherlock didn’t answer.
“Show me the rest.”

Molly hesitated—then pulled the sheet down further.

Sherlock didn’t blink. Just looked. Then:

“It’s her.”

He turned and walked out without another word.

Mycroft nodded once.
“Thank you, Miss Hooper.”

As she replaced the sheet, her voice followed after them, soft and uncertain:
“Who is she? How did Sherlock recognise her if not… from her face?”

But Mycroft was already leaving, silent, thoughtful, saying nothing at all.

Down the corridor, Sherlock stood by the window, hands in his coat, watching the snow fall through the glass. Not sad. Not shaken. Just… elsewhere.

Mycroft joined him without a word, then held out a cigarette.

“Just the one,” he said.

Sherlock glanced sideways.
“Why?”

Mycroft’s lips barely moved.
“Merry Christmas.”

Sherlock snorted, but took it. Mycroft lit it for him. The tiny flare of fire reflected in the window.

“Smoking indoors,” Sherlock said, tone dry.
“Isn’t there one of those law things?”

“We’re in a morgue,” Mycroft replied.
“There’s only so much damage you can do.”

Sherlock took a drag, slow and measured. Then exhaled toward the ceiling.
“How did you know she was dead?”

“She had an item,” Mycroft said softly.
“Something she claimed her life depended on. She chose to give it up.”

Sherlock’s voice was low.
“And where is it now?”

Mycroft turned to answer—
But Sherlock was staring down the hallway.

Three people had emerged from another room—a middle-aged couple and an older woman. They clung to each other like wreckage. All of them sobbing.

Sherlock watched them.

“Look at them,” he said.
“They all care so much.”

A pause.

“Do you ever wonder if there’s something wrong with us?”

Mycroft’s face didn’t shift. But when he answered, his voice was steel in velvet.

“All lives end. All hearts are broken. Caring is not an advantage, Sherlock.”

The last word landed like a quiet warning. Not cruel. Not kind.

Sherlock took another drag, then frowned.
“This is low tar.”

“You barely knew her,” Mycroft said.

Sherlock let out a short, bitter laugh and turned to walk away—but stopped. Glanced back.

“Do you think…” he started, voice low.
“Do you think Enola had anything to do with this?”

Mycroft didn’t speak.

But his eyes flicked to Sherlock’s. Just once.

It was enough.

He didn’t say yes.
He didn’t say no.

Sherlock’s jaw clenched—then he turned, coat swishing behind him as his footsteps echoed away.

“Merry Christmas, Mycroft,” he called over his shoulder.

Mycroft watched him go.

Didn’t smile.
Didn’t answer.

Not until Sherlock vanished around the corner.

Then, softly:

“And a Happy New Year.”

With mechanical grace, he pulled out his phone and dialled.

The line picked up on the first ring.

“He’s on his way,” Mycroft said, clipped.
“Have you found anything?”

“No,” John said into the phone.
“He hasn’t taken anything. No sign of… you know. Did he take the cigarette?”

“Yes.” Mycroft’s voice came immediate.

John swore under his breath.
“Shit.”

He turned toward the sitting room.
“He’s coming. Ten minutes.”

Mrs. Hudson emerged from Sherlock’s bedroom, hands on her hips, faintly winded but determined.
“Nothing in the bedroom, love.”

Jeanette, still perched stiffly at the edge of the sofa, shot John a look.

John ran a hand through his hair.
“Looks like he’s clean anyway. We checked all the usual places.”

He paused.

“Are you sure tonight’s a danger night?”

Mycroft’s voice was quiet.
“No. But I never am. You have to stay with him.”

John closed his eyes. Exhaled.
“I’ve got plans.”

Click. Mycroft hung up.

John lowered the phone with a sigh. His face twisted with guilt as he turned to Jeanette.

“Look, I’m really sorry—”

But she was already on her feet, grabbing her coat with sharp, practiced frustration.

“You know, my friends are wrong about you,” she said tightly.
“You’re a great boyfriend.”

John blinked.
“Well. That’s good. I always thought I was—”

“Sherlock Holmes,” she snapped,
“is a lucky man.”

Across the room, Michael whistled low.
“Ouch.”

Enola elbowed him — lightly, but it landed.

Jeanette was halfway to the door.
“It’s heartwarming, really. You’d do anything for him. And he can’t even tell your girlfriends apart.”

John followed her a few steps, hands raised.
“Jeanette, please—”

“No,” she said, spinning around.
“I mean it. I get it now. You and Sherlock — you’ve got some kind of… thing. Fine. But don’t make me compete with him.”

“I do things for you,” John tried.
“I walk your dog. I make dinner. I—”

“I don’t have a dog.”

John blinked.
“Oh. That was… the last one.”

“Jesus,” she muttered, storming down the stairs.

“I’ll phone you!” John called after her.

“No.”

“Okay.”

The door slammed below.

Silence settled like dust.

Mrs. Hudson patted John’s arm.
“That really wasn’t very good, was it, dear?”

“No,” John said.
“No, it bloody wasn’t.”

Behind him, Enola sighed. For once, she sounded more tired than smug.

Michael raised his glass.
“Well. Cheers to emotional catastrophes.”

Enola deadpanned,
“I’m going to hide all the sharp objects before Sherlock walks in.”

Michael nodded.
“Good call.”

Mrs. Hudson vanished with the soft clink of teacups and the kind of exit only a woman who’d seen too much could manage. Her footsteps faded down the stairs, leaving the flat in a fragile, uncertain quiet.

Only three of them remained.

John stood in the hallway, arms crossed, scanning the flat like a soldier retracing enemy steps. He muttered under his breath — a checklist of all the hiding places they’d searched earlier.

“Under the floorboard — check. Hollow violin case — check. Behind the encyclopaedias — weird, still empty. Medicine cabinet…”

He paused. Opened it again, even though he’d already checked twice.

Michael had sprawled into Sherlock’s chair, hands behind his head, watching the chaos unfold with a grim sort of curiosity.

Enola stood by the kitchen table, unmoving. Glass in hand, but not drinking. Just… staring. Thinking. Like she expected a solution to rise out of the carpet.

“I don’t understand,” she said finally, like it hurt to admit.

John glanced over.
“You and me both.”

“No.” Her voice sharpened.
“I don’t understand what I’m supposed to do. What role I play. What face I wear.”

Michael sat up straighter. Serious now.
“Maybe try ‘worried sister.’ Seems honest enough.”

Enola shot him a look.
“He’ll know I’m pretending.”

Michael shrugged.
“Probably. But what’s he going to do? Arrest you for poorly expressed affection?”

“That would be kinder than what he usually does.”

She turned to John, like someone facing the last working radio in a storm.
“You’ve known him longer. Seen him at his worst. What am I supposed to do?”

John let out a long breath. Closed the medicine cabinet. Leaned on the sink.

“That’s the thing,” he said.
“There’s no handbook for Sherlock Holmes.”

Enola didn’t move. Just watched him.

John rubbed the back of his neck.
“Most people, when they hit bottom, you can help them up. Talk them through it. Remind them they’re not alone.”

He paused.

“Sherlock doesn’t let you do that. Not because he doesn’t need it — but because he can’t admit when he does.”

Michael hummed.
“He’d rather burn than ask for water.”

“Exactly,” John said.
“So most of the time, all you can do… is make sure the fire doesn’t spread.”

Enola’s brows drew together.
“That’s not protection. That’s triage.”

“Yes,” John said.
“It is.”

She looked away, toward the hallway where Sherlock had disappeared. Her voice dropped.

“I can stop a threat. Stop a bullet. Stop a knife. But this?”
She gestured to the stillness.
“What do I do with this?”

Michael’s voice was quiet.
“You wait. You stay. And when he lets the mask slip — even a little — you be there. That’s it.”

“That’s not enough,” she said.

“It’s all anyone’s ever managed,” John replied.

A heavy silence followed.

Michael glanced at the clock.
“We’ve got five minutes before he walks in — either dead silent or halfway to a psychotic break.”

John looked over.
“What do you think he’s doing?”

Enola and Michael answered together:

“Processing.”
“Crumbling.”

They exchanged a glance.

Then Enola, quietly:
“Same thing.”

She finally sat. Stiff. Controlled. Eyes locked on the table like it might speak first.

John poured the last of the wine.

And they waited.

The door creaked open.

Not slammed. Not flung. Just... opened. Like someone who no longer had the energy to pretend they’d gone out for fresh air instead of fleeing a hurricane.

Sherlock stepped inside, coat still buttoned, collar sharp against the snow-slick fabric. His face gave nothing away. Too blank to be calm. Too stiff to be neutral.

He didn’t speak.

Didn’t even look at them — not at first. His eyes scanned the room like a threat assessment.

He hadn’t expected them to still be there.

John straightened immediately, a soldier back to parade stance.
“Sherlock?”

No answer. Just that unsettling stillness.

Michael was half-hidden in the kitchen, posture relaxed but gaze locked on Sherlock’s every twitch. He didn’t move — just shifted his weight, ready for whatever came next.

Enola was the one who spoke. She rose from her chair with deliberate grace, wine glass set down quietly, like she was approaching a volatile patient in a clinic.

“You alright?” she asked.

The words were soft. Almost gentle.

Sherlock turned to her — and in that instant, something behind his eyes shifted.

A glint.

A flash.

Recognition. Disbelief.

He stared at her like she was a reflection in a cracked mirror — familiar, but wrong.

“You’re still here,” he said, voice low and flat.

“We were worried,” Enola said, folding her arms loosely. “You walked out.”

“I needed air.”

“You needed to not collapse in front of people,” she corrected, still soft but sharper now.

He didn’t argue. Didn’t confirm. Didn’t deny.

John stepped forward, cautious.
“You sure you’re okay?”

Sherlock glanced at him. Just a flick of the eyes.
“Fine.”

John didn’t believe him. But didn’t push.

Enola tried again. Took a step closer. Her voice was even, measured. Calm in the way she’d been trained to be calm in the presence of blood.

“We weren’t going to leave until we knew.”

Sherlock’s gaze snapped to her.

And that was when it cracked.

Not his voice. Not his expression. But the moment. The air around him. The pressure.

“You can stop pretending now,” he said. Quiet. Cold.

Enola didn’t blink.
“I’m not pretending.”

“You don’t get worried,” he said, stepping forward.
“You get curious. You get calculating. You don’t get worried.”

“I am your sister,” she replied, still calm.

“You are a psychopath.”

“Not mutually exclusive.”

Michael let out a low breath in the kitchen — something between a laugh and a warning.

Sherlock took another step toward her, jaw tight.

John hovered nearby, unsure which one of them he might have to pull back first.

“You’re not here because you care,” Sherlock said.
“You’re here because you don’t understand.”

Enola didn’t deny it.

She didn’t have to.

Her eyes narrowed just slightly.
“No. I don’t.”

There was silence.

Then she said it.
The thing he’d been daring someone to say.

“I don’t understand how you let her get under your skin.”

Sherlock didn’t flinch.

But it hit.

He turned his face away — not far, just a shift of angle, like dodging a bullet an inch too late.

“She was a case,” he said.

Enola shook her head.
“She was not.”

“She was a problem to be solved.”

“She was a person who broke your algorithm.”

He glared at her now.
“Stop trying to dissect me.”

“I’m not dissecting you, Sherlock,” she said, and her voice, for once, sounded... tired.
“I’m trying to understand why you’re bleeding from a wound I can’t see.”

John looked between them — helpless.

Michael finally stepped out from the kitchen, his presence a quiet line drawn in the tension.

Sherlock didn’t look at him. His focus was entirely on Enola.

“You’re dissecting it like everything else. Like you always do,” he said.
“You want to know how, and why, and what leverage she used — because you can’t fathom anything irrational.”

“Emotion is irrational,” Enola said.
“But yours wasn’t. Not with her. You knew she was a threat. You still walked into it.”

“Because I was curious.”

“You were compromised.”

“Don’t lecture me,” he snapped.

Enola’s expression barely shifted.
“I’m not. I’m trying to understand what broke you so I can figure out how to fix it.”

“You can’t,” Sherlock said, voice tight.
“Because I’m not broken.”

Enola tilted her head, arms still folded. She didn’t blink.
“So… you’re okay then.”

“Perfectly fine,” Sherlock snapped, stepping away from her toward the fireplace, like proximity alone burned him.

“Excellent,” Enola said, with maddening calm.
“Then I assume you’ve kept that phone ringtone for the last six months for purely academic purposes.”

Sherlock froze.

Michael inhaled sharply in the background.
John shifted his weight but said nothing.

Enola’s voice didn’t rise. It didn’t soften either. It remained precise. Barely above conversation level — like they were talking about tea.

“For fun, then?” she asked.
“Or arousal? Or was it just easier to let a stranger own your heartbeat than admit she changed you?”

“Enola,” John warned softly, but she held up a hand to silence him.

Sherlock turned slowly. His eyes were blazing now, but his voice was still composed — clipped and cold.

“You know nothing about it.”

“Enlighten me.”

“No,” he snapped, stepping forward.
“Because you want to turn this into a formula. A deduction. You want to scan me for weaknesses and catalogue them like symptoms. You don’t understand this. You can’t.”

“I never said I did,” Enola replied.
“I’m trying.”

“Trying to what?” he spat.
“Diagnose? Strategise? Treat it like a fault in the software?”

“No,” she said again. Calm. Still. But firmer this time.
“Trying to stop you from collapsing on yourself like a black hole made of self-loathing and secrets.”

Sherlock flinched.

Only a fraction.

But it was there.

“Then don’t,” he said.
“Stay out of it. You can’t fix this. You don’t even know what this is.”

Enola stepped closer. She didn’t raise her voice. She didn’t change her tone. But her next words came through like a scalpel.

“No, Sherlock, I don’t understand,” she said.
“I know how to eliminate threats. I know how to out-think a killer, dismantle a conspiracy, and disarm a man with a pencil. But I do not know how to comfort your emotionally constipated ass.”

Michael winced in quiet sympathy.

John gave a startled snort, immediately trying to stifle it.

Sherlock didn’t move.

And then, low and dangerous, he said:

“So you just killed her.”

The air in the room dropped like a stone.

“Because she was a threat.”

Enola didn’t flinch. But something in her posture changed. Not a shift backward. Not fear.

Just stillness. Coiled.

“Excuse me?” she said, very quietly.

Sherlock stepped closer. Every word that followed was knife-edged.

“She was dangerous. She made me vulnerable. You couldn’t calculate her. Couldn’t predict her. So you did what you always do with loose ends.”

Michael’s voice came low from the kitchen.
“Careful.”

Sherlock didn’t pause.
“You removed her.”

Enola’s voice, when it came, was calm. But now it had weight behind it. The kind of stillness you only noticed when it was about to break.

“You think I killed Irene Adler.”

“You had motive. Capability. Access.”

“And here you are,” she said, “looking me in the eye and throwing around the word ‘killed’ like it’s just data.”
“Like I haven’t spent the last hour trying to figure out how to help you.”

Sherlock’s jaw clenched. His hands curled into fists.

“You don’t want to help me,” he said.
“You want to control me. Just like Mycroft.”

“No,” she replied, voice sharper now.
“He wants to contain you. I want to protect you.”

Sherlock laughed. Bitter. Hollow.
“You’re not capable of that.”

“And you’re not capable of being loved.”

The silence that followed landed like a blow.

Sherlock looked like she’d slapped him.

John muttered,
“Okay, maybe we take a breath—”

“Don’t,” Sherlock snapped, voice already raised.

“You don’t get to say that,” he snarled, turning back to Enola.
“You, of all people, don’t get to talk about love. You walk through people like they’re concepts. You mimic empathy like it’s a second language you only half learned. And now you want to stand there and tell me what I can or can’t feel?”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Enola fired back.
“You mean feelings like obsession? Like rewriting your entire mental structure because one woman walked in naked and called you predictable?”

Michael muttered,
“Shit.”
And took a strategic step back.

Sherlock advanced.
“You think this is about sex? About nakedness? You know nothing. She understood the game. She played it better than anyone else ever has.”

“You mean she drugged you and walked out a window?” Enola shot back.
“That’s your bar for emotional depth now?”

John tried again, holding up a hand.
“Guys—”

“Shut up, John!” they both shouted, perfectly in sync.

John raised both hands and stepped backward toward the armchair like a man retreating from a bomb.

Michael leaned in the kitchen doorway, mouthing silently: I told you so.

Neither of them looked at him.

“You had motive,” Sherlock said, stepping closer again.
“She drugged me. Manipulated me. Put me in danger. You’ve eliminated people for far less.”

Enola’s head tilted. Slow. Calculated.
“Do you actually hear yourself, or do you just enjoy the sound of accusation?”

“I eliminate threats,” Enola snapped.
“Irene Adler was a show-off with bad judgement and a better phone plan. She wasn’t a threat — she was a mess.”

“Exactly,” Sherlock said.
“And you hate messes.”

“I hate loose ends,” Enola corrected.
“Which she wasn’t. She lost.”

“She survived.”
“You don’t let people walk away just because they’re losing.”

Enola scoffed.
“When would I have had time, Sherlock? I’ve been cleaning up your country’s human trafficking problem. Do you remember that? Flesh markets? Exploding vans? Me, nearly getting carved up for soup?”

Sherlock didn’t flinch.
“That was six months ago.”

“And she died today,” Enola said. Arms folded.
“You think I spent my recovery for a vendetta hit on your emotionally confusing not-girlfriend?”

“You could have,” he said.
“That’s the problem. You had the time. You had the skill. You had the motive.”

Enola stared at him. Then laughed.

Low. Cold. Dark.

“You think,” she said slowly, “if I had done it, there would have been a body left to identify?”

That landed.

Sherlock stilled.

“You think there would’ve been a coroner’s report?” Enola continued, advancing.
“A morgue? A phone record? Any trace at all?”

His silence was the answer.

“I’m not sloppy,” she finished.
“You know that.”

“You’re personal,” Sherlock said.
“And she humiliated me.”

“So this is about you,” Enola said.

“This is about her,” he snapped.

“No,” Enola said, voice flattening.
“It’s about what she made you feel. And the fact that someone like me couldn’t stop it. That I wasn’t faster, or smarter, or more convenient for your pride.”

“I trusted her,” Sherlock growled.

“No,” Enola snapped back.
“You admired her. You mistook a mirage for a mirror. That’s not love, Sherlock — it’s narcissism with better lighting.”

He shoved past her, voice rising.
“Don’t talk to me about mirrors — you built yourself from broken ones!”

That hit deeper than he meant it to.

Enola didn’t flinch.

She didn’t move.

She just stared at him. Quiet. Precise. Lethal in her stillness.

And finally, she said:

“If you really think I killed her… say it.”

Sherlock’s jaw clenched.

“Say it,” she repeated.
“Stop circling it. Put the words in the air and own them.”

He didn’t move. His posture rigid.
His voice, when it came, was steel.

“Did you kill her?”

Enola’s answer came without hesitation.
No build-up. No breath.

“No.”

A single syllable. Flat. Solid. True.

Sherlock stared at her for a long moment.
His expression didn’t soften. It calcified. Cold. Analytical.

“Okay.”

And then he turned.

Walked to his door.

One hand on the handle. Poised like punctuation.

Enola’s voice followed him.

“Do you want me to find out who did?”

Sherlock didn’t turn.
Didn’t blink.

“No.”

The door opened. Slowly. Deliberately.

Enola didn’t speak.
But something inside her curled inward.

“You don’t want the truth,” she said. Not a question.

“No,” Sherlock said again.
“I want silence.”

And with that, he stepped inside and shut the door behind him.

Chapter Text

Michael glanced toward the hallway, then at Enola.
“I think we should go.”

Enola gave a small, exhausted nod.
“Yeah.”

She stood slowly, brushing her hands down the front of her coat like she was trying to smooth out the entire night. As she turned to go, John stepped forward.

He didn’t say anything at first. Just… looked at her.
And that was worse.

Enola noticed. Of course she did.

She stopped, tilted her head.
“What?”

John shifted his weight.
“That thing you said. About Sherlock. Not being capable of being loved.”

She blinked.
“I didn’t mean you.”

“I know,” he said — but his voice didn’t quite believe it.

She exhaled through her nose, glanced down, then back up again.

“I didn’t mean that he’s unlovable,” she clarified. “I meant… he doesn’t know how to accept it. Not from you. Not from Molly. Not from anyone. That’s not the same thing.”

John nodded faintly.
“Yeah. Well. He’s still human.”

Enola’s mouth twisted.
“That’s up for debate.”

A long, small pause.

Then she stepped closer and pulled two boxes from inside her coat. One wrapped in matte black paper, the other deep brown, shaped like a hardback book.

“For you,” she said, handing the brown one over. “Give him the other one.”

John looked down at them.
“What… are they?”

She offered a shrug, not quite casual.
“Things we thought you needed.”

John carefully opened the brown package. It was a book.
No — not a book. A leather holster, disguised as a book spine.

Title: Patience and Practice: A Doctor’s Guide to Steady Hands.

Inside, nestled in soft felt, was a sleek, modified Sig Sauer P365. Compact. Smart.

He stared at it.
“What the hell?”

“It’s called The Mercy,” Enola said. “Custom grip. Fingerprint lock. You or me only.”

He turned it over, and there it was — etched into the slide in clean serif lettering:

“Because you keep trying to save people.
This just gives you a chance to save yourself.”

John’s fingers tightened slightly.
“There’s… a bullet.”

“Silver,” Enola said. “Just the one. Note wrapped around it.”

He unfolded the note and read aloud:
“Not for Sherlock. But you knew that.”

John looked up sharply. Enola gave him a small, crooked smile.

He shook his head.
“You are something else.”

Enola gestured to the second box.
“That one’s for Sherlock.”

She didn’t elaborate. Just turned and walked to the door. Michael fell into step behind her.

But as they reached the threshold, Enola paused.

Turned slightly.

“I’m sorry if I hurt you,” she said to John, quiet now. “I wasn’t aiming for anyone. I just… overshot.”

John gave a weary half-smile.
“It happens.”

“I meant what I said, though,” she added.
“You can’t protect someone who doesn’t accept that they’re worth protecting.”

And with that, she was gone.

Michael nodded once at John before following her into the dark.

Silence fell again in 221B.

John looked down at the two gifts in his hands.

One for a man who refused to be saved.
One for a man who didn’t believe he deserved to be.

He let out a long breath.

“Right,” he muttered.
“Merry bloody Christmas.”

The door to 221B clicked shut behind them, sealing off the warmth and chaos inside.
Outside, the London night met them with the kind of cold that didn’t bother to sneak in—it slapped.

Michael made a noise somewhere between a groan and a curse, burying deeper into his coat.
“It’s freezing.”

Enola tugged on her gloves without flinching.
“We’ve trained in worse.”

“That’s not comforting,” he grumbled, stepping off the curb.

“It wasn’t meant to be,” she said. “Besides, cold keeps the brain in motion.”

Michael shot her a sideways look.
“Yeah? Well mine’s considering shutting down and suing for thermal abuse.”

She smiled—barely. Hands in pockets, pace calm and even.
“You’ll survive.”

He watched his breath bloom into the dark.
“Barely.”

They walked in silence for a while—just the wet slap of footsteps and cars sighing through puddles.
Holiday lights blinked overhead: garish, meaningless. Like static in a dying signal.

Then:

“So,” Michael said, voice low, “you going to tell me what you’re thinking?”

Enola didn’t look at him.
“No.”

He blinked.
“Really?”

“Not yet.” She glanced his way.
“You first.”

“Me?”

“You’re better at the… emotional spectrum. I’d like to hear what you got out of tonight.”

Michael exhaled, resigned.
“Alright.”

They walked a few more steps before he spoke.

“Sherlock Holmes,” he said, “is a man who builds entire fortresses out of intellect because he’s never had a safe place to feel anything.”

Enola didn’t respond. So he continued.

“He has no emotional muscle memory. Wasn’t trained for it, encouraged in it, or protected when he tried. Every time he let himself feel something, he got punished.
So now he weaponizes detachment. He worships control.”

Her steps slowed. Just slightly.

“But then Irene Adler walks in. And she doesn’t outthink him—she outfeels him. She uses emotion like a chess piece. Connection as leverage. And it scrambled his wiring.”

Her voice was flat.
“And he let her?”

“No,” Michael said quietly. “He didn’t know he was letting her. That’s the point.”

They walked ten more paces. Streetlights buzzed like dying flies.

“And then there’s you.”

Enola turned her head, eyes sharp.

“You’re the opposite. You’ve always known how dangerous feelings are. You studied them like threats. Catalogued how people weaponise them. You never let your guard down long enough to want that kind of chaos.”

“Because it’s stupid,” she said.

“No. Because it’s unpredictable,” he corrected. “And for you, unpredictability is death.”

She didn’t answer. But something shifted. Internal. Unreadable. Still forming.

Michael watched her carefully.
“But Sherlock? He’s still trying to understand what wanting someone does to him. It scares the hell out of him, so he pretends it doesn’t.
But now she’s dead—and there’s no pretending how much space she took up in his head.”

Enola finally spoke.
“He said he didn’t love her.”

Michael nodded.
“I believe him.”

“But she mattered.”

“She mattered,” he echoed.
“He respected her. Maybe envied her. Maybe even wanted to be understood by her in a way he doesn’t let most people.”

Enola watched her breath ghost out slow.
“I don’t understand it,” she said softly. “Not really.”

“You don’t have to,” Michael replied. “Not yet. You just have to remember it matters. Whether it makes sense or not.”

They reached a corner. Stopped beneath a flickering streetlamp. A few drunks stumbled past, singing. Neither of them looked.

Michael turned to her.
“So. What did you deduce?”

Enola took a breath. Her hands stayed in her pockets, posture relaxed—but her eyes were moving now. Fast. Sharp. Zeroing in like glass sliding into focus.

Then, almost casually:
“She’s not dead.”

Michael stopped walking.
“What?”

Enola kept going.

“It’s a trap,” she said. “For Sherlock. It’s a game.”

He caught up.
“You’re sure?”

“No,” she admitted. “I’m guessing. But nothing adds up.”

Michael frowned.
“Walk me through it.”

Enola nodded once, eyes narrowed on the pavement like it might offer the answer.

“She told Sherlock—This camera phone is my life, Mr Holmes. Her exact words. That device was everything. Identity. Power. Leverage.
And then she just… gives it to him? For safekeeping? No. Not even if she thought she was going to die. Especially not then.”

Michael countered gently,
“She trusted him.”

Enola shook her head.
“She used him. Not the same thing. Irene Adler doesn’t trust. She plans.”

Michael raised an eyebrow.
“So giving him the phone was…”

“An anchor. A seed. A test. Maybe all three.”

She stopped, looked up at the blinking holiday lights and the shuttered bakery across the road.

“And the theatrics,” she said, voice low. “The timing. The symbolism. Everything reeks of choreography.
The phone ends up in Molly’s gift bag. Molly Hooper, who works at the morgue. Who sees the bodies. Who could be manipulated—used—without ever knowing it.”

Michael’s gaze sharpened.
“You think Adler planted it.”

“She knew she was being hunted. She knew Sherlock would be Sherlock.
The only way to make him act irrationally was to make it personal. Emotional. She gave him a symbol…
And now she’s given him a corpse.”

Michael inhaled sharply, the shape of the trick forming.
“So you think she staged her death.”

“I think people don’t prepare to die. They prepare not to die. They make escape plans. Contingencies.
Especially people like her.”

She started walking again, slower now, tone colder.

“And then today—of all days—a body shows up. No face. Same build. Same weight. Same height. At Molly’s morgue.
The day she’s scheduled to drop off gifts. The exact moment Sherlock is emotionally compromised.”

Michael’s jaw tightened.
“Too clean.”

“Far too clean. It’s the perfect sleight of hand. You don’t need fingerprints when you’ve got sentiment.
Sherlock didn’t ID her by forensics. He ID’d her by familiarity. Height. Frame.
A body that resembled Irene Adler—not proved to be her. It’s emotional misdirection.”

Michael gave a humourless laugh.
“That’s… actually impressive.”

Enola tilted her head.
“I’d like her. If it were her plan.”

He narrowed his eyes.
“It’s not?”

She shook her head once.
“No. It’s Moriarty.”

Silence fell hard.

Michael exhaled through his teeth.
“You’re sure?”

“No,” she said again, but her voice was sharper now. “But he’s the only one who’d go this far just to hurt Sherlock.
He doesn’t want him dead—he wants him bent. Doubting. Broken.”

Michael nodded slowly.
“So what’s the move?”

Enola’s expression hardened.

“We find the edges. We look for the cracks in the story.
The places where truth got overwritten by performance.”

“And Sherlock?”

“We let him grieve. For now.” Her voice turned to ice.
“But not too long. If this is Moriarty’s game, this is only the first move.”

Michael looked sideways at her.
“And you?”

Enola smiled.
Not warm. Not soft.
Surgical.

“You know me. I like to be ten steps ahead of everyone.”

She turned, already moving.

“We check the data. Start with the body.”

Michael followed.
“So we are breaking into the morgue.”

She glanced back at him.
“Technically, we’re borrowing access without permission. Try to keep it elegant.”

He snorted.
“Elegant felonies. Got it. But we’ve got a problem.”

“What?”

“Mycroft,” he said. “You don’t think he’s watching the morgue after what happened?”

Enola didn’t answer immediately. Then:
“Of course he is. That’s why you’re going.”

Michael blinked.
“Wait—me?”

“You’ll blend in better with the shift change. They don’t have your face flagged for government overreach.”
She fished a card from her coat pocket.
“Locker 12B. Bottom drawer. There’s a sample kit stashed. Swab what you can—mouth or fingernails.”

Michael raised an eyebrow.
“And while I’m committing several crimes in the name of science…?”

“I’m going to visit my dear brother.” Her voice turned saccharine. Deadly.

Michael stared.
“You’re using yourself as the distraction.”

“I’m the only one who can keep him talking long enough for you to get in and out without MI5 putting a drone up your arse.”

He ran a hand down his face.
“Okay. Fine. But what are we comparing the DNA to? We don’t have a confirmed sample of Adler.”

Enola smirked and held up a small paper tag—the kind from a Christmas gift.
Faint perfume. A lipstick kiss pressed on the corner.

Michael frowned.
“From Molly’s gift bag? I thought it was hers.”

Enola shook her head.
“Molly wears a redder shade. Close enough if you’re not paying attention.
But this?” She held it to the light. “This is Revlon Femme Fatale. Irene Adler’s signature.”

He blinked.
“You memorised her lipstick?”

“No,” she said, slipping the tag away.
“I memorised everything.”

Michael sighed.
“Of course you did.”

They reached the intersection. Their paths diverged.

Enola looked at him.
“Quick in, quick out. No heroics. We don’t tip Mycroft unless we have to.”

Michael nodded.
“And if the body’s not hers?”

Enola smiled.

Not a mask. Not a social charm.
Something sharper. Wolfish.

“Then someone just gave us the best Christmas present ever.”

Michael exhaled, nearly laughing.
“You’re terrifying when you’re festive.”

Enola tilted her head.
“I’m always festive. People just miss it under the threat assessments.”

They stood a moment longer at the crossing.

Then she turned first, already calculating the fastest route to Whitehall.

Michael watched her vanish into the dark. Then he pulled out the forged badge, eyes flicking once skyward.

“Alright,” he muttered.
“Time to rob a morgue.”

And they split.

One into the lion’s den.
The other into the silence of the dead.

ST. BART’S MORGUE – 00:47 A.M.

OPERATION: GHOST HOLIDAY

The night was thick with fog, like London itself was trying to blur the lines between truth and theatre. Michael moved through it like a shadow that didn’t belong to anything. Black coat zipped to the collar. Gloves. Boots that barely whispered across the pavement.

He was in ghost mode now.

Not MI6 protocol. Not military breach.
This was the other thing—the thing they never wrote manuals for.

Silent. Fast. Untraceable.

He’d looped three blocks before circling to the back entrance of St. Bart’s—where the cameras were older, dumber, and not wired into central surveillance. Enola had memorised the layout. But Michael had walked it—in daylight, with coffee. Invisible.

Now he was nobody.
And nobody got in.

He reached the rear service door and glanced over his shoulder—reflex, not fear. No footsteps. No trailing shadows.
Mycroft’s surveillance wouldn’t be street-level. If it was active, it’d be high-angle. Digital. Impersonal. Bureaucratic.
Slow.

Good.

Michael knelt, pulled a tiny RFID spoofer from his pocket, and pressed it to the lock.
A faint buzz. One second. Two.
Click.

He slipped inside.

The hallway was colder than the street. Concrete walls. Flickering fluorescent light.
The kind of place that forgot it was attached to human life.
Perfect.

First stop: the locker room. Enola’s stash.

He moved quickly, never rushed. Door after door passed like scenes in a film—boiler room, laundry access, then—

Locker 12B.
Third from the end.

He twisted the dial once to reset it, then keyed in the override pin—carved into the metal, invisible unless you knew where to look.

Inside: a compact black case. Clean. Professional.
Standard issue for someone who didn’t exist.

He opened it.

Inside:

• Swabs

• Vials

• Gloves

• A sterile razor

• A mini flashlight with UV mode

Enola had thought of everything. Of course she had.

Michael snapped on gloves, tucked the case under one arm, and ghosted toward the autopsy corridor.

Two bodies under prep tonight—one elderly, one female, unknown—according to the access log Enola had intercepted.

He didn’t need a tag.
He followed the absence.

The body had no toe ID.
No file.
Nothing in the wall slot.
Someone had scrubbed the identity—deliberately.

Michael wheeled the tray out gently. The body was cleaned and dressed in a white post-mortem wrap. No visible trauma. Just cold, smooth stillness.

He paused. Looked at the face.

It could be her. Close enough.
But he saw what Sherlock hadn’t—because Sherlock knew her.

Michael never met Irene Adler. But he had read everything Enola collected.
And he trusted Enola’s obsession more than he trusted silhouette recognition.

He didn’t waste time.

Swab out.
Open the mouth.
Sweep the inside of the cheek.
The body had been cleaned too well—but there were still traces.

Second swab—under the fingernails. A sterile pick lifted fragments Enola might kill for.

Hair was useless. Too easy to fake.
Teeth would take too long.

He scanned the room.

There—vacuum-sealed bags.
Freezer storage. All labelled—except one.

He pulled it out.

Label: “Hold – External ID.”
Barcode: dead. No file.

No internal record. No digital trail.

He slipped the bag into his coat.
DNA backup.

He was sealing everything when he heard it.

Footsteps.

Too light for security.
Too steady for a janitor.
Too calm to be surprised.

Michael didn’t move.
Didn’t panic.

He slid the drawer shut, clicked the case closed, and vanished into the shadows between two walk-in fridges.

The door opened.
Soft click of shoes.
Clipboard. A woman humming.

Molly.

She didn’t turn on the light. Just flicked on her phone torch.
Checked a tray tag near the opposite wall.

Then she left.

Thirty-two seconds. Gone.

Michael waited another full minute.
Then two.

Then moved—like a ghost leaving no footprints.

He retraced his steps. Every corner. Every shadow accounted for.

Back out the service door.
Re-locked.

Into the alley.
Three blocks away before he even let himself breathe.

Only once he was in the safe zone—public, crowded, camera-fed—did he send the message.

📩 Delivered.
M – Sample secured. Package retrieved. No interference.
Your move.

He didn’t sign it.

He didn’t have to.
Enola would know.

WHITEHALL – MI5 PRIVATE ENTRANCE – 00:49 A.M.
ENOLA: OPERATION DISTRACT THE CROWN

She didn’t sneak.

There was no point. Mycroft’s building wasn’t a fortress — it was a mirror maze built for men who thought they understood everything they saw. And Mycroft Holmes had absolutely seen her coming.

She knew the moment she passed the CCTV blind spot near St. James’s Park that he’d be alerted.
She knew the thermal sensors would pick up her signature the second she turned onto Birdcage Walk.

So she walked right up to the private entrance like she belonged there.

No badge. No credentials.
Just a perfect coat, a perfectly blank expression, and a box tucked neatly under her arm —
wrapped in matte silver with surgical precision.

The desk guard blinked when she entered, eyes flicking from her to the feed, then back.
“He’s waiting for you.”

“I’d be disappointed if he wasn’t,” Enola replied coolly.

The elevator ride to the executive level was quiet, save for the faint hum of internal scans.
She kept her breathing steady, heart rate calm, palms dry.

Distraction missions weren’t about theatrics.
They were about pacing.

The doors opened with a soft chime.

Mycroft stood just inside his office. Back to the window. Arms folded.
Waiting. Watching. Controlling.

Enola walked in without invitation.

“You’re up late,” she said mildly.

“And you’re up to something,” he replied without turning.
“I suppose we’re both terribly predictable.”

“Happy Christmas to you too.”

He turned then — pale, polished, and perfectly groomed burnout.

“You’ve been recorded walking from 221B. No disguise. No effort to conceal yourself. Why?”

Enola lifted the silver box slightly.
“To deliver your gift.”

He raised a brow.
“A bribe?”

She stepped forward and placed the box gently on his desk.
“A peace offering. From one monster to another.”

He frowned. Warily.

Enola watched him with polite, unreadable interest — the kind she reserved for volatile animals and slow chess opponents.

“Go on,” she said. “Open it.”

Mycroft hesitated only a moment before undoing the wrapping with practiced precision.

Inside: a sleek, black umbrella. Familiar in shape.
But not in design.

He lifted it with one hand, inspecting the build.
“Is this…?”

“Yes,” Enola said.
“Mark IV. Titanium spine. Lighter. Faster deployment. Windproof. Hidden compartment in the handle — USB or sedative, your choice.
Tip reinforced steel — you could punch through a car window if properly motivated. And of course: the blade’s retractable.
Handle converts to a firearm when the blade’s removed. Fireproof. Bulletproof.
Basically, your dream accessory.”

Mycroft turned it in his hand.
“How thoughtful.”

She shrugged.
“You’ve always been sentimental about the original. But if you’re going to keep pretending you’re still dangerous,
you need better tools.”

He set the umbrella down with a quiet clink and narrowed his eyes.
“Why are you really here?”

Enola smiled — pleasant, charming. Not entirely fake.

“I told you. I came to bring your Christmas present.”

Mycroft leaned forward slightly.
“And?”

She tilted her head.
“And perhaps have a drink. It’s the season, isn’t it?”

He didn’t relax. Of course he didn’t.
That was the game.

But he gestured to the decanter anyway.

Scotch. Always scotch.

She poured herself half a finger. Left his glass untouched.

This wasn’t about drinking.
This was about timing the rope.

Keeping him occupied.
Keeping his security focus on her.

While elsewhere—far beneath the city—Michael danced with corpses.

She lifted the glass.
“Cheers,” she said softly.

Mycroft didn’t raise his.

He was still watching her.
Studying. Calculating. Waiting.

But he said nothing.

And Enola waited too.
Smile fixed. Heartbeat even.

She was exactly where she needed to be.

Chapter Text

Mycroft didn’t raise his glass.

He set it down—carefully, deliberately—beside the umbrella and leaned back in his chair with the air of a man settling in for an interrogation he already assumed he’d win.

“You’re not here just to deliver steel-laced murder accessories and seasonal sarcasm.”

Enola sipped her scotch without comment.

He watched her. Not blinking.

“Sherlock said you’d changed. I disagreed.” A pause. “I was right.”

She tilted her head. “You’ve always been good at being wrong with conviction.”

Mycroft ignored that. His fingers tapped once—once—on the arm of his chair.

“What were you doing at 221B?”

“I stopped by for a visit.”

“Wearing field boots, carrying forensic gloves in your coat, and a second SIM card in your heel?”

She smirked faintly. “Observant.”

“I monitor Sherlock’s building. Of course I observed. You were too obvious. You wanted to be seen.”

“I assumed you’d appreciate the effort.”

He didn’t smile. “Where’s Michael?”

Enola gave a look so bland it was practically elegant. “Is this a date or a debriefing?”

Mycroft’s gaze narrowed. “If he’s breaking into something, I’ll find out.”

“Then you’ve already answered your own question.”

Another silence stretched—one of those sharp, wire-tight moments only siblings could maintain without flinching. The kind that didn’t break. It simply tightened until someone bled.

Enola tilted her head ever so slightly, the shadow of something unreadable crossing her face.

“You think I killed Irene Adler.”

Mycroft didn’t respond right away. That was answer enough.

Enola smiled without warmth. “Fascinating.”

Mycroft folded his hands. “You’ve done worse.”

She laughed once—quiet, dry. “No, Mycroft. I’ve done louder. There’s a difference.”

“You’re capable,” he said evenly. “You’ve made people disappear without a trace. You’ve neutralised targets with elegance and deniability. Irene would be well within your scope.”

Enola turned from the window and strolled slowly back toward his desk. “You’re confusing capacity with motive.”

“I’m not confused,” he replied.

“No?” she asked, voice still calm. “Then enlighten me. Why would I kill a woman Sherlock was emotionally compromised by—one who posed no active threat to me, and one who, by all intelligence, was already marked by someone else?”

Mycroft didn’t blink. “Because you don’t like chaos unless you created it. Irene Adler disrupts variables you can't control.”

“And yet,” she said softly, “here I am, playing a game I didn’t start, trying to stop it from swallowing your brother whole.”

He eyed her carefully. “You don’t care if it swallows him. You care if it touches you.”

Enola’s jaw twitched. Barely. A ghost of tension passed through her posture before settling again.

“I didn’t kill her,” she said. Not defensive. Not pleading. Just... stating it like a fact. Like gravity.

“And if you had?” Mycroft asked.

Enola smiled again—this one like a razor’s edge.

“Then there wouldn’t be a body.”

Another pause.

Then Mycroft sat back slowly, the chair creaking under his weight, face unreadable.

“I don’t know whether that’s meant to comfort me,” he said.

“It’s not,” she replied. “It’s meant to remind you that if I wanted Irene Adler gone, I wouldn’t be here talking to you about it.”

Mycroft stared at her. Calculating. Reevaluating. As if her very presence was rewriting some quiet file in the back of his mind.

“You’re walking a very fine line,” he murmured.

“No,” Enola said, eyes fixed on her brother. “You are. I already crossed mine years ago.”
She didn’t move to leave. She didn’t even glance at the door. She simply shifted her weight, folding her arms with deliberate slowness, like a cat curling its tail.

“But you already know that.”
Her gaze sharpened, just a touch.
“So. What have you got so far?”

Mycroft exhaled through his nose. Short. Irritated. He looked, in that moment, very much like someone who’d had just enough time to know he was behind and not enough time to catch up.

“Nothing.” He didn’t try to dress it up. “Not yet.”

Enola blinked. “Nothing?”

“I suspect she’s not dead,” he admitted. “But I haven’t had time to investigate properly.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Why not?”

He didn’t answer.

Her voice cut a little sharper now. “This has Moriarty’s handprints all over it. Emotional manipulation, timing, precision choreography—he’s practically shouting from behind the curtain. You should’ve had every surveillance feed, DNA trace, and backchannel whisper locked down by now.”

Still, Mycroft didn’t speak.

But he made a face—a tiny, involuntary twitch at the corner of his mouth. A flicker around the eyes. Not fear. Not surprise. Something more dangerous.

Recognition.

Enola froze. The shift was instant. One blink, and the room got colder.

Gone was the dry sibling banter. The measured restraint. What stood now across from Mycroft was something sharper. Quieter.

“What,” she said slowly, carefully, “Did. You. Do?”

Mycroft met her eyes.

He swallowed.

Just once.

And then, quietly—far too quietly—he told her.

Not the full file. Not the clearance notes.
Just enough.
Just… the truth.

It hit like a punch to the ribs.

Enola didn’t react at first. Didn’t blink. Didn’t breathe.

Then—

She moved.

“ARE YOU FUCKING INSANE?” The words exploded from her like shrapnel. “Did you—have you—did you LOSE your entire fucking mind?!”

Mycroft didn’t answer. He couldn’t. He looked like he’d been slapped.

Enola was already pacing—fast, erratic, dragging her hands through her hair like she needed to pull the fury out through her scalp.

“You—herrrr—you absolute—HIMMM—what the actual fuck were you thinking?!”

She spun back toward him, face flushed, eyes wild. “I am killing myself trying to keep this entire nightmare from collapsing into a bloodbath, and you—you—go and hand her the matchbook?! Why?!”

Mycroft opened his mouth.

She cut him off with a furious, wordless noise—half snarl, half breath. Like something tearing loose.

“No. No, no, no—you don’t get to talk. You don’t get to justify this. You let him near her. You—” Her voice broke off. Just for a second. A stutter in the machine. Then came back sharper.

She stopped pacing, hands clenched at her sides, visibly trying to calculate the scope of the damage. You could see the equation behind her eyes—connecting dots, building threat maps, contingency spirals.

But they weren’t working.

Not this time.

She let out a low, guttural sound—pure frustration, rage, disbelief—like someone punching numbers into a calculator and watching it spit back fire.

Mycroft had gone pale.

He’d seen her cold. He’d seen her calm. He’d even seen her kill.

But this?

He had never seen her like this.

This wasn’t control. This wasn’t containment.
This was detonation with skin on.

Enola finally turned away, pinching the bridge of her nose like she was physically holding her brain together.

“I need a wall,” she muttered.
Then louder:
“I NEED A WALL TO BANG MY HEAD AGAINST.”

Mycroft flinched. Literally.

Enola didn’t care.

Because something had just gone very wrong.
And now she had to fix it—
Again.

Enola was pacing.
Then spiralling.
Then—she just dropped.

Dropped. Straight to the floor like her legs had given out beneath the weight of what she’d just heard.

She sat against the door, knees pulled up, back pressed to the wood like it might hold her together. One hand in her hair. The other gripping her coat like it was a lifeline.

“This is bad,” she whispered.
Then louder:
“This is really, really bad. Wow.”
A short, sharp laugh escaped—hollow and broken.
“This is so bad. So fucking bad.”

Mycroft had taken a step forward, uncertain, alarmed in the way only a man who wasn’t used to seeing fear could be.

“Enola—”

She didn’t look at him. Just stared ahead. Her eyes weren’t calculating anymore. They weren’t doing anything at all. Just wide. Blank. Shellshocked.

“You don’t get it.” Her voice cracked, barely audible.
She sucked in a breath like it hurt. “You really—don’t get it.”

He moved to kneel beside her, slowly, cautiously, as if she were an unexploded device. “Enola. I know it’s serious. But—”

She turned her head toward him—snapped, almost.

“We’re not playing with Moriarty anymore, Mycroft.” Her voice wasn’t loud, but it was venom.
“You understand that, right? This isn’t his game now.”
Her voice dipped lower.
“It’s hers.”

He froze.

And something in his face shifted. As if the full weight of what he’d done, what he’d unleashed, was finally catching up to his intellect.

And Enola saw it.

She blinked—slow and furious.

“You are…” Her voice trembled. Not with weakness—with restraint.
She pointed at him, barely lifting her hand.
“You are an idiot. You know that, right?”

He opened his mouth, but she cut across again, more biting now.

“You let him in. You let him touch her. You let the one man alive who weaponises obsession walk into a room with a mind like hers—and you thought what, Mycroft? That nothing would happen? ”

Mycroft didn’t speak. Didn’t argue.
He couldn’t.

Because the thing curled on the floor in front of him—the brilliant, unshakable machine he’d spent years trying to monitor, control, contain—
Was breaking.
And that told him everything he needed to know.

He sat there, beside her. Quiet. Still.

And for the first time in a very long time—

Mycroft Holmes was afraid.

Enola was silent for a long time.

Still on the floor. Back against the door. Her breaths were shallow, sharp. But her eyes… they were moving again. Not like before—this was something else. Not shock. Not grief.
Calculation.
Dark, fast, ruthless calculation.

Then, softly—almost too softly—

“We need to kill him.”

Mycroft’s head snapped toward her. “Enola—”

“That’s the only way,” she said, louder now. She sat up straighter, knees tight to her chest, voice clearer. “That’s the only way this ends. We cut the head off the snake before it wraps around him. Before it wraps around her. Before it strangles everything.”

Mycroft stood slowly, his expression twisting into something between horror and resignation.
“Enola… we can’t.”

Her eyes flicked up to him. Icy. Focused.

“Can’t? Or won’t?”

He stepped back, rubbing his hand over his face. “He’s not… killable. Not in the traditional sense.”

Enola laughed—short, bitter. “What the hell does that mean?”

“It means,” Mycroft said carefully, “that he’s designed a fail-safe. Several, actually. Trigger systems. Dead man switches. If he dies, the web activates.”

She frowned. “What web?”

He met her eyes. “The one pointed at Sherlock.”

The words landed like gunfire.
Enola blinked once. Twice.

“Fuck.”

Mycroft nodded grimly.

“Fuck, Mycroft.” She stood now—slowly, stiffly, as if her own bones were in the way. Her fingers pressed to her temple, pacing again—but this time it was tighter, faster, the circle of a mind trying to outpace a bomb.

She stopped in the middle of the room.
Hands on hips. Eyes wild.

“Okay. Okay. I need to think.”

Mycroft stayed quiet.

Enola started muttering under her breath.

“We can’t kill him. Yet. Not directly. Not obviously. Not if the web’s keyed to him.”

She looked over her shoulder at Mycroft, teeth clenched.
“I need every file you’ve got on his infrastructure. Personal, digital, psych profile, past handlers, obsessions, redundancies, everything.”

Mycroft hesitated.

“Don’t make me say it again.”

He nodded once. “I’ll prepare a secure copy.”

Enola turned back toward the window, arms crossed now, staring out at the empty city. Quiet for a long moment.

Then:
“We’ll kill him.”
Her voice was soft. Steady.

“We just have to make sure it looks like an accident... to his web.”

THEIR APARTMENT – 02:06 A.M.
MICHAEL: MISSION COMPLETE. MOOD: TEMPORARY.

Michael shut the door behind him with a smug little flourish, still in his black ops gear. Quiet boots, zipped jacket, the DNA case tucked under one arm like a prize he’d stolen from Death himself.

He dropped it gently on the counter, hands already moving to shrug off his coat. “Well,” he said with a satisfied sigh, “that went alarmingly smooth. Locker 12B, freezer drawer, two swabs, one mystery bag—zero drama. Even saw Molly and didn’t get caught. I'm calling that a win.”

No answer.

He glanced toward the sofa—
And froze.

Enola was sitting perfectly still.

Still in her coat. Still in her boots.
Her hands were folded in her lap like she didn’t trust them not to shake.

But it was her face that stopped him cold.

Too pale. Too quiet. Too…
Empty.

Michael’s smile vanished. “Enola?”

She didn’t look at him.

“Sit down.”

The words were quiet. Clipped. Almost gentle. But not soft.

Michael’s instincts sharpened in an instant.

He crossed the room and sat—no questions yet, just eyes locked on her.
“Okay. I’m sitting.”

Enola finally looked at him.

“I need to tell you something.”

A pause.

Then the truth came out. All of it. Compressed. Surgical. Lethal.

And by the end of it, Michael was staring at her like she’d just handed him a live grenade and told him to juggle.

His voice cracked through the silence, raw and stunned:

“Is he out of his fucking mind???”

Enola didn’t answer. Didn’t have to.

Michael surged to his feet, pacing now, one hand buried in his hair, the other clenched into a fist.
“We’re gonna die. He’s gonna kill us. We are so fucked.”

Enola was silent. Watching him now. Letting it process.

Michael turned on her, eyes wide.
“What the hell was he thinking?”

Her voice came out low. Controlled.
“He wasn’t.”

Michael dropped into the armchair across from her like the weight had hit him all at once.

He leaned forward, elbows on knees, hands pressed together.

“…We’re in trouble, aren’t we?”

Enola nodded.

“Very.”

And they both just sat there for a moment.
Side by side.
Like soldiers waiting for the bomb they already heard ticking.

Chapter Text

Michael was still sitting forward, hands pressed together, face buried in the space between them like he was praying or cursing or both.

Enola stared at him for a second longer, then inhaled sharply through her nose—cutting the silence like a scalpel.

“Okay.” Her voice was tight. Controlled. Edged. “Let’s focus.”

Michael looked up slowly, eyes still wide with disbelief.

Enola didn’t give him time to spiral again. She was already standing, shedding her coat like she was suiting up for war.
“Irene. Did you do it?”

Michael blinked. “What?”

She turned to face him fully. Her voice sharper now. More deliberate. “The DNA. The analysis. Did you run it?”

He shook his head, dazed. “No—I just got in. I came straight back here, then you—” He gestured vaguely at her whole existence, still stunned. “—dropped an apocalypse on me.”

Enola’s hands went to her hips, nodding once. “Alright. Doesn’t matter. We’ll do it now.”

Michael rubbed both hands over his face. “This is insane.”

“Welcome to the club,” she snapped, already heading toward the secured case.

He didn’t move.

She turned back, eyes flaring.

“Michael.”

He looked at her—really looked at her. Saw the crack just under her surface. The way she was barely keeping the horror contained with logic and task lists and movement. And something in him settled.

He nodded. Just once.

“Right. Let’s confirm the body’s not Irene’s.”

THEIR APARTMENT – 02:19 A.M.
OPERATION: PROOF OF (UN)DEATH

Enola cleared the kitchen table with a single sweep of her arm—just mail and a coffee mug, but the gesture said surgical theatre, not domestic irritation.

Michael retrieved the DNA case from the counter and cracked it open, setting each component out in perfect order. Swabs. Slides. Control strips. Enola brought over the tag with the lipstick kiss, sealed in a small evidence pouch.

“UV light,” she said, and he passed it to her without a word.

She clicked it on, running it slowly over the tag. The kiss glowed faintly—residue still clinging to the fibres. Lipid-based. Uncontaminated.

“Prints?” Michael asked, already prepping the comparison slide.

“Too smudged. But if she left saliva on the corner…” Enola pressed a clean swab to the stained section with mechanical precision. “We’ll get trace epithelial cells.”

Michael was already opening the vial from the morgue. “Here’s our Jane Doe.”

They worked without music. Without small talk. Just the rhythm of gloves snapping, samples being transferred, devices whirring softly. The portable DNA scanner Enola had modified last year clicked into life, screen flickering green as it accepted the samples.

Enola watched it like a bomb waiting to go off.

Michael stood beside her, arms folded, shoulders tense.

“Tell me you programmed this thing to be fast.”

“I programmed this thing to be right.” Her tone was sharp, but not unkind.

A beep.

Michael leaned in. “First sample confirmed. Tag is clean. Trace DNA, consistent with female, European ancestry. Lipstick transferred epithelial tissue. We're good.”

Another beep. The morgue sample loaded.

A long pause.

Then the screen blinked twice and displayed the result:

NO MATCH FOUND.

Enola let out a breath—short, tight, too close to a laugh.

Michael stared at it. Then stared harder. Then said, very slowly:

“…It’s not Irene.”

Enola nodded. “No. It’s someone—but not her.”

Michael sat down hard in the nearest chair, exhaling like someone had just punched the air out of him.

“Well,” he said, running a hand through his hair, “good news is, she’s not dead.”

Enola’s voice was flat. Icy.

“No. She’s moving.”

Michael looked up. “And bad news?”

She met his eyes.

“She’s moving.”

She stood up, slow and deliberate, like something had clicked back into place inside her. A gear locking into motion.
“And if she’s moving, she’s plotting. Playing the game. And we need to be ahead of her.”

Michael raised his eyebrows. “How? We don’t even know where she is.”

Enola turned to him, sharp now.
“The phone.”

He blinked. “You mean the one she gave to Sherlock?”

Enola shook her head. “That’s a performance piece. Wrapped in explosives, laced with sentiment, designed to get his full attention. But Irene Adler doesn’t give away her real leverage. Not even to someone she almost trusted.”

Michael tilted his head, catching up fast. “So that phone…”

“Is a fake,” she confirmed. “A beautiful, expensive, theatrically dangerous fake. But a fake.”

Michael leaned back, staring up at the ceiling. “So where’s the real one?”

Enola’s gaze sharpened.

“We find out what's on it.”

He stared at her. “Okay. And how exactly do we do that?”

She turned toward the table again, reaching for her own phone, already unlocking the secure line.

“We call her.”

Michael blinked. “Wait—you mean like, call-call?”

Enola smiled.
Not politely.
Not warmly.

No—she smiled like a devil in a well-tailored coat.
“Yup.”

Michael stared at her for half a second—then huffed a laugh, low and bitter, running a hand down his face.

“Right. So we’re hacking Irene Adler’s real phone.”
He nodded to himself. “Cool. Cool, cool, cool. Totally normal thing to do at two in the morning on Christmas Eve. Love that for us.”

Enola was already moving. Pulling open the encrypted toolkit drawer. Tossing Michael his portable terminal. Sliding her own laptop into place on the dining table like it was an altar—
ritual precision, sacred focus.

Michael caught the device midair, already booting it with muscle memory.
“Let me guess,” he said, settling into the chair beside her,
“we call the number—bait the signal—then ghost her?”

Enola didn’t look up. She was already plugging in her custom Enigma calculator, fingers dancing across the keys like a pianist playing war.

“Close,” she murmured. “We Trojan Horse her first.”

She rotated the screen so he could see the script unfurling:
OPERATION: RED SILK

Michael leaned in. Scanned. Whistled low.
“You’re building a firmware spoof?”

“Luxury sync vulnerability. Vertu phones trust paired devices. So…”
She tapped the keys once more, and the payload compiled.
“…I become one.”

STEP 1: The Trojan Horse Disguised as a Kiss
The virus was elegant. Dressed in soft code. Disguised as a routine Vertu firmware update request—
broadcast via Bluetooth and NFC.
Spoofed ID, mimicking Irene’s laptop.

“Read-only mode,” Enola muttered. “No OS access. No passcode triggers. Just diagnostic doors left politely ajar.”

Michael nodded, sliding in beside her with his own monitor, establishing signal intercept protocols.

But then he paused.

Michael stared at the screen, then back at Enola, brow furrowed in the kind of expression that said he was both deeply impressed and about to ruin her victory lap.

“You know there’s just one problem, right?”
He gestured vaguely toward the burner in her hand.
“We don’t actually have her number.”

Enola didn’t even flinch.

Didn’t roll her eyes. Didn’t sigh.

She just gave him a look.
That look.

That “darling, how long have you known me and still underestimate me” look.

“Please.”

She turned her laptop back toward him, tapping a folder labelled:
POOL_CAMERA_B1_RESTORED

Michael squinted.
“Is that—”

“From the pool. Moriarty.”
Her voice was smooth, precise. “Final standoff. He gets a call. We zoom in on his phone.”

Michael blinked. “You’re kidding.”

“I’m not.”

He frowned. “That footage was destroyed. Burned with the building.”

Enola raised an eyebrow. “Michael.”

He paused. Then sighed, already reaching for his terminal.
“Right. Give me a second to assemble it, because let’s be honest…”
He started typing.
“…nothing is ever really lost.”

Bits of corrupted file structure flew across his screen. Ghost echoes of CCTV data flickered into view.

“There. There it is.” He pointed at a half-pixelated frame.
Moriarty’s phone. The moment it lit up. The camera caught it from behind his shoulder—just for a flicker.

Enola leaned in, voice low, focused.
“Zoom. Enhance. Clean it.”

Michael grinned. “You’re lucky I love a challenge.”

And in under two minutes, Irene Adler’s number appeared on-screen.
Plain as a razor under candlelight.

“Gotcha,” Enola whispered.

Michael looked up. “So we’re really doing this.”

Enola was already dialing.
“Game on.”

STEP 2: The Distraction Call
It rang.

Miles away, Irene’s phone lit up. A ghost number on screen.

Enola watched the code flicker to life—connection confirmed.
“Come on… swipe it… touch it…”

Michael’s terminal blinked.
“She moved. Screen’s active.”

STEP 3: Pop-Up Manipulation
The Trojan sent its next message:
“New SIM configuration detected. Tap to confirm update.”

“Don’t answer it, Adler,” Enola whispered. “Just get annoyed. Be impatient.”

A beat. Two.

Michael grinned. “She tapped.”

“There it is.” Enola’s eyes flashed.
The virus drank the input—touch patterns, pressure, swipes—all of it.

STEP 4: Remote Data Cloning

Michael’s screen lit up like a Christmas tree.
“We’ve got access. NAND extraction underway. Encryption still live, but—”

“—we bypass that offsite,” Enola finished.
“I want everything: memory structures, cached metadata, drafts, locations.”

The system ran smooth.
Irene’s digital soul was being mirrored byte by byte without her ever knowing.

STEP 5: Ghost Code

Enola typed fast—clean code, elegant kill-switches.

“Planting a stealth wipe trigger. Just in case she gets curious later.”

Michael raised an eyebrow. “Cruel.”

“Cautious,” Enola replied. “And stylish.”

STEP 6: Cover and Vanish

Final packet sent:
“Firmware sync complete. No errors detected.”

The Trojan self-destructed, erasing all traces.
Irene’s phone dimmed. Calm. Innocent.
None the wiser.

Enola leaned back in her chair, breath shallow, heart still ticking too fast.

Michael stared at the screen.
“Jesus. We just robbed Irene Adler.”

Enola’s eyes flicked to him.

“No,” she said calmly, closing the laptop lid.
“We outplayed her.”

Michael sat back, exhaling.

“I don’t know whether to be impressed or terrified.”

Enola smirked.
“Why not both?”

BAKER STREET – 221B – 03:03 A.M.
THE SILENCE BETWEEN CASES

The flat was quiet.
Too quiet, by Sherlock’s standards. No violin. No clattering. No arguing.
Just the hum of London sleeping through its own chaos.

Barefoot and sleepless, he padded into the kitchen. Water. That was the mission. Something simple. Something solvable.

But as he passed the sitting room, he stopped.

His eyes flicked to the table.

A box.
Matte black. Minimalist. No ribbon, no tag. Just presence.

He didn’t need to check the handwriting. He already knew.

Enola.

Sherlock approached it slowly, with the same cautious curiosity he reserved for unstable compounds. He flicked open the lid.

Inside: a watch.

No — not just a watch.

“VantaScan.”

Titanium body. Leather strap. Elegant and severe. The face was a dead-black analog dial — no branding, no ticking.

Sherlock’s brow furrowed slightly.

He picked it up, turned it in his hand, inspecting every millimetre.

There were no buttons. No visible seams.

He pressed his thumb to the crown and twisted experimentally.

A faint vibration.

His phone — resting on the arm of the sofa — lit up. A window opened automatically.
"Syncing device: VantaScan. Secure Channel Established."

He blinked.

Then raised the watch to the surface of the kitchen table and pressed.

Another vibration.
Then a readout appeared on his phone:

Surface contains: oak finish, residual traces of tea (black), human skin oil (type A), low sugar content, trace acetone (nail polish remover).

He stared.

Then twisted the crown again.

Another scan.
This time, the air.

Air particles: trace nicotine, ethanol, detergent, and…
you absolute maniac, lemon oil. Who polishes furniture at 3 A.M.?

Sherlock smirked. Just a little.

And then—
Buzz.

The watch displayed a tiny message on the analog face:

“Caffeine levels: 3 cups detected. Try solving yourself next.”

He actually laughed. A real one. Quiet, involuntary.

He turned the box over, curious.

On the inside of the lid — backwards, naturally — a message was etched in barely visible ink:

“You’re welcome. Try not to break it testing explosives.”

He stared at it for a moment. Then at the watch.
His lips curled — just a fraction. The kind of smile that hadn’t made it past his collarbones in days.

Of course she didn’t sign it.
Of course he didn’t need her to.

He strapped the watch on and poured his water, still smiling faintly.

Somewhere, something dangerous was happening.

But here — just for a moment — he had time.
And a gift.

And Enola had beaten him to it.
Again.

Chapter Text

CHRISTMAS MORNING – 09:17 A.M.
SOMEWHERE SAFE, WARM, AND TEMPORARILY NOT ON FIRE

The flat smelled faintly of coffee, burnt toast, and gun oil. The space heater was humming like an overworked bureaucrat, and snow fell gently outside the windows like London had decided — just for a few hours — to behave.

Enola was curled up on the floor by the small fake tree Michael insisted on putting up, legs crossed, hair a glorious bedhead mess of chaos and calculated indifference. She was wearing one of his shirts — the soft black one he only wore on missions, now stolen, oversized, and clearly hers.

Michael emerged from the kitchen with two mismatched mugs of coffee and a glint in his eye.
“Alright. Presents. Now.”
He handed her one mug and dropped beside her with exaggerated flair, nearly knocking over a stack of encrypted hard drives doubling as festive decor.

Enola smirked. “You’re dangerously excited about this.”

Michael grinned. “I’m a man of simple pleasures: caffeine, weapons, and watching you pretend not to like surprises.”

She took a slow sip of her coffee. “One out of three is generous.”

Michael reached behind the sofa and retrieved a long black box. Sleek. Matte. No ribbon. Just danger in packaging form.

He handed it over.

“Merry Christmas, darling. Try not to stab me with them before New Year’s.”

Enola opened the box.

Inside:
A matched pair of katana blades.
Deadpool-style. Polished. Balanced. Lightweight carbon steel. Black cord-wrapped handles. Custom sheaths. Engraved subtly in Japanese:
“To cut clean through the bullshit.”

Enola’s eyebrows raised slightly.

Then she looked up at him.

“You’re ridiculous.”

He leaned in. “You’re welcome.”

She set the box aside with care. Then reached under the armchair and pulled out something small, round, and gunmetal grey — disguised as a compact mirror.

She set it in his palm.
“Your turn.”

Michael opened it.

Inside: soft shimmer. Lenses. Matte black with a faint silver glint. Sleek. Alien. Beautiful.

His brow furrowed. “Contact lenses?”

“GHOSTEYE,” Enola said simply. “Now you can see the way I do.”

He turned the compact in his hand. Read the inscription along the rim:
“Judgment isn't instinct. It's code.”

Beneath the lenses was a titanium ring. Black. Seamless.

Enola tapped it. “Charging coil. Haptic interface. Secret failsafe built into the pressure plate. One press to wipe, hold to lock onto a face.”

Michael blinked. “Wait, this is functional?”

Her face was all innocence. “Of course. It recognises over seven thousand chemical traces, flags heat signatures, overlays public and private data streams. You’ll get facial reads, emotional markers, and live AR threat tags.”
A pause.
“Minimalist HUD. Wraps around the iris. No glow. Doesn’t ruin your aesthetic.”

He stared at her.

“You gave me Terminator vision.”

Enola sipped her coffee. “You’re welcome.”

Michael laughed — real, deep, warm.

Then slid the ring onto his finger, like it had always belonged there.

“Okay, but seriously. This is the coolest thing I’ve ever owned.”

Enola leaned back against the sofa, watching him as he turned the lenses in the soft light.

Her voice dropped, lazy and dangerous, almost a purr:

“I thought I was the coolest thing you’ve ever owned.”

Michael froze halfway through examining the lenses.

He looked up at her — and there it was.

That look.
Slow. Dangerous.
The kind that started in the corners of his mouth and burned straight through his chest.

His mouth opened — then closed. Then opened again.

He made a sound that was somewhere between a gasp, a short circuit, and a suppressed scream.

“I—” He pointed at her. “That—You don’t just—”

He stood up like he needed altitude to recover. Walked in a small stunned circle.
Then dramatically dropped back onto the floor beside her.

“Okay.” He pointed at her again, weakly this time.
“You can’t just say things like that. It’s Christmas. I have a heart.”

Enola raised an eyebrow. “You’re the one who gave me swords.”

Michael gave a wounded huff. “That was romantic! I didn’t emotionally assassinate you with it.”

She sipped her coffee again. “I’m efficient.”

Michael just gaped at her again, then flopped back like he’d been mortally wounded by flirtation itself.
“…Okay.”
His voice dropped an octave.
“That’s definitely cheating.”

Enola tilted her head. Sipped her coffee like she hadn’t just turned his nervous system into static.
“You gonna arrest me?”

“No,” Michael said, crawling toward her slowly, hands already brushing against her thighs.
“I’m gonna worship you for it.”

She smirked as he pulled her into his lap, the lenses set gently aside, forgotten for now.
The ring still humming faintly against his skin as her legs wrapped around his waist.

The coffee went cold.
The fake tree leaned sideways.

And somewhere in the blur between breath and touch,
Enola Holmes got her second-best Christmas gift that morning.

(The first was watching Michael absolutely fall apart.)

BAKER STREET – 221B – CHRISTMAS MORNING – 10:04 A.M.
MISMATCHED CUPS AND UNANSWERED QUESTIONS

The flat was still quiet, but the silence had changed.

Last night it had felt… suspended. Like the moment before a violin string snaps.
Now, it just felt hollow.

Sherlock sat in his chair, not moving, not speaking. The watch Enola had given him — VantaScan — sat on the coffee table, face down. Still synced. Still glowing faintly with unread scans.

John stepped out of the kitchen with two mugs of tea. He hesitated when he saw Sherlock hadn’t moved an inch since he left.

He set one mug down beside the watch. Kept the other.

“It’s Christmas,” he said quietly, like it mattered.

Sherlock didn’t respond.

John sat down across from him. The chair creaked under him, the same way it always did, the familiar sound of everything falling apart in slow motion.

He stared at Sherlock. At the stiff shoulders. The distant eyes.

“You want to talk about her?”

Nothing.

Not a blink. Not a breath change.

John sipped his tea, staring down into the mug like he might find a better version of this conversation at the bottom.

“You don’t believe she’s really dead, do you?”

Still nothing.

But John had been here before. He knew the difference between silence and Sherlock Holmes silence.

“You think she’s alive. You think she planned it. You think it’s all part of some elaborate scheme and you’re not meant to see it yet.”

Sherlock blinked once.

John nodded, slowly.

“You’re probably right.”
A pause.
“And you’re still going to pretend she doesn’t matter.”

Sherlock’s voice, when it came, was barely audible.

“She doesn’t.”

John looked at him. Just looked. The kind of look that wasn’t angry or disappointed — just tired.

“Right.”

Sherlock’s jaw clenched.

John took another sip of tea.

“You should tell Enola,” he said after a moment. “About what you think. About what you’re afraid of.”

“She already knows.”

John nodded again. Not surprised.

“Then tell me.”

Sherlock didn’t. Couldn’t.

Because how do you say:
She’s not dead, and I’m terrified that means I’ll see her again.
And I don’t know if I want that more than I want her gone.
Because if she’s alive, I still matter to her.
And if she faked it... maybe I don’t.

Instead, he said nothing.

John stood.

“Well.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Merry Christmas.”

And he left the tea there.
Untouched.
Cooling beside a watch that never ticked.

SOMEWHERE ELSE – STILL CHRISTMAS – 11:26 A.M.
POST-CARNAL CARNAGE. FLOOR EDITION.

The room was a mess.
Not a dramatic, cinematic mess—just the quiet kind.
Blankets half-kicked off. Coffee mugs abandoned.
Her new swords leaning against the wall.
His new ring still humming faintly on his hand.

Enola lay sprawled on the floor beside Michael, skin flushed and hair like a wildfire aftermath. Her head was on his chest. His arm was around her waist.

They weren’t talking.

Not because there was nothing to say—
but because, for once, they didn’t have to fill the silence.

Michael ran his fingers lightly over her bare back, slow and aimless, like tracing invisible circuits.

Then, finally:
“You gonna tell Mycroft about the phone?”

Enola didn’t move. Just blinked once at the ceiling.

“No.”

Michael tilted his head toward her, eyebrows raised slightly. “No?”

She sighed. Not tired. Just done with other people’s messes.

“They’re big boys,” she said lazily. “They can figure it out themselves.”

A pause.

“I’ll help them only if they ask.”
Her fingers idly traced the edge of his ribs.
“And they won’t.”

Michael huffed a laugh through his nose. “Pride or stupidity?”

“Both.”
She tilted her head slightly so her lips brushed his collarbone.
“Holmes family signature blend.”

Michael smiled at the ceiling.

Then turned his head, kissed her temple, and murmured:

“Remind me again why I love you?”

Enola smirked.

“Because I’m always five steps ahead and let you catch up just enough to think you’re clever.”

Michael groaned and dragged a pillow over his face.

“This is why I buy you weapons.”

She chuckled.

But Michael didn’t. Not this time.

The quiet shifted—tightened. Not in fear, but in weight.

His fingers slowed on her skin, then stopped.

“What about the other problem?” he asked softly.

Enola didn’t answer right away.

She just stared at the ceiling, the laughter still faint in her chest but already gone from her eyes.

Then she turned her head to look at him.

“I don’t know,” she said honestly.
Her voice had no edge. Just truth.
“I don’t even know what the other problem is yet.”

Michael nodded once, eyes still on her.
Not pressing. Not pushing.

Just there.

Enola shifted closer, her fingers curling into the hem of the shirt he hadn’t bothered to put back on.

“But I’ll know soon enough.”

BAKER STREET – 221B – DAYS LATER – LATE MORNING
THE MUSIC OF UNSAID THINGS

Sherlock stood by the window in his dressing gown, violin tucked under his chin like it belonged there more than he did anywhere else.

The tune was soft.
Painfully soft.
Not one of his usual experiments — this wasn’t dissonance or brilliance.
This was grief in F minor.

Across the flat, John moved with that careful, deliberate energy he reserved for mornings where Sherlock hadn’t slept. Or eaten. Or spoken in more than monosyllables.

He was half into his coat, one shoe on, the other by the door.
Mrs Hudson was clearing breakfast — or what passed for it. Two plates: one empty, one untouched.

She held Sherlock’s plate up, wordlessly, to John.

He gave a small, tight shrug. What can I do?

The violin kept playing.

“Lovely tune,” Mrs Hudson offered gently. “Haven’t heard that one before, Sherlock.”

A pause.

Sherlock didn’t look up.
Didn’t turn.
Just made a mark on a crumpled sheet of manuscript paper beside him.

“Are you composing?” John asked, stepping closer.

“Helps me think,” Sherlock replied, and kept playing.

The melody drifted. Gentle. Broken in places. Like someone remembering something too late.

“What are you thinking about?”

A sudden jolt in the music.
A dissonant note. A tear in the fabric.

Sherlock lowered the violin.

Crossed the room with sharp, sudden movement.

John’s laptop sat open on the desk — innocuous, half-loaded with some page from the blog. Sherlock reached into his pocket and pulled out her phone. Leopard skin. Heavy. Dangerous like a memory.

The screen still locked. Still mocking.

Sherlock glanced at the blog.

“Your counter’s stuck at 1895.”

John blinked. “Yeah. It’s faulty. I can’t seem to fix it.”

Sherlock’s voice was tight. Distracted.
“Faulty… or you’ve been hacked. And it’s a message.”

He tapped the number into the phone. 1-8-9-5.

The screen blinked.
WRONG PASSCODE.
TWO ATTEMPTS REMAINING.

Sherlock’s face didn’t change. Not really.
Just the faintest ripple of something close to… defeat.

“No,” he muttered. “It’s just faulty.”

The phone went back to sleep.
Sherlock turned away before anyone could see whatever almost happened on his face.

He picked up the violin again.
And the haunting tune returned — softer now, almost a whisper. A lament.

John stood for a moment. Watching him.
Still no clue. No entry point. Just that same locked room of a man.

“Okay,” he said gently. “Going out for a bit.”

No response. Just music.

He made it halfway to the stairs when he stopped beside Mrs Hudson. Looked at her. Then—on impulse—

“Has he ever had…”
A pause. He searched for the right phrasing.
“…anyone? Girlfriend, boyfriend, any kind of… relationship?”

Mrs Hudson looked past him toward Sherlock. The violin. The silence that never really left this flat.

“I don’t know.”

John frowned. “How can we not know?”

She smiled, sad and fond.
“He’s Sherlock.”
A pause.
“We’ll never know what’s going on in that funny old head.”

And from the other room—
a single, aching note held too long.
Like it didn’t want to be let go.

John closed the door to 221B with a soft click, coat collar up, head down. The cold bit, but not enough to matter.

He hadn’t gone ten steps before a voice stopped him.

“John?”

He turned.

A woman stood beside the corner lamppost — wrapped in clean lines and good lighting. Tall. Poised. Smiling.

Beautiful.
Not in a magazine sort of way — in the you're-about-to-regret-this sort of way.

John blinked.
“Hello.”
Pause. She was still smiling.
“...Hello?”
Then, realising how he sounded —
“Hello!”

“Any plans for New Year’s tonight?” she asked, voice casual. Like they were old friends.

John hesitated. Then:
“Nothing fixed. Nothing I couldn’t heartlessly abandon. Got ideas?”

She smiled.

“One.”

A big black car rolled up to the curb like a closing move in chess. The door opened. She gestured him inside.

John sighed.
“Of course.”

And up at the window above —
Sherlock Holmes watched.

Blank-faced.
Violin idle on his lap.
Hands still.
Eyes unreadable.

The car pulled up outside what used to be something important. Now just another hollow place with secrets in its walls.

John stared out the window.
“Seriously?”

John walked beside the woman along a metal catwalk that moaned with history. He looked around. Everything about the space screamed ambush, but he followed anyway.

“We couldn’t just go to a café?” he muttered.
“Sherlock doesn’t follow me everywhere...”

The woman stopped at a doorway. Gestured.

“Through here.”

John ducked through. She paused. Phone to her ear.

“He’s on his way. You were right. He thinks it’s Mycroft.”

John stood alone now. Arms folded. Jaw tense. The silence in the room had teeth.

Footsteps approached — slow, deliberate.

He didn’t look up at first. Just spoke aloud.

“He’s writing sad music. Doesn’t eat. Barely talks, except to correct the television. I’d say he was heartbroken...”

He looked up.

Stopped breathing.

“...but he’s Sherlock. He does all that anyway.”

It wasn’t Mycroft.

It was her.
Draped in black. Hooded. Impossibly alive.

IRENE ADLER.

“Hello, Dr Watson.”

He didn’t speak. Not at first. Just stared. As if looking long enough might explain it. Might undo it.

Then:

“Tell him you’re alive.”

Her voice was quiet. “He’d come after me.”

“I’ll come after you if you don’t.”

A pause. Then, honestly:
“I believe you.”

John’s voice cracked now. The disbelief turning to fury.

“You were dead. I saw you.”

“DNA tests are only as good as the records you keep,” she said simply.

John narrowed his eyes. “And I bet you know the record keeper.”

“I know what he likes.”
A beat.
“And I needed to disappear.”

He paced. Sharp, tight steps. Turned back.

“Then how come I can see you? Because I really, really don’t want to.”

She didn’t flinch.
“I made a mistake. I sent Sherlock something for safekeeping. Now I need it back.”

John didn’t even hesitate.
“No.”

“It’s for his own safety.”

“So’s this. Tell him you’re alive.”

“I can’t.”

“Then I will.”
A breath.
“And I still won’t help you.”

Silence.

She reached into her coat. Pulled out a plain mobile.

Not the leopard-skin camera phone.

Something more real.

“What do I say?”

John stared.
“What do you normally say? You texted him a lot.”

“Just the usual stuff.”

John scoffed.
“There’s no usual in this situation.”

She looked down at the screen. Then up again.

“‘Good morning.’ ‘I like your funny hat.’ ‘I’m sad tonight — let’s have dinner.’ ‘You looked sexy on Crimewatch. Let’s have dinner.’ ‘I’m not hungry — let’s have dinner.’”

John blinked.
“You flirted with Sherlock Holmes?”

“At him,” she corrected. “He never replies.”

John’s voice dipped low. Honest.

“Sherlock always replies. To everything. He can’t help himself — he’ll outlive God trying to have the last word.”

She looked at him.

“Does that make me special?”

A pause.

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

She stepped closer.

“Are you jealous?”

“For God’s sake. We’re not a couple.”

She smiled. Almost sad.

“Yes, you are.”

She typed.

Then showed him the screen:

I’m not dead. Let’s have dinner.

Sent.

John shook his head. “For the record, if anyone out there still cares — I’m not actually gay.”

“I am,” Irene said.
Then, softly:
“And look at us both.”

They smiled. Just for a moment.
Something absurd and human in all the wreckage.

Then—
a sound.
Soft. Familiar. Too familiar.

A gasp.

John froze.

They both turned toward the shadows.
A black figure in black space. There, then not. A footstep. The scrape of a sole.

Gone.

John surged forward, ready to follow.

Irene stopped him with one hand.

“I don’t think so — do you?”

And John just stood there, breath caught.

Chapter Text

INT. ENOLA & MICHAEL’S FLAT – EARLY EVENING
OPERATION: DOMESTIC MURDER FOREPLAY
(aka: sword practice)

It sounded like someone had dropped a metal cabinet.
Then maybe a chair. Then something like… a scream muffled by a sharp grunt.

John, foolishly thinking “they must be watching telly,” opened the door without knocking.

Big mistake.

Because what he walked into was this:

Enola Holmes and Michael Lupan locked in a full-contact, live-steel sparring match in the middle of their living room.

She was barefoot, hair tied up in a haphazard bun, wearing black compression leggings and a grey sports top soaked through with sweat.
He was shirtless, scarred, and moving like an apex predator at play.

They were using real blades.
Not fencing foils.
Not stage props.

Enola’s new katanas.
The twin blades whistled through the air, colliding with such force that the sound shook the picture frames.

Michael ducked under a horizontal slash, rolled clean across the carpet, and came up swinging a single long machete — jet black, dull-edged, and heavy.

She blocked him with a clatter of steel and turned her body into a spin, heel cutting through the air like a warning shot.

“You’re slow,” she said, breathless but grinning. “You thinking too hard again?”

“I’m thinking about your blind spots,” he countered, flipping his grip mid-swing.

Their blades met again. A flash of sparks. Enola twisted under his guard and kicked his inner thigh with the ball of her foot — hard enough to stagger, not bruise.

He growled, turned with it, and landed a flat strike against her ribs. She hissed, pivoted out of reach, and came back with a double slice that Michael barely dodged.

No helmets. No padding. Just trust. And the fine line between love and murder.

John Watson walked into this moment at precisely the wrong time.

“Hey, I need to—”

He barely got the words out before Enola moved.

Pure instinct.

She spun, eyes locked, blade already raised in a clean upward arc aimed at—

John’s neck.

Michael caught her wrist.
Barely.

The sword stopped half a second from decapitating their guest.

John froze.

Enola froze.

Michael, panting, gave a wheezing laugh.
“You really—really—should have knocked, mate.”

Enola lowered the blade an inch. Then another. Then clicked the safety catch on the back edge to dull it, just in case.

She stared at John. Still breathless. Still riding the high.

“You’re bleeding,” she said calmly, gesturing to his neck.

John reached up—found the faintest cut, like a paper slice, across his collarbone.

“Jesus Christ.”

“Oh, relax,” Enola muttered, wiping sweat off her brow. “I missed on purpose.”

Michael gave her a look.

“Mostly.”

John stared at them both, chest rising and falling fast.
He stepped fully into the flat, slowly closing the door behind him like that might prevent further decapitation attempts.

“Do you people ever just… sit down and watch movies like normal couples?”

Michael sheathed the machete and wiped his face with a towel.

“We tried. Got bored halfway through Inception.”

Enola tossed one katana onto the table, grabbed a water bottle, and flopped into a chair like the spar hadn’t just turned into a near-homicide.

“So,” she said, taking a long drink, “what did you walk in here to die over?”

John straightened his jacket and tried to recover some dignity.

“I saw Irene Adler.”

That got their attention.

The air changed.

Michael sat on the floor, towel still over his shoulder, eyes narrowed.

Enola didn’t move. But her posture shifted just slightly.
Straight-backed. Still. Razor-focused.

“You’re sure?”

“As sure as I’ve ever been about anything in my life,” John said.
“It was her. Alive. Talking. Breathing. She asked for help.”

Enola set the water bottle down, slow and deliberate.

“What did you say?”

John met her eyes.

“I told her no.”
A pause.
“And that I’d tell Sherlock.”

Silence. Just breathing.
Then Michael cracked his knuckles.
“You want to sit down this time?”

John looked between them — the sweat, the weapons, the wild-eyed calm.

“No.”

Another pause.

“But I would like a drink.”

Enola stood.
“Make it two. You earned it.”

The sparring gear was cleared away. The coffee table was now home to three mugs (only one of them still hot), a tactical laptop, a folded blueprint, and a half-eaten protein bar that had been stabbed through with a letter opener for reasons no one was explaining.

Enola sat cross-legged on the floor in a hoodie and shorts, hair still damp from the world’s fastest shower. She was flicking through tabs on her laptop like a bored god scrolling the apocalypse.

“Six days,” she said, deadpan.

John looked up. “What?”

Enola tilted the screen toward him.

IRENE ADLER — OFFICIALLY DECEASED: December 23rd.
Current date: December 29th.

“Six days between death and resurrection,” she said casually. “That’s a very short retirement.”

She looked up at him, arching an eyebrow.
“Does Sherlock know yet?”

John hesitated. “I… I think he just found out.”

Enola blinked.

Then blinked again.

Then set her laptop down with the slow, pained expression of someone physically cringing from inside their soul.

“Now?”
A beat.
“Seriously? Now?! It’s taken him six days to figure it out?”

John frowned. “He was grieving.”

“He was brooding,” she corrected, already typing again. “There’s a difference. Grieving people cry. Brooding people compose sad violin solos while refusing to eat toast.”

Michael snorted behind his tea.

John pointed a finger. “Oi, don’t start.”

But Michael just lifted his hands in surrender, ever the picture of faux innocence.

“I mean… it was kinda obvious.”

John turned slowly.

“What?”

Michael shrugged. “Come on, mate. The body ID was flimsy, the phone was still locked, and she liked being seen. She doesn’t vanish unless she wants to. It had all the marks of a stage exit.”

John’s mouth opened. Then closed. Then opened again.

“You’re telling me you two knew she wasn’t dead?”

Enola leaned back on her palms. “Knew? No. Suspected? Yes. She’s dramatic and narcissistic. If she was going to die, she’d live-stream it.”

Michael nodded. “With makeup. And lighting. And a message encoded in the colour of her dress.”

Enola snapped her fingers. “Exactly.”

John was now actively combusting.
“And you didn’t TELL anyone?!”

Enola tilted her head. “We were… busy.”

“Doing what?”

Michael sipped his tea. “Each other.”

John made a sound like someone choking on a mouthful of fury and secondhand trauma.
He paced. Turned. Stopped. Pointed at both of them.

“So just to recap: Irene Adler fakes her death. Disappears. You figure it out immediately and decide to keep it to yourselves, because you’re too busy sharpening swords and shagging like MI6’s most dangerous couple’s retreat—meanwhile Sherlock Holmes is upstairs composing dirges about how sad he is?”

Enola looked at Michael.

Michael looked at Enola.

Then she turned back to John.

“Yes.”

John threw up his arms.

“You people are the worst!”

Enola gave him a mock-thoughtful look.
“You know, if you want to be mad at someone, you should really start with Irene. She’s the one playing dead and texting for dinner.”

John groaned. “I hate how logical you are. It’s like being out-argued by a war crime.”

Michael added, helpfully, “We prefer the term ‘tactically evolved.’”

“I prefer the term bloody nightmare!” John shouted, collapsing into a chair.
He looked between them, eyes wild.
“Do you ever stop to consider what it’s like being around you?”

Enola sipped from his mug without asking.
“Yes. It’s hilarious.”

John threw her the kind of look that usually preceded a nervous breakdown or a strongly worded letter to MI5.

"Does Mycroft know too?"

Enola shrugged, picking at the frayed edge of her hoodie sleeve like this whole conversation bored her more than espionage ever could.

"I dunno. Probably."
She glanced at Michael, who gave a little head-tilt of agreement.

"Like he said—it was kinda obvious."

John looked like he might burst a blood vessel.

"You didn't talk to him?"

Enola blinked, genuinely confused.
"Why would I?"

John just stared. “Because he’s your brother? Because this involves Sherlock? Because Irene Adler faked her death and is now back in the city playing God with burner phones and cheekbones?”

Enola rested her chin on her hand. “And?”

Michael leaned back, utterly unbothered. “To be fair, Enola doesn’t talk to Mycroft unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

“What counts as ‘necessary’?” John asked.

Enola raised her hand. “Nuclear launch codes.”

Michael nodded. “Or if she needs a corpse discreetly relocated.”

“Or if I’m bored,” Enola added. Then frowned. “But not this bored.”

John stared at them both like they were an improv troupe in hell.
The kind that charged cover at the door and served betrayal with a side of espresso.

Enola, entirely unfazed, leaned back against the table and casually asked:

“Did he figure out the password yet?”

John blinked. “What?”

Enola gestured vaguely toward her mental file labeled Sherlock Holmes, Emotional Crisis Edition.
“The phone. Irene’s. The locked one. Has he cracked it?”

John rubbed his face. “He tried 1895. Got it wrong. Nearly blew the thing up. Only has two attempts left.”

Michael gave a low whistle. “He really is spiraling.”

“Why don’t you help him?” John snapped, looking at Enola now, sharp. “You’re the bloody computer genius. The thing talks to satellites. You built a that freaky calculator—what, the Enigma one, but you won’t help your own brother?”

Enola just shrugged. “I’ll help.”

“Great—”

“If he asks.”

John froze.

“…What?”

Enola crossed her arms, face cool and perfectly still.
“I’ll help him if he asks. That’s the rule.”

John’s mouth opened—then closed—then opened again like he was buffering rage.

“He’ll never ask!” he snapped. “You know that! He’s Sherlock bloody Holmes, Enola! He would rather set the flat on fire and solve arson in the ashes than admit he needs help!”

Enola raised an eyebrow. “Then I guess he’ll be very sad. With two guesses left.”

Michael sipped his tea. “You could always tell him you need his help. That usually works.”

Enola snorted. “Manipulating Sherlock with emotional leverage is so 2012.”

John looked like he was going to implode.

“You’re both insufferable.”

Michael nodded. “Correct.”

Enola smirked. “But correct is better than kind.”

John stormed toward the door again, muttering curses in at least two dialects and possibly three levels of nervous breakdown.

“I swear to God, one day I am going to lock all of you in a room and just... watch what happens.”

Enola called sweetly after him:
“Make it a padded one. We like to bounce.”

SLAM.

Michael turned to her.

“You really won’t help unless he asks?”

She shrugged.
“He’s not stupid. He just needs to admit it matters.”

Sherlock walked alone through the hush of Baker Street, coat buttoned high, scarf knotted like a gentleman’s noose. His pace was steady. Controlled. Not the brisk flurry of deduction or a man in pursuit, but something colder. Measured.

It had been six days.
Six days since Irene Adler had supposedly died.
Six days of nothing but silence, ghosts, and the oppressive ache of unsolved questions.

He reached the door of 221B.

And stopped.

The door was open.

Not much — just ajar. Barely noticeable. But to Sherlock Holmes, it was screaming.

His gaze flicked to the splintered edge of the frame. The raw scrapes near the lock. Fresh. Not chipped, not worn — forced. Fast. Imprecise.

His breath slowed.

No panic. No fear.

Only focus.

He stepped inside.

The hallway was still. Air stagnant. Something was wrong.

Mrs Hudson’s door hung open. That wasn’t unusual. But her cleaning bucket — bleach, gloves, the old spray bottle — had been left sitting just outside.

Sloppy.

Mrs Hudson was many things, but sloppy was never one of them.

Sherlock’s eyes scanned the skirting near the stairs. A black scuff mark. Sharp. New.

In his mind, the scene assembled like clockwork:

Two men in black shoes. One slips slightly, leaves the mark. Between them, smaller shoes. White. Worn. Dragging against the grain of the floorboards.

Her trainers.

Her hand clawing the wallpaper. Tearing it.

She wasn’t walking. She was resisting.

Sherlock exhaled, just once.
Engaged.

Upstairs, the world was not right.

Mrs Hudson sat in his armchair like she was waiting to be executed. Hands twisted in her lap, shoulders hunched, a bruise blooming high on her cheek. Blood marked the corner of her mouth. Her eyes flicked up at the sound of his steps — and her whimper was barely human.

The man with the gun turned to him.

Neilson. American. Wrong build for subtlety. Cheap suit, expensive posture. The kind of man who thought authority came from volume.

Two more men stood behind him, lurking near the fireplace. Tranter and another. Disposable muscle.

Sherlock walked in slowly. No rush. No concern.

Like he was inspecting a crime scene that hadn’t happened yet.

“Please don’t snivel, Mrs Hudson,” he said mildly. “It does nothing to impede the flight of a bullet.”
A small pause. He looked at her, then back at Neilson.
“What a tender world that would be.”

Mrs Hudson swallowed. “Sorry, Sherlock.”

His gaze dropped to her bruises.

Fingers reached out — delicate, clinical — and pushed up her sleeve. Bruises. Blotches. Clear finger-shaped pressure wounds. He traced the rip in her blouse. Watched how she flinched. Memorised it.

Every mark. Every injury.
They were already evidence.

Behind him, Neilson shifted his grip on the gun.

“I believe you have something we want, Mr Holmes.”

Sherlock straightened. His face didn’t move — but the atmosphere did. Everything tilted.

“Then you should ask for it.”

The gun clicked softly. Higher now.

“I’ve been asking this one. She doesn’t seem to know anything.”
Neilson’s tone turned smug.
“But you know what I’m after, don’t you?”

Sherlock’s eyes locked on his. The temperature dropped by degrees.

“I believe I do.”

And just like that, Sherlock calculated the body.

Muscle distribution. Reflex range. Sight lines. Dominant hand. Gun pressure.

In his mind, words layered across the man’s body like targets.

CAROTID. SKULL. RIBS. THROAT. LUNGS.
AR-TE-RY.

Repeated. Highlighted.
Fragility disguised in arrogance.

He let that silence stretch — long enough to control the room.

Then, casually:
“First, send your boys away.”

Neilson arched a brow. “Why?”

Sherlock shrugged. “I dislike being outnumbered. It makes for too much stupid in the room.”

A beat.

Then Neilson waved a hand. “Go to the car.”

The two goons obeyed. Twitchy. Overcompensating.

Sherlock didn’t look at them. He was still watching the gun.

“Then get in the car and drive away,” he added.
“Don’t try to trick me. You know who I am. It doesn’t work.”

A lie. But a convincing one.

Now it was just him, Neilson, and Mrs Hudson.

“Next,” Sherlock said, “stop pointing that gun at me.”

Neilson gave a humorless smile. “So you can point one at me?”

“I’m unarmed.”

“Mind if I check?”

Sherlock raised his hands. Calm. Smooth.

“I insist.”

Neilson stepped forward, gun still levelled, the other hand patting down Sherlock’s coat.

Sherlock tilted his head as Neilson crouched—

—revealing what he’d been hiding behind his back the entire time.

The disinfectant spray bottle from Mrs Hudson’s bucket. Still in his grip.

He glanced at her.

She caught it. And smiled.

He rolled his eyes. Honestly.

Neilson stood upright.

And Sherlock sprayed him point-blank in the face.

The man screamed — stumbling back, eyes burning, gun arm flailing—

Sherlock stepped forward.

One precise, brutal headbutt.

Crack.

Neilson dropped like a puppet with its strings cut.

Sherlock stood over him, brushing a fleck of paint off his coat.

“Moron.”

Behind him, Mrs Hudson was breathing heavily. Crying, but no longer terrified.

He turned.

Knelt again.

“You’re alright now.”

She nodded, tears sliding silently down her cheeks.

And Sherlock Holmes had never looked more dangerous.

The car door hadn’t even closed behind him when John spotted the note.

Pinned to the front of 221B with a single tack, fluttering slightly in the chill wind.
All too familiar handwriting — sharp, jagged, purposeful.

CRIME IN PROGRESS. PLEASE DISTURB.

John didn’t knock. Didn’t breathe. He just ran.

He burst through the front door like a man expecting blood.

Instead, he found something worse.

Neilson — the American — was handcuffed to one of their dining chairs. Gaffer tape across his mouth. A bruise forming across the bridge of his nose. And Sherlock, casually pacing like a panther in a library, phone pressed to his ear, utterly composed.

John blinked. “What’s going on? What the hell is happening??”

Sherlock didn’t look up.
“Mrs Hudson was slapped by an American,” he said flatly.
“I’m restoring balance to the universe.”

John turned—
—and saw her.

Mrs Hudson. Shaking. Curled up on the sofa in Sherlock’s coat. Eyes red, lip split. Shoulders hunched like someone who’d made herself small to survive something that never should’ve reached her.

“Oh my God,” John breathed, rushing to her. “Mrs Hudson, are you alright? Jesus, what did they do?”

She tried to smile, even through the tears.
“Oh, I’m being so silly—”
And then she broke again, sobbing quietly into his shoulder.

Sherlock’s voice sharpened behind them.

“Downstairs. Take her. Now. She needs care. And I need five minutes.”

John helped her gently to her feet, leading her toward the stairs.
“Are you going to explain what’s been going on here?”

“I expect so,” Sherlock said, not missing a beat.
Then, back into the phone:
“Lestrade. Break-in at Baker Street. Send your least irritating officers. And an ambulance.”

He paused.

“No, no, we’re fine.”
A glance at Neilson. Cold. Flat.
“But the burglar seems to have gotten himself badly injured.”

Neilson’s eyes widened.

On the other end of the line, Lestrade must’ve asked how.

Sherlock’s tone didn’t change.
“Oh, you know. Few broken ribs. Skull fracture. Possibly a punctured lung.”
A beat.
“He fell out the window.”

Then he snapped the phone shut with a violence that made Neilson flinch.

Sherlock stepped forward. Slowly.

And stared down at him.

There was no anger on his face. Just something much colder.
The kind of fury that didn’t burn — it froze.

Neilson swallowed. And finally understood just how much trouble he was in.

John dabbed antiseptic across the cut on Mrs Hudson’s cheek with the kind of tenderness most men reserved for family. She sat at the table, small and silent, eyes glazed and faraway.

And then — outside the window — came the sound of shattering glass.

A crash. Heavy. Solid.

They both jumped.

From behind the curtain, something large had landed in the alley. Loud. Final.

Mrs Hudson blinked at the window.

“That was right on my bins!”

John didn’t even check. He didn’t want to know.

Blue lights. Sirens. An ambulance pulling away from the curb.

In its wake: Lestrade and Sherlock, standing face to face.

Lestrade looked down at the crushed bin bags and vaguely human-shaped dent on the concrete.

“Exactly how many times did he fall out of that window?”

Sherlock didn’t blink.
“It was all a bit of a blur, Detective Inspector. I lost count.”

John was still with her, gently wrapping her wrist where bruises had begun to form. She was quieter now, the worst of the adrenaline fading, the shock setting in.

Sherlock stepped into the doorway.

John stood. Met him halfway.

“She’ll have to sleep upstairs tonight,” he said firmly.
“She’s not staying here. Not after this. We’ll keep her with us until she’s back on her feet.”

Sherlock nodded, but glanced toward her.
“She’s fine.”

John gave him a hard look.
“No, she’s not.”
He gestured toward her. “Look at her. She needs time. She needs space. She needs to be somewhere that doesn’t smell like fear.”

Sherlock didn’t answer.

John pressed.
“She should go stay with her sister for a while. Doctor’s orders.”

Sherlock scoffed. “Don’t be absurd.”

“She’s in shock, for God’s sake!” John snapped.
Then added, lower:
“And all of this… for that bloody stupid camera phone. Where is it, anyway?”

Sherlock didn’t speak.

Instead, he turned to Mrs Hudson and held out his hand.

Without hesitation, she reached into the inside pocket of her cardigan —
and pulled out the leopard-skin phone.

“You left it in your second-best dressing gown, you clot,” she muttered, voice shaking with exhaustion.
“Managed to sneak it out while they thought I was crying.”

Sherlock took it gently. Tossed it once, caught it mid-air, and slid it into his coat.

“Thank you.”

Then he looked at John.

“Shame on you.”

John blinked. “What?”

Sherlock’s voice was quieter now.

“Mrs Hudson? Leave Baker Street?”

He turned back to her. And for the first time all night—

Sherlock Holmes wrapped his arms around her.

Held her close.

Not like a soldier protecting a civilian.
Not like a detective preserving a witness.

But like a man who remembered who gave him tea after every case. Who sewed buttons back on his coats. Who never asked questions when he brought back bloodied shirts or trembling hands.

“England would fall.”

Chapter Text

221B BAKER STREET – NIGHT
DECEMBER 31st – 11:46 PM

The flat was dark except for the flicker of the streetlamps outside. Muffled cheers drifted in through the windows — countdown parties, cheap champagne, muffled pop music warbling up through the walls. A city pretending everything would change in sixteen minutes.

John was slouched in his chair, coat still on, fingers tapping nervously against a half-empty glass. He didn’t even glance up when the front door slammed.

Just muttered:

“So. Where is it now?”

Behind him, footsteps. Familiar weight. Sherlock didn’t answer immediately — coat rustling, keys hitting the side table with just a little too much force.

“Somewhere no one will look.”

John nodded. Didn’t press.
He didn’t need to ask what.

The phone.
Still locked. Still waiting. Still hers.

“Whatever’s on that camera…” John murmured, swirling the glass. “It’s more than pictures, isn’t it?”

A beat.

Sherlock stepped past him to the window, gazing out like the answer might be written in the sky instead of encrypted behind Irene Adler’s final gift.

“Yes,” he said simply.

John watched his back for a moment, jaw tight. Sherlock’s shoulders were hunched slightly — not in weakness, but in thought. Always in thought. Always a battlefield in that mind.

Sherlock picked up the violin.

Let it rest in his hand. Just holding it. Fingers drumming absently against the wood.

John sipped his drink. Then, carefully:

“So. She’s alive, then.”

Silence.

“Any thoughts about that? Emotions? Human feelings you’d like to discuss with the class?”

Nothing.

Just the faintest twitch in Sherlock’s jaw. His eyes never left the window.

Outside, the first fireworks cracked through the cold.
Laughter. Cheers. Horns. Someone singing off-key.

“Happy New Year, John,” Sherlock said, soft and hollow.

John snorted.

“Yeah, cheers. Genuinely thrilled to be spending it with your psychological repression.”

Sherlock didn’t reply.

He was tuning the violin now. Slowly. Carefully. Like he was winding down a bomb.

John shifted forward in his chair.

“Do you think you’ll… see her again?”

That got a flicker.

Sherlock glanced over at him — just once — but the look said everything.

You knew. You followed me. You watched.

And John didn’t deny it.

Didn’t have to.

Sherlock’s gaze lingered for a breath too long, then turned away. He set the violin beneath his chin and drew the bow across the strings.

The sound was gentle. Melancholic. Familiar in that way only heartbreak could be.

“Should auld acquaintance be forgot…”

John listened in silence. Not moving.

Then, after a moment:

“You should ask Enola for help.”

The bow stopped mid-glide.
A sharp note, cut off. Suspended.

Sherlock didn’t turn. But his entire posture changed.

“Absolutely not.”

John raised his eyebrows. “Why not?”

“Because I’d rather swallow a loaded pistol than grant her the satisfaction of being useful.”

“Oh, come on—”

“No.”

Sherlock turned now, violin still in hand, the expression on his face not angry, but something worse: affronted.

“I am not bringing in a feral child with a god complex and a custom-built calculator capable of cracking MI6 just to solve a single code.”

John blinked. “You do realise that’s the most convincing argument for asking her, not against it?”

Sherlock looked vaguely like he might throw the violin. Or John.

“She’ll gloat. She’ll monologue. She’ll never let me forget it.”

“She already doesn’t let you forget anything.”

“Exactly.”

John leaned back, exasperated.

“Sherlock, she’s your sister. She’s brilliant. She’s probably already unlocked the damn thing just for the fun of it and is waiting for you to crawl to her.”

Sherlock made a noise that was somewhere between a scoff and a full-body recoil.

“I don’t crawl.”

John sighed. Drained his glass.

“Fine. Then sulk. You’ve got about eleven minutes left to be the most emotionally constipated man in London this year. After that, you’re going to have to work even harder to earn the title next year.”

Sherlock said nothing.

The fireworks outside got louder. The whole city was lighting up in brief bursts of noise and glitter and longing.

John stood. Moved toward the kitchen.

From behind him, the violin started again.

Softer this time. Slower. More careful.

Sherlock Holmes.
Alone in the window.
Playing a song for someone who wasn’t dead.
Who chose not to be seen.
And left him, again, with questions instead of answers.

Outside:
Ten. Nine. Eight.

Inside:
Just two men.

And a ghost between them.

SOME UNDERGROUND CLUB – LONDON – 11:59 P.M.
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE STORY

The bass was too loud. The lights too fast. The bodies too close.

And Enola Holmes had never looked more relaxed.

She was laughing — real, drunk, messy laughing — tangled in Michael’s arms near the edge of the dance floor, champagne in one hand, someone else’s glitter on her cheek. Her lipstick was half gone. Her braid had unraveled. Her boots had mud on them from scaling a back fence three hours ago because the line was too long.

“Eight! Seven!”
The crowd was screaming.

Michael leaned down, breath warm against her ear.
“You know we look like we’re not dangerous right now?”

Enola grinned at him, flushed and glowing.
“Terrifying, isn’t it?”

They clinked their glasses.

“Six!”

He kissed her temple, arm tight around her waist, steadying them both.

She stole his hat.

“Five!”

They were sticky with sweat and spilled cocktails. Confetti in their hair. Tactical knives tucked into their boots — because of course.

“Four!”

Michael leaned into her shoulder, voice low and joking.
“Remind me again what we’re celebrating?”

“Being alive,” she said, tipping back the last of her champagne.

“Three!”

“Being free,” she added, wrapping her scarf around both their necks like a tether.

“Two!”

She glanced up at him.
“And the fact that for once—
no one’s trying to kill us this week.”

“One!”

The room erupted.

Fireworks lit the ceiling. People screamed and kissed and lost their minds for exactly six seconds of human connection.

Michael kissed her.

Full. Deep. Hands in her hair like she was something he needed to anchor himself to.

And Enola—

Enola kissed him back like she wasn’t built for war.

Like maybe, for one stolen night, she could pass for someone who just loved, and danced, and existed without calculating the threat level of everyone in the room.

Her fingers curled into his shirt.

Happy New Year.

On the other side of the city, her brother played a dead woman’s song.

But here—
Enola Holmes danced like she was very much alive.

LONDON – DAY
TIME SKIPS. MEMORY DOESN’T.

The streets had changed.

Gone were the grey skies and breath-fogged glass.
Now it was heat. Blazing sun reflecting off shop windows. Ice cream melting too fast. Tourists in shirts too bright. Horns. Laughter. The chaos of a city pretending summer made everything better.

But for Sherlock Holmes, seasons were irrelevant.

Only puzzles mattered.

ST. BARTS – DAY
STATIC IN THE SUNLIGHT

The hum of machines was almost soothing.

Sherlock stood beneath fluorescent lights, coat abandoned, sleeves rolled up, hands occupied. His face was calm. His mind was not.

The phone sat beneath the X-ray machine.

Irene’s phone.
Leopard-skin. Slim. Dangerous.

He hadn’t cracked it.

Not yet.

Behind him, Molly moved carefully — the quiet kind of helpful. She was used to the atmosphere now. She didn’t ask many questions.

At first.

“Is that a phone?” she asked, peering at the screen.

Sherlock didn’t look up. “A camera phone.”

There it was — Irene’s device, illuminated in shades of white and shadow. The interior lit like a crime scene.

Black shapes dotted the circuitry. Too symmetrical to be dust. Too deliberate to be innocent.

“You’re X-raying it?” she asked softly.

“Yes,” he said.

She leaned in slightly, curious despite herself. “Whose phone is it?”

“A woman’s,” Sherlock replied, still scanning the layers of wire and threat.

That did it. A flicker. A silence too long.

“Your girlfriend?”

The question was clumsy. Hopeful. Immediately regretted.

Sherlock blinked once, then turned to look at her.

“You think she’s my girlfriend because I’m X-raying her possessions?”

Molly flushed. Took a nervous step back. “We all do silly things…”

She turned away. Pretended to reorganize something that didn’t need organizing. Her hands shook a little.

But Sherlock’s gaze lingered.

Something had caught. Not what she meant — but the principle beneath it.

People do silly things.

He pulled the phone from the tray.

“She sent this to my address,” he murmured. “And she loves to play games.”

Molly stilled. The worry returned to her voice before she could stop it.

“She does?”

He ignored her.

His thumb hovered over the screen. He typed again.

I AM
[2] [2] [1] [B]
LOCKED.

The screen flashed red.

WRONG PASSCODE.
1 ATTEMPT REMAINING.

Sherlock’s jaw tensed.

Molly stepped back a little more, her hands fidgeting with the sleeves of her cardigan.

She didn’t say anything else.

But in that room, under buzzing lights and the soft mechanical murmur of medical equipment, Sherlock Holmes stood over a phone that refused to give him what he wanted.

One try left.

TANGIER, MOROCCO – LATE WINTER( BEFORE ST. BARTS – DAY) 
MISSION: JUDAS NODE

Night draped itself over the Medina like a net of smoke and dying embers. Tangier’s coastal chill tangled with the heat rising off stone walls, the smell of salt and burnt oil drifting in from the docks.

Enola moved like water between alleyways — boots silent, breath measured, hair tucked beneath a deep navy scarf. Michael ghosted two paces behind, his silhouette blending with the deeper shadows, hands relaxed but ready to break bone at a moment’s twitch.

The target zone wasn’t a fortress. It was worse.

A hub.
Open to civilians. Swarming with low-tier dealers, smugglers, freelancers. But threaded underneath — buried like wire in concrete — was something darker.

They’d traced the name JUDAS NODE to an encrypted list inside Irene Adler’s exfil data. A dead drop. A data archive stored in a physical transponder, buried in a customs office masquerading as a mechanical parts vendor.

Moriarty wasn’t just buying.
He was selling.

To everyone.

They’d watched the building for forty-eight hours before moving.

One guard by the front. Two cameras. Easy blind spots. But the danger wasn’t outside — it was in the back, under the walls, where encrypted servers and client ledgers were kept in climate-locked canisters beneath concrete flooring.

The kind of data you couldn’t move digitally.
Too many secrets. Too many buyers who’d kill if their names leaked.

Exactly the kind of thing Moriarty would thrive on.

ENTRY +7 MINUTES

They were inside.

Michael had neutralised the perimeter quietly, nothing permanent. Just sleep. Just silence.

Enola moved through the server floor like a thought. Small. Precise. Her gloved hands moved over the external console, connecting her device to the hard-coded uplink. Her breathing was tight. Controlled.

But the pressure was there.
Building behind her eyes like a storm.

She ignored it.

One folder decrypted: EXPORT LOGS.
Another: CLIENT KEYS.
The last: M— (Encrypted twice, blinking red.)

She typed faster.

Michael watched from the shadows, his back to the far wall, eyes scanning every vent, every crack of movement. He could feel her pace quickening — not from adrenaline. From strain.

“Rigan,” he said softly through the comm. “You’re sweating.”

“Temperature control’s off,” she replied flatly. “Focus.”

But it wasn’t just heat.

The static had returned — not in the room, but in her skull. A deep thrum. Like pressure building behind her eyes. Her hands trembled for half a second, and she clenched them into fists.

Michael stepped closer. “Enola—”

“Not now,” she hissed. “Just a few more—”

Final file: TRACE_MAP.pdf
Active routes: Algeria → Balkans → Berlin
BUYERS: Redacted
SELLERS: Moriarty-linked LLCs
MIDDLEMAN: Unknown, listed only as **V.

She started transferring the data.

Then it hit.

Not all at once. But enough.

A wave of vertigo. The floor shifted beneath her boots. Her vision pixelated. Noise in her ear — not the comm, but inside. Too loud. Too sharp. Her hand slipped from the console.

Michael caught her before she hit the floor.

Her legs gave out mid-breath, knees buckling under her as her vision narrowed into tunneling grey. She clung to the server like it was the edge of a cliff, trying to finish the data sync, her fingers slapping the keypad.

“I’ve got it—just wait—just one—”

Her sentence cut off.
She couldn’t breathe.

Her hands spasmed.

Michael caught her, hauled her back with one arm and yanked the transfer cable with the other. The portable terminal snapped shut.

He pulled her into the shadows just as the auto-lockdown protocol triggered.

A red light blinked across the room.
Someone had noticed the breach.

Footsteps. Rapid.
Arabic shouts. Radios crackling.

“Abort,” Michael said into her ear. “We’re done. Mission’s over.”

She shook her head. Or tried to.

“Not yet. Just… give me a second—”

“No. You’re done. I’m not losing you for a bloody folder.”

She was already half-conscious, teeth clenched to hold back a groan, arms limp in his grip.

Michael flung a flash-pulse against the far wall. The corridor exploded in white light and sound, sending three men tumbling back with curses.

They bolted.

EXFIL +13 MINUTES
SAFEHOUSE: UNKNOWN ZONE, TANGIER OUTSKIRTS

She came to on a concrete floor. Cool tiles. Smell of old cigarettes and lemon cleaner. The lights were dim. The windows sealed.

Michael sat across from her, crouched, silent.

The data drive was on the table beside him.

She tried to sit up.

Michael didn’t stop her. Just watched.

“Did we get it?” she asked, voice hoarse.

“Yes.”

“Anything useful?”

“Yes.”

Pause.

Then:

“You had a seizure.”

Enola exhaled. Laid back down. “It wasn’t a seizure.”

Michael didn’t speak.

She closed her eyes. “It was manageable.”

“You blacked out.”

“Temporarily.”

“You stopped breathing.”

“…Briefly.”

Michael stood. Moved to the window. Didn’t open it. Just pressed his forehead to the edge of the cool glass like he needed the world outside to make more sense.

“I told you the pills wouldn’t hold it off forever,” he said, voice low.

“I know.”

“I told you this mission was too high-risk.”

“I know.”

“I told you I can’t do this without you.”

That stopped her.

She sat up — slowly — and looked at him.

His jaw was clenched. His hands in his pockets so he wouldn’t reach for her too soon. Not out of coldness. Out of restraint.

Enola Holmes was a creature of war. Precision. Brutality.
But this man — this quiet, loyal monster — was her shelter.

And he was terrified.

“Michael,” she said softly. “I’m not dead.”

He turned.

“No,” he said. “But you're burning through yourself like you want to be.”

Silence.

Long. Heavy. Honest.

Then — quieter — he added:
“If I hadn’t been there—”

“But you were.”

She stood. Slowly. Still unsteady.

But upright.

He crossed the space in a breath. Held her face in both hands, thumbs brushing the fine sweat from her temples, the fading tremor in her jaw. He didn’t kiss her.

He measured her.

Then:

“Next time,” he whispered, “we pull the plug earlier.”

Enola didn’t argue.

She just leaned into his shoulder and whispered, “Next time, we go faster.”

Chapter Text

SAFEHOUSE – TANGIER – MORNING AFTER
MISSION: JUDAS NODE — STATUS: EXFIL COMPLETE
DEBRIEF – 06:21 A.M.

The morning light in Tangier was a soft lie — golden and warm, dripping through the slats of rusted shutters like something gentle.

Inside, the air was anything but.

The room smelled like metal and antiseptic. A bucket sat near the bed, half full of water gone pink from a burst nosebleed. A broken IV line lay curled like a dead snake on the floor. The pills were lined up beside the sink, untouched.

Enola sat cross-legged on the floor.

Not weak — coiled.
Wrapped in one of Michael’s shirts, damp hair pulled back, eyes locked on the open data slate in front of her. Every muscle in her shoulders was taut with the quiet rage of someone who couldn’t stop thinking — but didn’t yet trust her own brain to keep up.

Michael moved behind her, barefoot, silent.

“Vitals?” he asked.

“Heart rate stabilised. No neural misfires since 04:00,” she said automatically.

Michael glanced at the bloodied cloth on the side table and didn’t comment. He knew better.

He poured her water instead. Handed her the glass. She took it without thanks — not rudely, but ritually. This was their rhythm. He kept her standing. She kept them sharp.

The screen between them glowed with decrypted documents. Smuggler manifests. Foreign accounts. Blackmail portfolios encrypted beneath asset codes.

And one repeated anomaly.

“V.”

Michael sat down beside her.

“Sixteen different transactions. Eleven countries. Three buyer groups. Every time, it’s routed through the same name — just the initial. V.”

Enola didn’t speak.

He glanced at her. “You think it’s him?”

“I think Moriarty’s arrogant, but not stupid. He wouldn’t risk direct contact with these deals. But if there was someone he trusted — someone dangerous enough to do his dirty work, but valuable enough to protect…”

She tapped the screen.

“V is the middleman.”

Michael’s eyes narrowed. “Or the one pulling the strings.”

She nodded. Once.

Then, quietly: “We need to find them.”

He studied her for a long beat. “You’re still shaking.”

“Then make the plan.”

He raised an eyebrow. “You’re giving me point?”

“I’m giving you delegated authority. Don’t let it go to your head.”

Michael smirked, but it didn’t reach his eyes.

He leaned forward, tapping in new search parameters: patterns in transfer routes, border authorities bribed, hotel and safehouse overlap. Slowly, the map filled with dots.

Paris. Prague. Jakarta. Tunis.

And in the centre — always adjacent, always circled but never named — was Madrid.

Michael clicked it.

A small dossier unfurled.

Nothing special. A shipping company. Shell accounts. Warehouse lease. Name on the lease: Jules Vaillant.

Initial match: V.

French passport. No facial data. No photos.
Last customs record: three weeks ago.

Enola exhaled, eyes flicking across the data.

“Madrid,” she murmured. “He’s hiding in plain sight.”

Michael turned to her. “When do we move?”

Enola stood slowly.
Tested her balance.
Didn’t wobble.

“Give me twenty-four hours,” she said. “Then we ghost him.”

Michael hesitated.

“You’re not ready.”

She met his gaze.

“No,” she said. “But I’m not dying yet.”

He didn’t argue.

Not this time.

MADRID – OUTSKIRTS – 00:41 A.M.
MISSION: OPERATION VAULTWALKER
OBJECTIVE: Intercept and identify ‘Jules Vaillant’
RESULT: FAILURE. CRITICAL.

The warehouse sat like a sleeping beast beneath the orange haze of industrial sodium lights, its metal siding groaning in the wind. Madrid’s outskirts were quiet this time of night — too quiet. No tourists. No noise. Just the distant rattle of trucks on cracked asphalt and the occasional bark of a stray dog echoing off walls.

Michael crouched behind a stack of abandoned shipping pallets, eyes flicking between heat signatures on his terminal and the narrow door Enola was seconds from breaching.

She was crouched low. Breathing steady. Movements flawless.

But he knew something was wrong.

He’d known it since they got off the train.

The slight tremor in her left hand. The way she blinked longer between thoughts. The fact that she hadn’t cracked a joke in hours.

But she’d said she was fine.

She’d insisted.

So he let her lead.

And now…

She ghosted through the side entrance like liquid shadow, body melting into the dark. Her blade was strapped low on her thigh, and the hidden comm in her ear barely crackled.

“Two inside,” she whispered. “Both armed. Vaillant’s likely upstairs. No visible surveillance.”

Michael’s voice was calm. “Copy. I’ll take external overwatch. Signal if anything shifts.”

He expected a confirmation.

What he got was silence.

One breath. Two.

Then—

“I’ve got this.”

She moved.

The stairs were steel and hollow, each step a drumbeat Enola compensated for with perfect timing. The two guards downstairs never noticed her — one flicking through a cheap burner, the other nursing something that looked like vodka and regrets.

She reached the office door on the second floor.

Vaillant.
She was sure of it.

Enola tapped the device in her pocket — her modified signal scrambler pulsing quietly, severing any outbound transmissions from within thirty feet.

One door. One man. One more answer to chase Moriarty’s shadow.

She reached for the handle—

—and her vision fractured.

No warning.

Just white-hot pressure detonating behind her eyes like a silent bomb.

She staggered. One knee buckled.

The world spun.

She forced herself upright. Clenched her jaw so hard her teeth cracked together.

Not now.
Not now.

Her hand trembled against the doorframe. Her other reached for the pill in her belt pouch — but she missed. Fingers numb.

Sweat slicked her palms. She blinked. Her vision split in half — red on the left, black on the right.

Michael’s voice in her ear, suddenly sharp:

“Enola. I’m seeing movement—what’s happening?”

She didn’t answer.

She couldn’t.

The office door burst open.

Vaillant stood there, startled — half undressed, shirt unbuttoned, gun just out of reach on the desk.

She should have lunged.
Thrown her knife.
Smashed him into the wall and dragged answers from his mouth.

But she was swaying.

And then her legs gave out.

She collapsed in the doorway.

WAREHOUSE – MOMENTS LATER

Michael heard the sound through the comm — the crash, the breath cut short.

He was already running.

He dropped two guards in under six seconds — precision shots, non-lethal, just enough to clear his path.

He reached the second floor in time to see two men dragging Enola’s limp body across the floor toward a loading dock. One of them had her comm in his hand, crushed.

She wasn’t unconscious.

Not completely.

But she wasn’t fighting, either.

Michael didn’t remember crossing the distance. He just remembered the way one of them screamed when his jaw broke against the steel railing. The second one didn’t make a sound.

He grabbed Enola.

She was breathing, barely. Skin clammy. Eyes glassy.

“Enola. Look at me. Look at me.”

She twitched. Tried to speak. Her lips moved, but no words came out.

Then her body arched once — hard — and she went still.

Michael hoisted her into his arms. Sprinting out. Firing a flash behind them.

He didn’t check to see if Vaillant was still in the office.

He didn’t care.

SAFEHOUSE – HOURS LATER

She was stable.

But quiet.

Hooked up to fluids. Her heartbeat had spiked dangerously high and then flatlined for three seconds on the med scanner before crawling back up again.

Michael sat beside her the entire time, face unreadable.

His hands were still stained with blood.

Her blood.

He hadn’t stopped shaking.

The mission had failed.
Vaillant was gone.
The data server had self-purged after their incursion.
No backups. No trace.

Enola had lost consciousness for nearly an hour.

And when she finally stirred — eyelids fluttering, breath catching in her chest — the first thing she said wasn’t “Where am I?”

It was:

“…I almost had him.”

Michael exhaled. Sat back. Dragged a hand down his face.

“Yeah,” he said softly. “You almost died, too.”

She turned her head slowly. “But I didn’t.”

“No,” he said. “Because I was there. And next time, if I’m not—?”

Silence.

She didn’t answer.

Because there wasn’t one.

LOCATION: UNDISCLOSED SAFEHOUSE, SOUTHERN SPAIN
36 HOURS AFTER THE MISSION

Michael sat on the edge of the bed, elbows resting on his knees, spine curled in that rare way that said he wasn’t ready to be still. His shirt was wrinkled. His knuckles were still raw.

The room smelled like antiseptic and adrenaline.

Enola lay beneath thin linen sheets, pale against the dull orange lamp glow. A biosensor clung to her wrist. The IV hissed quietly in the background. Her body was still — too still — in that way that made him check every few minutes just to be sure she was breathing.

She hadn’t stopped.

But she’d been gone for a while. Dead-eyed. Heavy-limbed. Drained like something vital had been siphoned out and only the structure was left behind.

She’d only just woken up.

And when she had, she hadn’t cried. She hadn’t apologised. She hadn’t even flinched.

She just said:

“We’ll need a new access point in Tangier. The servers are gone, but the clients won’t stop moving.”

Michael didn’t answer.

He stood. Walked to the sink. Rinsed blood from his hands that wasn’t even visible anymore.

“You collapsed,” he said at last.

She blinked. Slowly. “I’m aware.”

He turned, voice sharp now. “No, Enola. You froze. Mid-op. Mid-room. You didn’t even reach for the pill. You went down. I had to carry you out while dodging bullets and pray you didn’t seize up again while I was dragging your body through an industrial killzone.”

She stared at him.

Flat. Calm. Dead-eyed.

“I had control of the situation.”

Michael laughed. But it wasn’t kind.

“Is that what you call it now? You convulsed in my arms and your pupils weren’t tracking. You were gone for thirty-seven seconds. And I thought—”
He stopped. Swallowed it down.

Still, Enola didn’t flinch.

She just looked at the ceiling. Then said, coolly:

“I need help.”

Three words.

Clinical. Distant. Like reading an injury report.

Michael stared at her. “Say it again.”

She didn’t.

So he walked back to the bed, knelt down until they were eye level, and said — not angry now, but broken:

“Please don’t do that. Don’t turn it into a mission log. Don’t turn this into data.”

Her lips parted slightly. Not from emotion. Just fatigue.

“I’m not turning it into anything,” she murmured. “It already is.”

“You nearly blacked out in the hands of someone who wanted you dead.”

“I know.”

“And you’re saying it like it’s nothing.”

“No,” she said softly. “I’m saying it like someone who’s seen what happens when you pretend it isn’t.”

A long silence.

Then—without theatrics, without emotion—she added:

“We need to find a doctor. A real one. Not field med.”

Michael’s hands twitched. He wanted to hug her. He wanted to break something. He wanted her to scream, or cry, or feel it — but she didn’t. Couldn’t.

So he just nodded.

“Alright,” he said, voice hoarse. “We’ll find one. Full scan. No cover. Proper diagnosis. Real options.”

She didn’t answer.

She just turned her face slightly toward the wall and whispered:

“We don’t have much time.”

LONDON – MYCROFT HOLMES – MI5 BRIEFING VAULT

48 HOURS AFTER MISSION FAILURE

The envelope arrived in silence.

Unmarked. No return stamp. Slid under the security-glass door of Mycroft’s private vault — his vault, one of the most secure rooms in Whitehall. No one was seen. No one reported the breach.

Inside the envelope: three things.

1. A grainy security still of Enola Holmes collapsing in a warehouse stairwell.

2. A cropped close-up of Michael carrying her limp body over his shoulder — face tight, urgent, blood on his collar.

3. A single white business card.

Blank, except for a crimson watermark in the corner.

M

Mycroft stared at it for a long time.

He didn’t speak. He didn’t move.

Only when the lights flickered did he remember to breathe.

FIVE MINUTES LATER

His hand was shaking when he poured the scotch. He only realised it when the liquid hit the desk instead of the glass.

He didn’t clean it up.

He was too busy staring at the photo of his youngest sibling, crumpled mid-fall, in the arms of a man he had not authorised to operate with her.

Enola Holmes.

Off-grid. Off-protocol.
Running operations against Moriarty’s trade network without briefing, clearance, or support.
Worse: doing it alone.

His blood ran cold.

He picked up the emergency secure line to the Madrid embassy. His voice didn’t waver.

“Full sweep of all customs activity at industrial sectors 17 through 22. Warehouse clearance codes ending in VX-9. Confirm any British nationals matching these facial profiles.”

A pause.

Then, lower:

“And find out who’s leaking my sister’s location to Moriarty.”

He hung up.

And stared at the watermark again.

M

Not a taunt.

A message.

Moriarty knew.
He knew Enola was operating independently.
He knew she had almost been taken.

And worse —

He didn’t stop it.

He didn’t intervene.

He was waiting.

Chapter Text

LOCATION: PRINCETON-PLAINSBORO TEACHING HOSPITAL – NEW JERSEY, USA
DAY ONE – 11:42 A.M

The air smelled like citrus cleaner and bureaucracy.

White tile. Whispered conversations. Wheelchairs squeaking past. Nurses behind glass windows typing with one hand while answering phones with the other. Names mispronounced over the intercom.

And Enola Holmes sat like a ghost in a chair too plastic to feel real.

Her passport said Hazel Hensley.
Her medical file said “pre-diagnosed glioma, frontal lobe.”
Her expression said: Don’t get too close unless you’re ready to bleed for it.

Michael sat beside her, arms folded, legs relaxed in the way that said "not a threat" only if you didn’t know what to look for. His eyes scanned the corridor. Exit signs. ID badges. The rhythm of a world not built to handle people like them.

They hadn’t spoken much since they landed.

Enola had slept through most of the flight. Or pretended to.

She looked… frayed. Not from fear. But like something inside her was slowly being eaten by fire, and she was too busy calculating airflow to scream.

He hadn’t tried to hold her hand.

She hadn’t offered.

A nurse called her name.

She stood.

Didn’t wobble. Didn’t blink.

Michael followed, two steps behind — her shadow, her knife, her quiet defense.

They were led down a corridor of soft lights and antiseptic restraint. Past a wall of children’s drawings and framed donor plaques that tried too hard to make suffering look noble.

At the end of the hall:
ONCOLOGY – CONSULTATION SUITE 4

The nurse gestured. “Dr. Wilson will be with you shortly.”

Michael nodded. “Thanks.”

Enola said nothing.

The consultation room was quiet. Tastefully minimalist. A walnut desk, two chairs, a monitor, and a box of tissues that hadn’t been touched — the kind of detail that meant someone had been crying recently, or someone was expected to.

Enola didn’t sit. Not right away.

She moved instead — a slow, methodical sweep of the room.

Air vent. Pressure locks. Light sensors. Camera blink. Nothing obvious, but her mind logged each element the way others remembered names or birthdays.

Michael sat. Quiet. Watching.

He let her complete the loop.

He always did.

The door opened.

And in walked a man.

Late forties. White coat over a subtle grey suit. No tie. Brown eyes warm behind tired lines. Hands clean. Clipboard tucked under one arm. The kind of posture that didn’t force calm — it offered it.

He looked at Hazel, then Michael, and smiled — not professionally, not habitually. But gently. Humanly.

“Ms. Hensley,” he said. “I’m Dr. James Wilson. I’ll be working with you.”

Michael stood, extended a hand. “Michael Hanly. Partner.”

Wilson shook it without flinching. “Romantic or legal?”

Michael smiled, dry. “Both.”

Wilson nodded like he understood exactly what kind of answer that was — and didn’t judge it. “Alright then. Let’s get started before the nerves make someone bolt.”

They sat.

Wilson pulled up the chart. Scans bloomed on the monitor — soft grey matter, bright contrast patterns, and a serpentine glow like moonlight wrapped behind her left frontal lobe.

“Glioma,” he said. “Confirmed on your field scan from Kandahar. Military-grade imaging. Frontal, left hemisphere. You’ve been managing it with chlorotabine and a tailored anti-inflammatory stack. No radiation. No surgical intervention. No chemo.”

Enola’s voice was smooth. Flat. “Correct.”

“No nausea?”

“Not yet.”

“Fatigue? Loss of clarity? Hallucinations?”

Michael shifted slightly.

Enola answered, “Only when I’m bored.”

Wilson glanced up. Not amused. Not annoyed. Just thoughtful.

“You’ve been pushing it.”

“I didn’t come here to collapse,” she replied. “I came here to stay ahead of it.”

“And are you?”

“I’m not dead yet.”

Wilson leaned back. The scan glowed beside him — quiet, brutal truth in grayscale.

He tapped his pen once against the desk. Not impatient. Just present.

“I’m going to need a full workup. New imaging. Full panel. Possibly a stereotactic biopsy if the size and location allow. I don’t make decisions blind.”

“That’s fine,” Enola said. Then, lightly, “But I’m not taking up residency here. Expedite what you can.”

Wilson’s brow rose slightly. Not disapproving. Just… seeing her.

“I’ll do what’s medically sound.”

Enola met his gaze. “I’ll do what’s tactically necessary.”

The silence was brief, but not uncomfortable.

Then he nodded.

“Deal.”

They were halfway back down the corridor when it happened.

A man passed them. Limping slightly. Cane tapping with irritation against the floor tiles. Muttering something about “interns with God complexes” and “soap operas disguised as science.”

Enola looked at him once.

Just once.

No flicker of recognition. No weight. Just another anomaly moving through the system.

Michael held the elevator.

And when the doors closed behind them, she finally said—

“…I like this place.”

Michael raised a brow. “You like the hospital?”

“No,” she said. “I like the doctor.”

“You don’t even know him.”

Her voice was quieter now.

“He doesn’t ask useless questions.”

The elevator hummed.

And somewhere below them, the machines spun to life — preparing to search her brain for the story she’d spent years rewriting.

DAY ONE – 14:07 P.M.

The walls were too quiet.

That was the first sign.

No one in the hallways laughed. No one dropped a clipboard. No one wheeled a squeaky cart past the door. The silence wasn’t comfort—it was a vacuum, and Michael could feel it long before Wilson said a word.

The scan was still up on the monitor when they walked in. Greys, whites, and a blot of something more—something jagged and coiled and hungry—like a star slowly dying behind Enola’s eyes.

Wilson didn’t sit right away.

He stood by the screen, pen tapping lightly against his fingers, lips pressed together like he’d tried to rehearse this but knew no version of it would land soft.

Enola sat first.

Calm. Straight-backed. Legs crossed at the ankle. Unshaken.

Michael remained standing.

Wilson finally broke the silence.

“The tumour has grown since the original imaging. Significantly.”

His tone was soft. Professional. The kind of voice worn smooth from overuse—men who’d given too much bad news to keep pretending it got easier.

“It’s spread across the left frontal lobe and is now pressing on the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. That’s… bad.”

Michael didn’t breathe.

Enola blinked. “How bad?”

Wilson looked at her for a moment—like he was trying to gauge how much truth she could hold. Then gave up on anything gentle.

“Unresectable. For now. The location makes surgical removal too dangerous. Too much risk to core cognitive function—motor planning, speech, memory… judgment.”

A pause.

He let that last word linger.

Michael finally sank into the chair like the wind had been knocked out of him without ever touching his lungs.

“So what’s the plan?” he asked, voice dull. “We just… wait?”

“No.” Wilson turned to the second screen. Charts. Bloodwork. Response probabilities. Survival curves. “We start chemo. Immediately. High-dose, targeted therapy. The goal is tumour shrinkage—if we reduce it enough, we may reach a window where surgery becomes possible.”

“And if it doesn’t shrink?” Michael’s voice was brittle now. Taut with fear he wasn’t used to voicing.

Wilson hesitated. Then: “Then we keep trying.”

Enola’s tone didn’t shift. “Prognosis?”

He hesitated again. Then sighed. “I’ve seen cases like this. Not many. The five-year survival rate for a tumour of this progression and placement…”

“Not helpful,” Enola cut in smoothly. “Statistics are abstractions. Give me the number you actually believe.”

Wilson looked her directly in the eye.

“You have a 3% chance of surviving five years,” he said.

Michael made a sound. Not a word. Just… sound.

It scraped out of him like a blade dragged across stone.

Enola didn’t look at him.

She looked at Wilson.

“Start today?”

He nodded. “Yes. First cycle begins at sixteen hundred hours. We’ll monitor your immune suppression, liver function, side effects. You will be very sick.”

She stood. “Pain isn’t a deterrent. Let me know what I need to sign.”

Wilson watched her. She was already halfway to the door.

Then paused.

She wasn’t in shock. She wasn’t suppressing emotion.

There was nothing behind her expression at all. Not numbness. Not fear. Just… absence.

It was too clean.

Too familiar.

He’d seen shock before. He’d seen trauma—patients gripping composure like a lifeline while the world collapsed beneath them.

This wasn’t that.

This was a person who had no emotional framework to collapse.

He leaned back slightly.

“Hazel… has anyone ever talked to you about cognitive behavioural effects from the tumour? Any prior neurological conditions? Personality shifts?”

Enola turned, only slightly.

“I don’t follow.”

“You’re clinical,” he said. “Blunt. Unfazed. Most patients stare at their scans like they’re watching their own funeral. You watched yours like you were planning a recon op.”

She met his gaze.

Expression unreadable. Voice flat. “Maybe I’m just not a common person.”

Wilson tilted his head. “Flat affect can be a symptom.”

“It’s not a symptom,” she said. “I’ve always been this way.”

Michael shifted, jaw tight.

Wilson didn’t flinch. “You mean since the diagnosis?”

“No,” she said. “I mean always.”

Wilson didn’t speak.

He didn’t have to.

Michael stepped in. “She’s tired, Doctor. We didn’t come here for therapy.”

Wilson offered a nod. “Four o’clock. Suite Six.”

They left the room together.

But not together.

Michael walked slightly behind her now. Not from protocol. Not from habit.

Because he couldn’t look at her.

Not because he was angry. Not because he was scared.

Because he was both.

And because she still wasn’t reacting.

They turned a corner. He stopped.

“Say something,” he said. Quiet. Raw. “Anything.”

Enola turned.

Calm. Flat.

“I said I’d start chemo.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I know.”

Michael’s jaw tightened. “They just told you your brain is being eaten alive. That your odds are single digits. And all you’re doing is calculating.”

She tilted her head.

“Would you prefer a breakdown?”

“No,” he snapped. “I’d prefer a heartbeat.”

“I’m not made like you.”

“No,” he muttered. “You’re not.”

He turned away.

She caught his hand.

Just for a moment.

It wasn’t affection. It wasn’t reassurance.

It was contact.

A measurement.

A read.

He looked back at her—and for just a flicker, just a breath—he thought maybe she wanted to care.

Maybe she just didn’t know how.

Back in his office, Wilson sat alone, staring at the new scan.

The tumour glowed like a serpent curling through grey matter.

He opened the digital chart.

There were no psychological notes.

No trauma history. No flagged anomalies. No recorded affective disorders. Hazel Hensley had passed intake like someone who knew exactly how to pass intake.

And that was what scared him most.

He wrote, then paused:

Primary diagnosis: glioma, left frontal lobe
Plan: Immediate chemotherapy initiation
Psych consult: Recommended — possible congenital affective disorder

He stared at the words.

Then deleted the last line.

Not yet.

Not until he knew what he was looking at.

Not until he figured out who—or what—Hazel Hensley really was.

LOCATION: PRINCETON-PLAINSBORO – ONCOLOGY WING, SUITE SIX
DAY ONE – 16:24 P.M.

The IV pump ticked like a slow, cruel metronome.

Enola didn’t flinch.

Didn’t shift.

Didn’t blink when the nurse inserted the port or when the first saline flush burned ice-cold through her veins. She sat as she always did—back straight, ankles crossed, fingers curled lightly around the chair’s plastic arms as if holding on would be a sign of weakness.

Michael sat beside her. Silent. Unreadable. Except to her, of course—who read tension in micro-pulses and breath intervals.

His breathing was too shallow. His eyes weren’t tracking the nurse. They were watching her.

She didn’t look back.

A new nurse approached with a lead container, cracked the seal, and removed a slim, cold bag of yellow-gold fluid.

The drug.

Cytotoxic. Calculated. Cruel.

The IV beeped softly as it calibrated. A hiss. A press. Then the slow drip into her bloodstream.

Drip. Drip.

Silence.

Drip.

Enola’s vision didn’t blur, but she catalogued the symptoms as they came. Metallic taste. Flushed face. Tingling fingers. Rising heat behind the eyes.

Her jaw clenched briefly as a wave of nausea rolled through her, sharp and sour. She didn’t let it show.

Michael leaned forward. “Enola—”

“I’m fine.”

He didn’t believe her. But he didn’t argue.

Not here. Not while the nurse was still pretending not to listen.

THREE HOURS LATER
SAFEHOUSE – GUEST ROOM BATHROOM

Michael rinsed his hands under cold water. Again.

There was no blood. No dirt. No stain.

But he scrubbed like there was something he couldn’t get off.

Behind him, Enola lay curled on the narrow bed, eyes open, skin washed out and clammy. She hadn’t thrown up—not yet. But she was hovering close to it, her breathing shallow and slow. She hadn’t spoken in nearly twenty minutes.

She didn’t need to.

Michael had watched her fight off nerve gas with less effort than this.

He pressed his palms against the sink and stared at himself in the mirror.

His own face looked unfamiliar.

He blinked hard. Once. Twice. Swallowed something that had been building behind his teeth for days.

Then the message arrived.

A simple buzz from the burner phone left on the side table. He dried his hands on his shirt and crossed the room quietly, careful not to wake her.

The screen showed a UK number.

UNKNOWN CONTACT – ENCRYPTED CHANNEL
FROM: M

“The last I heard of her came from Moriarty.
If you know where she is, say nothing.
If you don’t—stay out of the dark.
It’s where he plays best.”
— M.H.

Michael stared at the screen.

He deleted the message, powered the phone down, and dropped it in the trash bin under the sink.

When he looked back, Enola was still watching him.

Eyes half-lidded. Breath shallow. But awake.

“How bad was the message?” she rasped.

He didn’t answer right away. Just walked over, knelt beside her, and gently brushed sweat-damp hair back from her temple.

“He’s still looking,” he said. “And Moriarty’s still talking.”

Enola blinked. “Let him.”

Michael’s voice cracked. “You need to rest.”

“I need to win.”

“You need to live.”

Her eyes drifted closed.

“I’m working on it.”

LATER THAT NIGHT
SAFEHOUSE – KITCHEN

Michael stood alone at the sink, both hands clenched on either side of the countertop.

The light above him flickered once. He didn’t notice.

He was staring at nothing.

A bowl of water sat untouched beside him, the cloth in it long cooled. He’d brought it for her forehead—when the fever hit—but she’d refused it.

She refused everything except necessity.

He exhaled once.

Then leaned forward, bracing his elbows on the sink, and let his forehead rest against the cabinet door.

Just for a second.

Just to stop holding it up.

The kitchen was dark.

But the silence wasn’t quiet.

It pulsed.

With fear. With failure.

With the weight of a man trying not to break because the person he loves doesn’t believe she’s allowed to be saved.

Chapter Text

LOCATION: LONDON – MI5, PRIVATE BRIEFING VAULT
DAY ONE – 21:36 GMT

Mycroft Holmes did not pace.

Pacing was for the undisciplined.

He moved with purpose. With calculation. Every step a signal, every stillness a decision. So when he stood unmoving in the vault with the lights dimmed and the CCTV feeds silent—that was the tell.

His phone was dark.

The line he’d opened with the Madrid embassy had returned nothing.

The courier he’d dispatched to the last known alias node found only a burned account and a single word in the metadata:

"Checked out."
Signature unknown. But familiar in style. Familiar in taunt.

The report from Tangier had been late.

The tip from Berlin had been misdirected.

And the message from Moriarty—cryptic, precise, and delivered with surgical cruelty—had arrived in a red envelope.

He hadn’t opened it. Not yet.

Because it didn’t matter what Moriarty said.

What mattered was what he didn’t have to.

The still of Enola collapsing—blurred and grainy—was bad enough. But it was the photo after that one that made Mycroft’s jaw clench.

Michael. Carrying her like a ragdoll.

A man Mycroft hadn’t authorized. A ghost with no dossier. A presence that had slipped through MI5 filters like static through a cracked wire.

He stared at the printout now.

Not at Enola.

At the look on his face.

The one carrying her.

Mycroft recognized that look.

His hand hovered above the sealed envelope again. Then moved away. Instead, he slid open the desk drawer and retrieved a different folder. One marked not with a name, but a symbol:

RIGAN/47-A – ALTERNATIVE PROTOCOLS – RESTRICTED

Inside: contingency plans.

None for this.

None for her.

He should’ve had one. That was the truth of it.

He’d made plans for if she turned. If she vanished. If she was compromised. If she killed again.

But not for this.

Not for… fragility.

He closed the folder.

Picked up the burner phone.

Typed out one message:

“The last I heard of her came from Moriarty.
If you know where she is, say nothing.
If you don’t—stay out of the dark.
It’s where he plays best.”
— M.H.

He stared at the name.

Not Hazel.

Not Eleanor.

Not the alias she’d been cycling most recently.

Just:

Enola

He hesitated. Just for a second.

Then hit send.

The light blinked once.

Gone.

No return message would come. Not tonight.

Not until someone decided he was worth knowing the truth.

Back in the silence, Mycroft reached for the scotch.

Poured two fingers too much.

Didn’t drink it.

Just stared at the glass, like it might offer him a variable he hadn’t considered.

But it didn’t.

And outside his window, London kept turning—oblivious, uncaring, and hungry for answers no one was prepared to give.

LOCATION: SAFEHOUSE, NEW JERSEY – BEDROOM
DAY ONE – 23:58 P.M.

It started with heat.

Not the external kind. Not fever. Not even pain.

Just… pressure. Beneath the skin. Inside the bones. Like her blood had been replaced with static and her spine was humming with shortwave frequencies.

Enola didn’t tremble.

She catalogued.

Dry mouth. Metal taste. Teeth sore. Stomach attempting to self-destruct. Temperature regulation compromised.

Noted.

Filed.

Endured.

She lay curled on top of the sheets, skin flushed, sweat cooling too fast. Her eyes didn’t close. Didn’t blink often enough. Every light in the room was off except one: the narrow nightlamp angled toward the ceiling.

Michael had adjusted it earlier. Soft light. No glare. No shadows to jolt her when the nausea came in waves and the vertigo followed it like an aftershock.

He sat beside the bed. Still dressed. Still wired.

He hadn’t left her side since Suite Six.

The first few hours he’d tried to help—offered water, set timers, adjusted her pillows, disappeared to the kitchen to make soup she wouldn’t eat.

Now he just sat.

Hands clasped. Shoulders stiff. Watching her like she might vanish if he blinked.

She turned her head slightly.

“Michael.”

He looked up.

Her voice was hoarse. Scratchy. But stable.

“You’re going to make yourself sick.”

Michael didn’t laugh. Didn’t move.

“I’m fine.”

“You’re vibrating.”

“I’m watching you suffer.”

She blinked. Once.

Then shifted—slowly, with the economy of a body trying not to betray its own rebellion—and reached for his hand.

He flinched.

She touched him anyway.

Not soft. Not gentle. Just contact. Precise and deliberate. The way she would secure a pulse. Anchor a heartbeat. Measure a tremor.

She curled her fingers around his. Not for her.

For him.

“You’re not used to feeling helpless,” she murmured.

He looked down at her hand.

Then away. “You’re not supposed to look like this.”

“I do.”

“I know.”

He exhaled, leaned forward, pressed his forehead against her hand where it rested on the bedspread. He didn’t cry. Not quite. But something in him bent. And stayed bent.

Enola watched him. Eyes half-lidded. Brain fogged.

But something inside her shifted, too.

She lifted her other hand and rested it lightly on his head. Her fingers carded through his hair once—awkward, mechanical—but she repeated it. Again. Again.

It was the most she could do.

And it was too much.

Michael made a noise—tiny, wrecked—and covered his face with his free hand. Not sobbing. Just breaking quietly.

Enola didn’t move.

Didn’t speak.

She just held him.

And somehow, it made it worse.

Because she didn’t mean it with emotion.

She meant it with function.

Comfort as medicine. Touch as calculation.

A perfectly executed simulation of love.

And Michael, being Michael, knew the difference.

But he let her do it anyway.

Because this was all she could give.

And he needed it more than he could bear to admit.

HOURS LATER
03:11 A.M.

Enola vomited quietly into the sink.

She hadn’t wanted to wake him.

Her legs shook when she stood, but she made it back to the bed without incident.

Michael hadn’t slept.

He was sitting in the armchair now, eyes hollow.

She climbed back onto the bed without a word. Pulled the blanket up to her chin.

He watched her for a long time.

“Don’t do that again,” he said.

She didn’t ask what he meant.

Because she knew.

“I won’t,” she replied. “I’ll make it to the bathroom next time.”

“That’s not—”

“I know.”

Silence.

She reached for his hand again.

He let her.

LOCATION: SAFEHOUSE – KITCHEN
DAY TWO – 08:42 A.M.

The smell of toast was awful.

Burnt, acrid, offensive. Enola didn’t flinch from it, but her stomach churned like someone had poured acid over a faulty generator.

She sat at the kitchen table in an oversized hoodie and sweatpants, hair scraped back into a low bun, legs tucked under her like the predator she always was — even when her limbs trembled from getting there.

The mug in her hand was full of water.

She didn’t trust coffee. Not today.

Across the room, Michael stood at the stove with a dead stare and a spatula he hadn’t used in five minutes.

His shoulders were hunched. His jaw tense. His eyes red-rimmed, like he’d spent the night trying not to blink.

Enola took another sip of water.

Waited.

Waited longer.

And then, finally, with the clarity of a sniper lining up a shot—

“Your twenty-four hours are over.”

Michael blinked.

“What?”

“You had your breakdown. You stayed up all night. You made peace with every god you don’t believe in while I hallucinated the carpet breathing. That window’s closed.”

He turned. “Enola—”

“I’m not dying from this.”

Her voice was flat. Unshakable.

“I’ve survived organ shutdown in tropical hellholes, two sniper shots, a biochemical nerve agent designed to mimic a stroke, a dog bite from what I’m pretty sure was a feral hyena—and one extended dinner party with a cult of ritualistic cannibals who tried to marinate me alive.”

Michael’s grip tightened on the edge of the counter.

Enola continued, perfectly level.

“You think I’m going down to a handful of chlorotabine and some overconfident cells? Try harder.”

He didn’t speak.

She arched an eyebrow.

“I don’t have time to die, Michael. We have a war to map and I’m behind schedule.”

“You couldn’t stand up without help last night.”

“And now I can.” She gestured vaguely downward. “Unstable verticality achieved. Progress.”

His jaw clenched. “You could—”

“I know the odds,” she said. “I asked for the number. Three percent. I’ve beaten worse.”

Michael stared at her like she’d just threatened to run a marathon on broken legs.

Because she had.

And she would.

“I’m not asking you to be fine,” he said quietly. “I’m asking you to slow down.”

“I don’t slow down. I plan. And my next plan includes us returning to Dr. Wilson by ten. He needs to do baseline imaging before the side effects compound. And I want his notes on long-range dosage tolerance for vascanon-d interaction. If there’s neural degradation I’ll need it charted.”

Michael rubbed his hand down his face like it physically hurt to keep listening.

“You’re not a machine, Enola.”

“No. I’m a professional.”

“A human one.”

“That’s subjective.”

He set the spatula down with more force than necessary. The clang echoed.

But he didn’t argue anymore.

He walked to the table. Sat down opposite her. Stared at her pale face and thin hands and the half-drunk glass of water she held like a weapon.

And said, “You shouldn’t have to be this strong.”

She stared right back.

“I’m not being strong,” she said. “I’m being necessary.”

A long silence.

Then she pushed the mug aside and stood.

Her legs almost gave. She hid it well.

“Get your keys,” she said. “I want bloodwork printed. And I want the scan raw, not just interpreted.”

Michael stood. Shouldered his coat.

Still shaken.

Still aching.

But following her.

Because he always had.

And because some part of him was starting to understand:

Enola Holmes wasn’t surviving this for herself.

She was surviving because there was still something worse out there.

And she hadn’t killed it yet.

LOCATION: PRINCETON-PLAINSBORO TEACHING HOSPITAL – IMAGING SUITE
DAY TWO – 13:36 P.M.

The second scan lit up like the first.

Different angle. Same ghost.

Wilson stood beside the lightbox, brow furrowed in a way that didn’t match the flatness of his tone.

“No change,” he said, flipping to a secondary panel. “It’s what we expected. Chemo doesn’t start shrinking immediately.”

Enola sat on the edge of the exam bed, legs dangling like a bored schoolgirl. Her eyes were half-lidded. Her skin was greyish under fluorescent lights. A nurse had just unhooked the IV in her arm.

She was silent for a long moment. Then said, dryly:

“I didn’t expect progress. Just… slightly less apocalyptic nausea.”

Wilson gave a faint smile. “You were already sick when you got here, Hazel. You didn’t come in at zero.”

Michael, standing just behind the monitor, stiffened. His arms were crossed too tightly across his chest. He hadn’t spoken since they arrived. Hadn’t looked at her, either.

Enola adjusted the paper gown on her shoulder. “How long do I have to keep doing this?”

Wilson turned back toward her. “At least a few months. Possibly a year. Depends how you tolerate the drugs, how the tumour responds, and how lucky you get.”

Enola stared at the wall for a full two seconds.

Then exhaled slowly.

Wilson could see the calculation happening behind her eyes. The burn of urgency beneath the sickness.

“Chemo from home,” she said. “How difficult is it to arrange?”

Michael finally looked at her. “Are you serious?”

“I have work. I can’t be tethered to a drip line in a hospital every week.”

Wilson folded his arms. “That’s not the best idea.”

“But it’s possible.”

He hesitated. Then nodded, cautiously. “In certain cases, yes. With a central line or port and home nurse oversight. It depends on how stable you stay after the second round. Your vitals, white count, fatigue response—”

“I’ll be fine.”

Michael’s voice cut in, sharp. “You’re not fine. You’re pretending.”

Enola didn’t look at him.

Michael stepped forward now, the tension cracking at last.

“You can barely eat. You barely sleep. You threw up twice before we got out of the elevator. You’re planning your own treatment around a lie you keep telling yourself.”

Enola’s voice stayed level.

“If you’re not going to help, I’ll do it alone.”

Michael flinched like she’d slapped him.

For a second, no one breathed.

Then Michael shook his head. Said nothing.

And walked out.

The door didn’t slam. It clicked.

Enola closed her eyes.

Wilson watched her carefully, his face unreadable now.

Then, gently:

“If you stay stable through the next cycle… we’ll talk. A long-distance chemo protocol isn’t my recommendation, but if it’s the only way you’ll stick to the regimen, then we plan it carefully. Monitor it tightly. You’ll need regular labs and a reliable courier for the drug compound.”

Enola opened her eyes.

No relief. Just readiness.

“Second round?”

“Today,” Wilson said. “Same time. Suite Six.”

She nodded.

He watched her longer than necessary.

Then wrote something in her file without telling her what.

LOCATION: PRINCETON-PLAINSBORO – PARKING GARAGE, LEVEL B2
DAY TWO – 13:49 P.M.

It took Michael five minutes to get to the garage.

Three of those minutes he didn’t remember.

By the time he reached the farthest corner of the lowest level, his breath was shallow, his fists aching, and his jaw locked so tight he could hear his own molars grind.

The concrete around him was cold, damp, echoing with the faint hum of fluorescent lights and distant footsteps above.

He slammed his palm against the pillar beside him.

Once. Hard.

Then again.

Then the other hand, into the steel of the stairwell door.

The pain helped.

It needed to hurt.

Because nothing else made sense.

Not the scans. Not the vomiting. Not the way Enola said “I’ll do it alone” like it wasn’t the most vicious sentence she could throw at him.

Because he knew she meant it.

She’d done worse alone.

And survived.

And that — that was what terrified him.

Michael leaned forward, both hands braced against the cold steel, head bowed. The air felt tight in his lungs. Like grief he hadn’t earned yet, pressing down on a future he couldn’t control.

“She’s going to die,” he whispered.

Saying it made it real.

He hated that.

She didn’t look like someone dying. She looked like someone burning.

Slowly. Silently.

And when she was gone — if she went — there wouldn’t be a scream, or a collapse, or a dramatic end.

There’d just be nothing.

No emotion. No grief. No goodbye.

Just a missing frequency in his life he’d never learn to live without.

He fumbled in his coat pocket.

Found the encrypted emergency line.

The one with exactly one number hardwired into it.

Mycroft.

He stared at it.

His thumb hovered.

Mycroft hadn’t heard from them in months. He didn’t know about the tumour. Didn’t know about the fact that his youngest sister was walking a three-percent tightrope with a smile and a threat.

He’d know what to do. Mycroft always knew.

He could get a medical team. He could lock her down. He could save her.

Michael’s thumb trembled.

And then he remembered her voice.

“If you’re not going to help, I’ll do it alone.”

He pressed the phone to the concrete.

Didn’t drop it.

Didn’t call.

Didn’t breathe.

Just stood there, heartbeat crashing through him like a tide he couldn’t outrun.

Because if he called Mycroft…

He’d lose her trust.

And if he didn’t?

He might lose her anyway.

Chapter Text

LOCATION: PRINCETON-PLAINSBORO – SUITE SIX, ONCOLOGY
DAY TWO – 16:08 P.M.

The drip bag clicked into place.

The tube hissed once as the chemo cocktail began to flow, and Enola didn’t so much as blink.

She was alone this time.

No shadow in the doorway. No Michael pacing beside her like a caged ghost. Just the pale green walls, the rhythmic tick of saline, and the slow descent into cellular warfare.

Her legs were curled under the blanket. Her hair was tied back too tightly. She was watching the IV machine like it might try to lie to her.

Dr. Wilson sat beside the monitor, eyes flicking between her scan results and her recent blood panel. Everything was within expected range. Fatigue. Low white count. Nausea.

But something else—

The EEG had been a routine add-on. He liked tracking cognitive trends in long-form chemo patients, especially when frontal lobe tissue was involved.

Enola hadn’t objected.

Now he stared at the screen.

Watched the pattern repeat.

No spikes.

No reactive pulses.

The emotional-response regions of her brain were eerily… flat.

Not damaged. Not suppressed.

Just absent.

He glanced at her.

She was watching him now, silently, like she knew exactly what he’d found.

“I ran the neurological overlays again,” Wilson said, carefully. “I wanted to track any additional damage to the prefrontal cortex.”

Enola nodded, faintly. “Makes sense.”

“The readings are strange.”

“I’m told I’m full of surprises.”

He tapped the corner of the screen. “You’re not reacting.”

“I am reacting.”

“No,” he said quietly. “You’re… calculating. Processing. But there’s no emotional echo. Even your baseline fear and pleasure centres — they’re silent. They’re functionally inactive.”

Enola didn’t flinch.

He studied her more closely now, like he was assembling a puzzle backwards.

“You’re not in shock. You’re not suppressing anything. You’re just… not wired for it.”

Enola tilted her head. “And?”

Wilson sat back.

“You know.”

“Of course I know.”

The words were flat, unbothered.

“I’ve always known. I pass as functional because I’ve had to. Not because I am.”

Wilson’s fingers twitched against the stylus in his hand.

“You’re a psychopath.”

“Technically, yes. Though I find that term disappointingly theatrical.”

“You don’t feel empathy.”

“No.”

“You don’t experience remorse.”

“Not biologically. Though I can simulate it if required.”

Wilson looked down at her chart.

Then at her.

“You’ve had this your whole life.”

“It’s not contagious, Doctor.”

That earned a small huff of something — not quite humour. Not quite horror.

“You realise this makes treating you harder.”

Enola lifted one shoulder. “It also makes me more compliant. No panic attacks. No emotional resistance. No existential crises. Just tell me what to do and I’ll do it.”

“You’re treating your own mortality like a lab experiment.”

“I prefer to win my trials.”

Wilson looked at her for a long time.

Not with pity.

But with something else.

Curiosity.

Maybe awe.

Maybe fear.

He stood, finally. Made a note in her file — one that wouldn’t be uploaded to any system. Just a single paper record. Handwritten. Secure.

Cognitive Anomaly: Confirmed psychopathy, high-functioning. No apparent personality disorder. Risk: Unknown.

He didn’t say anything else.

And neither did she.

Enola leaned her head back, closed her eyes as the chemicals crept into her bloodstream.

Outside, the snow had stopped.

Inside, her body was still a warzone.

But her mind?

Her mind was ice.

LOCATION: PRINCETON-PLAINSBORO – PHYSICIAN’S LOUNGE
DAY TWO – 17:03 P.M.

The lounge smelled like burnt coffee and failed boundaries.

Dr. James Wilson stood at the sink, rinsing his hands like he could scrub the diagnosis off his skin. The chemo gloves had already been tossed. The chart still sat on the counter behind him, page half-folded, name scribbled in sharp black ink:

Hensley, Hazel
Glioma – Stage III
Cognitive Irregularities – See note

He stared at it.

Not like it might bite.

More like he already had — and was now waiting for the poison to kick in.

He didn’t hear the door open.

Just the voice.

“I was told there was coffee. I was also told there was a God, and yet here we are.”

Wilson sighed without turning. “Hello, House.”

Gregory House limped in at his usual pace — slow, bored, and already poking through the fridge like it might yield spiritual enlightenment or actual food.

He grabbed an orange juice, sniffed it suspiciously, and dropped onto the nearest chair.

“So,” House said casually, popping the lid. “Which one of your patients just made you question the meaning of humanity again?”

Wilson didn’t answer.

House glanced over, eyes narrowing slightly.

“Oh,” he said. “That bad?”

Wilson picked up the chart. Flipped it open. Closed it again.

“She’s my youngest patient this month.”

“Oooh. We’re measuring patients in dog years now?”

“She’s smart. Not book smart — sharp. Structured. Unflinching. High executive function. Incredible detail retention. And absolutely—”

He paused.

House leaned forward, feigning scandal. “Don’t say it. Let me guess. Cult leader? Secretly one of those weird CIA clones? The reincarnation of Mussolini?”

Wilson looked at him, flat.

“She’s a psychopath.”

House blinked. “Oh.”

“Confirmed,” Wilson said softly. “No empathy response. No emotional mirroring. I ran her EEG through three different comparative filters. Her frontal lobe might as well be a processor chip.”

House whistled.

“That’s hot.”

“Greg.”

“I’m just saying, if I had a nickel for every time one of your patients tried to hug me after getting bad news, I’d be emotionally bankrupt. This girl sounds like a breath of fresh, sociopathic air.”

Wilson sat down hard in the chair across from him.

“She has cancer.”

“Well, nobody’s perfect.”

“It’s aggressive. Unresectable. She’s trying to negotiate for at-home chemo protocols while pretending she isn’t dying. She doesn’t even have panic—she has... metrics. She asked me for raw scan data and long-range toxicity models after vomiting into her own elbow.”

House tilted his head. “And this bothers you because…?”

Wilson looked at him. Quiet. Measured.

“Because I think she’s planning to keep going. Even if the treatment fails. Even if her body gives out. She’s going to operate like she’s replaceable, not mortal.”

House stared at him, slowly sipping the juice.

Then said, with unsettling softness, “You’re afraid she’s going to use herself up.”

Wilson looked at the chart again.

“She’s not afraid of death.”

“Well, duh.”

“She’s afraid of delay.”

House raised an eyebrow.

“That, my friend, is called purpose. You know, the thing you complain I don’t have every time I treat a corpse who’s still walking.”

Wilson ignored that.

“She’s alone today.”

“She ditched the tall blond trauma bodyguard?”

Wilson hesitated.

“He left.”

“Oooh. Lovers’ quarrel. Tragic. Let me get my violin. Oh wait — I left it in not caring.”

“Greg.”

“What?”

Wilson closed the file.

“She’s not... unkind.”

House blinked. That was new.

Wilson went on, slower now.

“She’s not warm. Or soft. But she’s... precise. Intentional. When she says something, she means it. No filler. No flinching. No pretending to be normal.”

House leaned back, arms crossed.

“That’s not psychopathy, Jimmy. That’s clarity.”

House looked over sharply. He tapped his cane once against the floor.

“You’re getting attached.”

Wilson didn’t argue.

House’s expression shifted, ever so slightly.

“You’re trying to save someone who doesn’t want to be saved.”

Wilson looked down.

“No,” he said. “I’m trying to save someone who doesn’t think she needs to be.”

House was quiet for a long beat.

Then, softly:

“Yeah. That’s worse.”

LOCATION: PRINCETON-PLAINSBORO – ONCOLOGY OBSERVATION BAY
DAY THREE – 15:21 P.M.

The chemo drip was already halfway through.

Enola lay back against the angled recliner with the perfect stillness of someone who had rehearsed this scene a thousand times. Pulse: steady. Eyes: bright. Posture: composed. The IV line tugged slightly at her skin, but she didn’t flinch.

She was wearing the soft blue hoodie Michael left behind — not for warmth, but for calculation. It made her look smaller. Softer. Human.

Dr. Wilson stood nearby, reviewing her charts with guarded optimism. He hadn’t said anything alarming yet. That was good. Very good.

Because the second chemo round was worse.

Much worse.

She’d spent most of the previous night dry-heaving in the bathroom and holding the walls for balance. She’d felt her fingers twitch from neuropathy, her hearing dip in one ear from the swelling, and her left leg had gone numb from thigh to ankle twice that morning.

None of that made it into her vitals.

None of it reached her face.

Wilson approached with the pad still in hand.

“Your white cell count’s holding. That’s a good sign. No fever spike this time, and your pressure’s more consistent.”

Enola gave him a mild, pleasant nod. “Excellent.”

Wilson paused. “Nausea?”

She shook her head. “Controlled.”

“Dizziness?”

She tilted her head slightly. “Expected. Manageable.”

He frowned — just slightly — at how smoothly she answered. But the numbers didn’t contradict her. Not yet.

“You’re handling this well,” he said finally.

Enola met his gaze evenly. “We discussed the possibility of home-based chemo.”

“We did,” Wilson agreed, slowly. “But only if your tolerance stayed stable. Which... so far, looks promising. I'd still like a fourth session here before signing off, though.”

“That’s acceptable,” Enola said. “But I’d like to begin planning logistics. Supply access. Safe administration protocols. I already have a secure residence with power redundancy and an on-site caregiver.”

Wilson gave a small smile. “You mean your human brick wall with cheekbones.”

“Correct.”

He scratched a note on the chart. “Alright. I’ll draw up options. If round three looks this good, we can transition.”

Internally, Enola marked the win. Externalised? Just a soft breath. The performance required control, not triumph.

She adjusted her wrist slightly. The IV hurt more than it should. The chemicals were burning her from the inside out. But her face? Perfect. Pliable. Like every briefing room debrief she'd ever faked.

Wilson nodded toward the monitor. “We’ll let this run for another twenty minutes. Just call if you feel—”

The door opened.

And in came House.

Cane. Mismatched socks. A t-shirt that said 'I Diagnose, Therefore I Am (Annoying).'

“Wilson,” he drawled. “You left your lunch in the MRI control room. You owe the techs an apology and probably a settlement.”

Wilson looked up, surprised. “How did you even know I was—?”

“Oh, I’ve been following your patient.”

Enola blinked. Just once.

House turned his gaze on her, eyes glittering with interest — not in the medical chart, but in the puzzle sitting quietly beneath the blanket.

“Well hello there, Princess Precision. Heard you’ve been acing your blood panels and vomiting with military discretion.”

Enola smiled faintly. “I’m a very neat patient.”

“I bet,” House said, stepping closer. “Vitals better than your nurse’s. Language calibrated to hit all the right reassuring notes. Oh—and flatline EEG response to emotional cues, even during catastrophic diagnostic reviews. It’s like you’re not even trying to pretend anymore.”

Wilson stepped in, warning tone ready. “House—”

“No, no,” House waved him off. “I’m not here to poke holes in your latest oncology angel. I’m just saying...” His eyes locked on hers.

“You’re either the most composed human I’ve ever seen—which is statistically ridiculous—or you’ve been faking empathy since the day you figured out how to mimic it.”

Enola didn’t blink.

She just tilted her head, amused. “You’re projecting.”

“I’m diagnosing.”

“Incorrectly.”

He leaned on his cane and smirked. “Tell me, Hazel—how do you rate your pain on a scale from one to ‘I could strangle a bear and not feel a thing’?”

“Four,” she said. “With spikes to six. Controlled.”

House gave Wilson a long, satisfied look.

“She didn’t even roll her eyes. Definitely not normal.”

Wilson sighed. “She’s being evaluated for a very specific neuropsych profile, and she’s cooperating.”

“Of course she is,” House said. “Because the real monsters always smile at the doctors.”

Enola raised an eyebrow. “You seem upset I’m not a sobbing wreck.”

“Oh, I love it,” House said brightly. “You’re fascinating. Also dying. Statistically. Which only makes the clock more exciting.”

Wilson finally stepped between them. “House. Out.”

“I’ll bring popcorn for round three,” House said, turning and limping to the door. “And maybe a mirror. So you can practice the face you're going to wear when you tell her it's not working.”

The door clicked shut behind him.

Wilson turned back, exhaling.

Enola was already adjusting her drip rate.

“Is he always like that?”

“Worse,” Wilson muttered. “You handled him better than most.”

“I’ve had worse,” she said calmly. 

Wilson stared at her.

She sipped her water.

“Round four,” she said mildly. “We’ll begin planning for home setup once I clear it.”

“…I’ll prepare the paperwork.”

LOCATION: SAFEHOUSE – LIVING ROOM -  02:36 A.M.

The room was too still.

No hum of Michael’s voice in the next room. No rhythmic pacing. No casual weapons maintenance on the coffee table. Just silence, and the low static sound that only sick bodies can hear — when the blood starts moving too slow, and the brain begins to forget how to keep time.

Enola lay curled on the couch in one of his sweatshirts, her hair damp against her forehead, her arm bandaged around the injection site like it had done something wrong.

The drip had ended hours ago.

She hadn’t moved since.

The house was dim — the lights off, the curtains drawn, the faint glow of the old laptop charger blinking like a lighthouse from the floor.

Her eyes didn’t close.

They were wide open, glassy, unmoving, watching nothing.

And then—

A sound.

Not real. Not sharp. Just... out of place.

A child’s laugh.

Soft. Slippery.

She didn’t flinch.

Her mind catalogued it the way it always had: auditory aberration. Memory artifact. No threat. Do not engage.

But the laugh came again.

Closer now.

Enola blinked.

The air shifted.

When she looked at the doorway, she saw him.

The boy from Algeria.

Seven. Maybe eight. Missing two fingers. Wore the wrong shoes for the terrain. She remembered that, because she'd noticed. Because she'd noted it when deciding which wall to breach and how many seconds it would take to neutralize his father.

But he wasn’t supposed to be here.

He smiled. Blood between his teeth.

“Why’d you leave me in the fire?” he asked.

Enola didn’t move.

“You weren’t the target,” she said aloud.

Her voice sounded wrong in the room. Not soft. Not broken. Just... off.

He stepped closer.

“But I burned anyway.”

“I calculated the risk.”

“And you chose not to save me.”

Enola closed her eyes.

“Collateral damage.”

When she opened them again, he was gone.

But another had taken his place.

The girl from the port.

She’d died not from gunfire — but from silence. From being small enough to hide behind her brother’s chest and still get caught in the spray.

Her hair was matted. Wet.

“You didn’t even see me.”

“I saw everyone.”

The girl tilted her head. “Then why am I still here?”

Enola exhaled.

She didn’t cry.

Didn’t flinch.

But her fingers trembled now.

A third child appeared.

And a fourth.

Each one with a name she’d never said aloud, because that would’ve made them real.

Hossain. Ari. Nina. Leik.

She couldn’t remember all the names now. Only the tactical reports. The measurements of impact radii. The bullet dispersal patterns. The metal fragments found in a classroom wall that had once been a shelter.

They circled her — not close, but present.

Still smiling.

Still watching.

Her brain couldn’t stop processing them.

It was too used to running simulations.

And now the simulations wouldn’t end.

Because the tumor was feeding them.

Because the chemo was peeling back all the insulation she’d ever built.

She stood.

Her legs shook, but she made it to the sink.

Ran cold water over her hands. Pressed them to her face.

Breathe in. Count four. Hold two. Out six.

Control the input.

But the mirror above the sink didn’t show her reflection.

It showed a room she hadn’t seen in ten years. Stone floor. Metal basin. A little boy strapped to a cot with no eyes. She’d left before the fire had reached that wing. She didn’t think anyone else had survived.

He looked at her now.

He blinked.

She pressed her fist into the mirror hard enough to spider the glass.

And whispered:

“You’re not real.”

Behind her, the laughter started again.

Enola didn’t sleep that night.

She sat against the bathroom wall until the hallucinations blurred into vertigo and the vertigo became stillness again.

When the sun rose, she was still sitting there.

Blank-faced.

Staring at the place where a child’s voice had asked, Why didn’t you come back?

Chapter Text

LOCATION: PRINCETON-PLAINSBORO – ONCOLOGY WING, SUITE SIX
DAY FOUR – 14:06 P.M.

The walls were too clean again.

Same scent. Same chairs. Same glassy floor that made her boots echo slightly when she walked. Enola adjusted her sleeves as she entered, lips just parted — not smiling, not grimacing, just there.

Wilson greeted her with the warmth he always offered patients. Professional empathy. Measured care. He didn’t mention how much paler she looked. How tight her skin pulled across her cheekbones. Or how she'd lost another two pounds in less than 48 hours.

She didn’t sit until she was told.

Didn’t ask about the results.

She let him control the pacing — it made the lie cleaner.

“How was last night?” Wilson asked, reviewing the pre-session bloodwork as she settled into the recliner.

Enola smoothed the blanket across her lap. “Uneventful.”

“No fever?”

“No.”

“No vomiting?”

“None.”

“No neurological symptoms?”

She met his eyes.

Held them.

“Nothing I wasn’t prepared for.”

Wilson frowned faintly, but nodded. “Good. That’s good.”

He moved to attach the new IV line. His fingers were steady, but his thoughts… weren’t.

Because the chart in front of him made no sense.

Enola's white cell count had dropped dangerously low. Her liver enzymes were climbing. Her cortisol baseline was three times what it had been 48 hours ago, and her temperature reading from this morning—short but sharp—wasn’t something he could ignore.

And yet—

She sat there like she was waiting for a coffee date.

Sharp. Cool. Composed.

Wilson pressed the chemo pump into place.

“Your readings aren’t good,” he said finally, watching her face instead of the screen. “Your body's under severe stress.”

Enola tilted her head, softly. “Isn’t that the point of chemo?”

He didn’t smile.

“I mean it, Hazel. Your vitals look like someone who ran through a battlefield overnight.”

She blinked. “Interesting metaphor.”

“I’m not being metaphorical.”

A pause.

She looked back at the window.

Neutral. Professional. Untouchable.

Wilson narrowed his eyes slightly. “You’re in pain.”

“I’m tolerating it.”

“You’re lying.”

She turned to him now.

Expression still calm, but there was something behind it. A flicker in her pupil. Not anger. Not fear.

Just static.

Wilson leaned back. Frustrated. “I need to run more tests. Before we even talk about home treatment.”

“As you wish.”

“Hazel—”

But she’d already closed her eyes.

Not asleep.

Not resting.

Just controlling her reactions.

Because he was still there.

The boy.

The one she’d meant to kill.

The one she hadn’t flinched over when she pulled the trigger at twelve years old. A knife in his hand. Too close to her objective. Small frame, but fast. Trained to distract, not to survive.

She’d calculated the distance.

And shot clean through his eye socket.

Now he stood by the door of Suite Six.

No eye left.

Just watching her.

“You remember me now,” he whispered.

She didn’t answer.

Wilson was still speaking — something about platelet counts, recovery curves, infusion speeds.

The boy kept whispering.

“I was just a kid.”

“You had a blade.”

“I was just a kid.”

“You lunged.”

“You enjoyed it.”

Enola’s fingers twitched against the blanket.

Wilson noticed.

“Muscle tremor?” he asked.

She smiled. “Baseline neural fatigue. Not uncommon on day three.”

He wasn’t convinced.

But she’d layered the lie thick. Enough composure. Enough data knowledge. Enough plausible deniability.

He marked her file again.

HOME CHEMO STATUS: DELAYED
FURTHER MONITORING REQUIRED

The boy moved closer.

She didn’t move.

Didn’t speak.

But her heartbeat — for the first time — ticked up slightly.

And Wilson caught it.

He didn’t say anything. Not yet. Just watched her vitals trace on the monitor, wondering how someone could be so composed while their body was actively setting off alarms.

And behind the door—

The boy whispered again.

“You meant it.”

She didn’t argue.

She just sat there.

Chemicals bleeding through her veins.

And a dead child in her periphery, daring her to flinch.

LOCATION: PRINCETON-PLAINSBORO TEACHING HOSPITAL – DIAGNOSTIC DEPARTMENT OFFICE
DAY FOUR – 17:08 P.M.

Wilson slammed the chart down harder than necessary.

House didn’t flinch. He was sprawled on the diagnostics conference table, eating red licorice with the flippancy of someone legally banned from empathy.

“She wants to do chemo at home,” Wilson said, pacing.

House raised his eyebrows theatrically. “What an adorable little death wish.”

“She’s not stable.”

“She pretends she is.”

“She’s dangerously immunosuppressed, her scans look like an AI-generated Rorschach test, and her vitals don’t match her face. That’s the part I can’t get past. She walks in like a damn ballerina, and her lymphocytes are waving white flags.”

House chewed thoughtfully. “You’ve said ‘dangerous’ twice now. Once about her health, once about her personality. Which one do you actually mean?”

Wilson stopped. “Both.”

House grinned. “Knew it.”

“I mean it,” Wilson snapped. “She’s clever—too clever. Not just smart. Performative. She watches me like I’m a test. I tell her her platelet count is crashing and she nods like I offered her coffee.”

“Maybe she’s British.”

“House.”

“Fine,” House said, stretching. “You want the good news or the bad news?”

“There’s good news?”

“No. But I thought you’d like to feel hopeful for five seconds before I ruin it.”

Wilson crossed his arms.

House swung his legs off the table and stood. “She’s not going to stay. You know that. You could handcuff her to the chemo chair and she’d still find a way to escape through the vents.”

“I shouldn’t even be considering home care.”

“But you are. Because she’s hacking your compassion reflex like a pro.”

Wilson rubbed his temples. “She has to stay. If she deteriorates offsite—”

“—she dies,” House finished. “Yes, that’s usually what happens when the immunocompromised play field doctor.”

“I’ve had difficult patients before.”

“You’ve had sad patients before. She’s not sad. She’s not scared. She’s not anything.” House walked to the board, grabbed a marker, and drew a quick circle. “Brain tumor here,” he said, tapping the top left. “Behavioral affect here.” Another dot. “Somewhere between those, she’s missing a circuit.”

“You think the tumor’s the cause?”

“Maybe. Or maybe it’s just revealing what was always there. Hazel’s not emotionally blunted. She’s emotionally nonexistent. You’re treating her like a soldier with trauma. She’s a machine with scripts.”

Wilson was quiet.

House kept going. “Let me guess: she passes psych evals, knows all the terms, mimics empathy perfectly.”

“She told me she’s always been this way.”

“Yup.” House popped another piece of licorice in his mouth. “So. What’s your move, Nurse Caution?”

“I delay the home treatment. I keep her under observation. I run another round of scans, push her for more transparency—”

“She won’t give it.”

“Then I make her stay.”

“Wilson,” House said slowly, “she’s halfway to the door already. You can either work with her or lose her entirely.”

Wilson shook his head. “You’re enjoying this.”

“I like puzzles,” House said. “And this one plays her role like a world-class spy with a dying body.”

He paused, tilted his head.

“You like her too.”

Wilson didn’t answer.

“She’s not good for home treatment,” Wilson said again. “She’s probably not good for leaving the floor.”

House nodded, mock-solemn. “And yet…”

Wilson looked at him.

“What?”

House’s voice turned low. Calm. Curious.

“…And yet, you’re going to help her plan the escape anyway.”

Wilson didn’t respond.

Didn’t need to.

House turned and limped out the door.

“I’ll keep my calendar open,” he called back. “Let me know when the fake name finally cracks.”

LOCATION: PRINCETON-PLAINSBORO – ONCOLOGY SUITE SIX
DAY FOUR – 17:22 P.M.

Enola was half-reclined, blanket neatly tucked, eyes too bright for how sick she was.

The chemo drip hissed beside her like a slow leak in a sinking ship. Her vitals danced on the monitor—technically functional, but Wilson had already flagged the cortisol spike, the slipping platelets, the electrolyte balance fighting her with every breath.

None of it reached her face.

But the ghost was back.

The boy stood near the wall, barefoot and silent. His lips didn’t move, but she could feel him—like static on a radio no one had tuned.

“You’re not sick,” he whispered.

She blinked once. Just once.

The door creaked open.

“Good afternoon, Spectre Barbie,” House said.

He limped in with his usual flair, holding a bright red popsicle and tapping it against his cane like punctuation.

Enola didn’t flinch.

“You’re back,” she said.

House shrugged. “Wilson said I could come in if I promised to behave. I lied.”

He gestured toward her IV line. “Day four. That’s when the bravado starts to break. How’s the ghost parade?”

She didn’t answer.

House grinned—already counted that as confirmation.

“You’re getting worse.”

“I’m responding to treatment,” she said calmly.

“Uh-huh. In the same way a car responds to a cliff.”

He circled once, eyeing her monitor. “Vitals say ‘marathon runner in cardiac distress.’ Face says ‘boarding school reunion.’ That’s either elite training or sociopathy.”

“Or both,” Enola offered.

House tapped his cane against the floor. “You’re not scared.”

“Should I be?”

“No. But normal people are. That’s what makes it interesting.”

He sat on the windowsill without invitation.

“You want to leave. Wilson’s barely holding you together with duct tape and polite suggestions. You’re already planning your escape.”

“I have things to do.”

“Things worth dying for?”

Her eyes flicked to him. “I haven’t decided yet.”

House unwrapped his popsicle. “Listen. I don’t care who you used to kill for—NSA, MI6, Her Majesty's Knitting Circle. Doesn’t matter. But if you leave before the six-week mark, your odds drop from ‘tragic’ to ‘comic.’”

“I’m not staying in this bed for six weeks.”

“You don’t have to,” he said, licking the popsicle. “Stay in town. Get an apartment. Suffer creatively. But stay close.”

Enola studied him. “So you can monitor me?”

“No. So Wilson doesn’t cry in the oncology bathroom when you drop dead in a parking lot.”

A beat.

“Also,” he added, “I want to see what happens when your mask finally cracks. It’ll be glorious.”

“You assume it will.”

“Oh, it will.” He pointed the popsicle at her like a wand. “You’ve built your entire identity on control. But chemo doesn’t care who you used to be. It rewrites you. From the inside.”

Enola looked at the IV. The slow drip. The quiet hum of transformation.

Then she smiled.

Not sweet.

Sharp.

“I won’t break.”

The IV clicked beside her. Steady. No tremor in her voice. No hesitation.

House raised an eyebrow. “Because you’re a sociopath?”

She didn’t blink.

“No,” she said. “Because I’m an alexithymic psychopath.”

House blinked, then grinned. “Cool. Never met one of those before.”

Enola tilted her head. “You’ve never met a psychopath in a hospital?”

“Oh, plenty. Treated a few. Dated one.” He sucked the last of the popsicle off the stick and waved it like punctuation. “But never one like you.”

That caught her attention. Subtle, but there—a fractional shift in posture. A pause.

“Define ‘like me,’” she said.

House tossed the stick into the bin. “Alexithymia and psychopathy rarely overlap this far. Most psychopaths fake empathy, but they still register something—fear, reward, rage. You? Nothing. That’s rare. Even rarer in someone this good at pretending otherwise.”

“Is this the part where you call me fascinating and try to get a grant?”

“No,” House said. “This is the part where I tell you I once cured psychopathy.”

She blinked.

“Go on.”

“Her name was Valerie. Beautiful. Charming. Manipulative. Full Hare checklist. Turns out she had Wilson’s disease—copper build-up in the brain. We treated it. Her moral centre flipped on like a faulty Christmas light. Remorse, tears, existential crisis. Hell of a Tuesday.”

Enola narrowed her eyes. “You think I’m the same?”

House eyed her like a cat watching a locked cabinet. “Severe alexithymia? Ten percent of the population. Primary psychopathy — no trauma, no beatings, just good old-fashioned neurochemistry — about one percent.”

He tapped her IV pole with his cane. Tink.

“The overlap? Emotionless psychopathy plus full alexithymia? Less than 0.01%. As in: unicorns riding jetpacks rare.”

“You think the diagnosis is wrong?”

“Nope,” House said. “I think it has a less than 0.01% chance of being right. Which makes it statistically beautiful.”

She raised a brow. “You enjoy anomalies.”

“I enjoy puzzles,” he corrected. “You just bleed while solving yours.”

Her gaze flicked to the chemo pump, clear venom threading into her veins.

“So you want to solve me.”

“Oh, definitely. But mostly,” House leaned in, “I want to poke you.”

“That’s not reassuring.”

“Good. Means your blood pressure’s still high enough to register sarcasm.”

Her voice was dry. “Clinical trials usually require consent.”

“I’m asking nicely,” House said. “Sort of.”

He circled her like a shark around a limb. Close enough for his voice to drop a decibel.

“Ever felt anything real?”

She looked up slowly.

The boy stood in the corner again. Silent. Watching.

Her voice was calm.

“Fear.”

House paused.

“Once.”

He tilted his head. “That’s supposed to make me feel special?”

“No,” she said. “It’s supposed to answer your question.”

“When?”

She blinked. “Does it matter?”

“It always matters.”

“Then no,” she said simply. “It wasn’t relevant. Just rare.”

House didn’t push further. He knew a wall when he saw one.

He tapped her temple gently with the cane. “Here’s the deal. You stay local. Six weeks. We keep pumping poison into you while I tinker with your wiring. TMS, neurofeedback. Maybe some ethically murky scans.”

“And if I feel something?”

“I win a bet with Wilson. Also, science wins.”

“And if I don’t?”

“Then I got to poke something weird until it didn’t scream.”

She exhaled softly through her nose.

“You’re not very good at hope.”

House smirked. “Hope is for people who didn’t spend med school in the morgue.”

A pause.

Then, slowly, deliberately, Enola extended her arm—the same one already bearing the IV line.

“Six weeks.”

House gave a small, ironic bow. “Princess Precision stays put.”

“I stay close. I don’t stay still.”

“That’s the spirit.”

He turned toward the door, limping without urgency. Paused in the frame.

“Hey, Hazel…”

She didn’t answer.

He didn’t need her to.

“You think your hallucinations are part of the treatment or the baseline?”

Enola looked past him.

To the boy.

To the quiet that wasn’t quiet at all.

Her voice was flat. “Does it matter?”

House grinned without turning. “Only if they start talking back.”

The door clicked shut.

And Enola, still tethered to the machine, let her eyes close.

Not to rest.

But to recalibrate.

Because this time, the boy wasn’t watching her.

He was standing beside her.

And whispering again.

LOCATION: SAFEHOUSE – ENOLA’S ROOM
DAY FOUR – 21:27 P.M.

The zipper didn’t catch the first time.

Enola paused, fingers trembling — not from hesitation, but from frayed muscle control. She adjusted her grip, pushed her sleeve back with clinical precision, and tried again.

Zzzzzk.

The bag was half full. Folded clothes, pill bottles, two preloaded syringes of Vascanon-D, three burner phones, and her last clean scalpel wrapped in microfiber. Everything else could be replaced.

Nausea swelled — sharp, rolling, like her organs had rejected the concept of structure — but she didn’t stop. She was used to hostile conditions. Fever behind her eyes. Cold sweat down her spine. The boy by the window.

She was back to work.

That was all that mattered.

Another bag lay open on the bed: medical-grade cooler, discreet. She slid a chemo blister pack inside, nestled it against the gel packs. Smooth. Silent. Intentional.

Her hands moved with mechanical rhythm. But beneath it all pulsed a single calculation:

0.01%.
Rare. Untested. Contained.

The front door clicked.

She didn’t flinch.

Didn’t glance.

Michael stood in the doorway.

He took in the scene: her, hunched slightly at the edge of the bed, still in the sweatshirt he’d left behind. Paler. Frailer. But packing like it was protocol.

His jaw locked.

“You’re packing,” he said.

Not a question.

She didn’t look up. Just repositioned a bottle and zipped a pouch with the precision of stitching skin.

He stepped closer.

“You’re packing,” he repeated. “After telling me to leave. After going to chemo alone. After ignoring every message for two days.”

Enola looked up.

Expression blank. Steady.

“Pack your things,” she said. “We’re relocating.”

Michael didn’t move.

His eyes narrowed — not rage, just cold inference.

“You’re still planning to do this alone,” he said. “Chemo. Recovery. All of it. Off-book.”

She turned back to the bag.

“No.”

“Then explain this.”

“I’ve secured a short-term rental in the city,” she replied. “Untraceable. Quiet. Close to the hospital.”

Michael stared.

Then: “You’re staying.”

She slid the last burner phone into a pocket and zipped it closed. Then met his eyes.

“Yes.”

No apology. No warmth. Just information.

Michael stepped forward — not easing, just reassessing.

“You’re staying for the chemo.”

She nodded once. “Six weeks. Local access. Monitored vitals. Full compliance.”

He didn’t reply immediately. The war he’d come ready to fight was already over.

“You talked to Wilson?”

“I talked to someone.”

He exhaled. Not relief. Not anger. Just—noise.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I hadn’t decided.”

“And now you have?”

“Yes.”

She turned to her second bag — smaller. She added a data stick, her terminal, a protein bar she wouldn’t eat. Then paused.

Without looking at him:

“You can still walk away.”

Michael didn’t move.

He walked to the bed, crouched beside it, watching her zip the cooler.

He didn’t speak for a long moment.

Then, flatly:

“You picked a fight with your own body and decided not to die. Fine. I’ll adapt.”

Enola stilled.

Not frozen. Just... still.

The boy in the corner was quiet now. Watching.

“I won’t die,” she said.

Michael’s voice was low. “You better not.”

He stood. No drama. No gesture. Just motion.

She closed both bags.

“Vehicle’s gassed,” he said. “Want me to drive?”

Enola nodded.

“Fifteen minutes.”

“Copy.”

Michael turned to leave — paused at the door.

“I wasn’t going to leave,” he said.

“I know.”

She didn’t look up.

But her shoulders shifted. Just slightly.

Not surrender. Not softness.

But weight. Real weight.

Containment, for now.

The boy blinked.

And vanished.

Enola Holmes zipped the last bag shut with steadier hands than before.

Chapter Text

LOCATION: PRINCETON-PLAINSBORO – VARIOUS / SAFEHOUSE
WEEKS 1–6

WEEK ONE
DAY SIX

Nausea hits like a gut punch at 3:17 a.m.

She doesn’t scream. Doesn’t even groan. Just crawls to the bathroom, hair stuck to her neck, bile clawing up her throat. Michael finds her folded against the wall ten minutes later, face pale as a corpse, dry-heaving into the porcelain.

He carries her back to bed.

She says nothing.

Doesn’t need to.

He makes sure the bin beside her is clean. Cold water. New sheets.

The next day, she walks into the oncology wing like nothing happened. Wilson marks the tremor in her left hand. Doesn’t mention it.

House does.

"Shaking already? You’re gonna be a disco ball by week three.”

She doesn’t laugh.

She never does.

WEEK TWO
DAY ELEVEN

Mouth sores. Neuropathy. Sharp tingling that builds behind her knees and creeps to her spine.

She doesn’t sit right anymore. Doesn’t lie flat. Sleeps angled on the sofa with a blanket Michael half-drapes over her, knowing she’ll kick it off within minutes.

House starts TMS sessions. Right anterior insula. Dorsomedial prefrontal cortex. Targeted. Supervised. Ethical-ish.

She lets him do it. Quiet. Detached.

No flicker. No response.

“Nothing,” House mutters after the third session, rubbing his jaw. “Like ringing a dead phone line.”

Wilson watches from the glass, increasingly uneasy.

She just sits there, blank as always, eyes open and watching the reflections on the monitor.

Later that night, Michael finds her standing in the shower in the dark. Fully clothed. Water running cold.

He doesn’t ask.

He just turns it off, hands her a towel.

She takes it like it’s ammunition.

WEEK THREE
DAY SEVENTEEN

She bleeds from her nose at dinner.

No reaction.

Michael says her name. Once. Twice.

She wipes it with the napkin and continues reading the intel packet he left on the table earlier — MI5 movement logs, irrelevant now, but familiar.

“Platelet count’s crashing,” Wilson says the next morning.

House brings her oxytocin spray and doesn’t explain what it’s for. She tries it. No change.

He shrugs. “You’re a defective rat in my maze. Try not to chew through the wires.”

That night, she stares at herself in the mirror too long. Not vain. Just observational.

Her skin is turning to parchment. Her jaw’s gone sharper.

Michael sees her from the hallway. Doesn’t interrupt.

The boy is back by the bathroom sink.

She doesn’t acknowledge him.

But her hand tightens around the rim just a little too hard.

WEEK FOUR
DAY TWENTY-FIVE

The hair starts to go.

First it’s just in the brush.

Then it’s on the pillow.

By the end of the week, it’s falling in strands in the shower drain.

She shaves it off herself.

Uses one of Michael’s razors.

Doesn’t tell him.

He walks in, sees the sink full of red hair, and stops like someone shot him.

She’s seated calmly on the edge of the tub. Not bald — not yet. But close. Buzzed down to something raw. Her face is blank. Her fingers are steady.

“Was shedding,” she says simply.

Michael doesn’t speak. Just exhales through his nose and walks away before his voice can betray him.

Later, he leaves her a beanie on the nightstand.

Dark grey. No pattern. No comment.

She wears it the next day.

House grins. “Nice dome. Very ‘imperial assassin.’”

She doesn’t respond.

WEEK FIVE
DAY THIRTY-TWO

Chemo burns now. The veins protest.

Wilson adjusts her cocktail. Slower drip. More anti-nausea coverage. Still brutal.

“Liver’s pissed,” he mutters. “Still not operable.”

House sits across from her during one of the infusions.

“You ever wonder if you’re just not built for this world?” he asks casually, flipping a chart. “Like, maybe nature gave you all the circuits except the ones that make life worth living?”

Enola blinks. “Are you attempting to be philosophical?”

“No,” House says, “I’m trying to decide if I should up the voltage next session.”

She tilts her head. “Did it work on the last sociopath you tried it on?”

“I didn’t say sociopath,” House corrects. “I said monster.”

“Same difference?”

“No,” he says. “Because monsters can learn tricks. But you — you haven’t learned anything.”

Enola just smiles. Faint. Tired. Mean.

“Not your fault you’re boring,” he adds. “You’ve just got nothing left to manipulate.”

Wilson boots him from the room.

Enola’s vitals spike.

No one mentions it.

WEEK SIX
DAY THIRTY-EIGHT

She doesn’t eat anymore.

Liquids only. Barely.

Michael’s stopped trying to make her take anything beyond what’s required.

She lies still now. Less like a fighter, more like a signal trying not to fade.

But the scans finally shift.

Wilson calls it out in a whisper.

“Shrinkage.”

Michael looks up. “How much?”

“Minimal. But consistent.”

Enola stares at the monitor like it’s a battlefield map.

“Still unoperable?” she asks.

“Yes,” Wilson says. “But the edge softened. That’s something.”

House hovers.

Disappointed.

Not in the cancer.

In the fact that she’s still stone.

The TMS did nothing. The drugs did less. Her amygdala is still a black box and her emotional cortex lights up like static, not signal.

“No joy. No grief. No guilt,” he mutters, reviewing her neurofeedback. “She’s not human. She’s a schematic.”

Wilson sighs. “She’s sick.”

“She was like this before she was sick.”

Wilson glances at her — bald, gray, burning.

Still upright.

Still silent.

Still calculating.

“She’s surviving,” he says. “Even now.”

NIGHT — SAFEHOUSE — DAY FORTY-TWO

Michael watches her sleep.

What passes for sleep.

Flatlined REM cycles. No visible dreams. No tension.

She just… powers down.

The machines next to her hum softly.

Tomorrow begins the last cycle.

Wilson will run new MRIs. House will push for deeper testing. Maybe they’ll find something. Maybe not.

Michael brushes a hand across the back of her wrist.

She doesn’t move.

But her pulse — slow and faint — is still there.

Just enough.

For now.

WEEK SEVEN – DAY FORTY-THREE

The final chemo drip clicked off at 17:02.

No fanfare. No finish line. Just a quiet beep, a coil of tubing, and Enola Holmes sitting in the same recliner where she’d started this war. Pale. Bald. Eyes glass-sharp.

She stood before Wilson told her to.

Michael was already waiting in the hallway. He didn’t speak. Just adjusted her coat around her shoulders with mechanical care, then took the discharge notes from Wilson with one hand while the other hovered too-close at her back.

She didn’t look at him.

She walked under her own power.

But Wilson watched her go — this ghost in boots — and he didn’t feel relief.

He felt containment.

Like watching a fire be sealed in concrete.

SAFEHOUSE – NIGHT

The first thing she did was shower.

Not for comfort. Just necessity. Salt and sweat stung at her joints and she needed to get rid of the scent of antiseptic and sterile air.

Michael sat in the kitchen, unmoving. The kettle boiled. Then boiled dry. He didn’t notice.

When she finally emerged — beanie back on, collar up, eyes forward — he spoke for the first time in hours.

“How bad is it, really?”

She met his gaze.

Still flat. Still unreadable.

“There was shrinkage,” she said. “It remains unoperable. Wilson is monitoring.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“I know.”

Silence.

Then she said, almost clinically, “I will continue treatment from here. Monthly cycles. Bloodwork every ten days. He’ll send the protocol.”

Michael crossed his arms. “And House?”

She hesitated.

A sliver of something almost visible passed over her face.

“He wants to keep… observing.”

Michael exhaled. “Of course he does.”

“I agreed.”

He stared at her. “Why?”

Enola looked toward the window. The moon was low. Cold. The boy wasn’t there tonight.

“I don’t want to die without knowing if I’m… more than I’ve always been.”

That was the closest thing to emotion she’d said in weeks.

It hit harder than she intended.

Michael walked away before she could see his face.

HOSPITAL — HOUSE’S OFFICE — DAY FORTY-FIVE

House was already reviewing the scan.

“No significant change in activity across emotional centres. Nothing resembling remorse, empathy, guilt, joy. TMS: no effect. Oxytocin spray: negligible response. Neural feedback: her brain made the monitor lie.”

He leaned back, cane across his lap.

Wilson raised a brow. “And yet you’re not done.”

“She flinched,” House said suddenly.

Wilson blinked. “What?”

“Yesterday. Needle stick. Her hand jerked.”

Wilson looked unimpressed. “That’s reflex.”

“Not her hand,” House said. “Her eyes. Microexpression. Like she expected pain. Like she felt something.”

Wilson leaned against the door. “You think you’re close.”

“I think she’s one cracked synapse away from feeling something and it’s driving her insane. She just doesn’t know it yet.”

“Or maybe,” Wilson said carefully, “she’s just getting sicker.”

House didn’t answer.

He was still watching the EEG trace.

A perfect, smooth line.

Unbroken.

SAFEHOUSE — LIVING ROOM — NIGHT

Enola sat on the floor, legs crossed, one hand against the side of her head. She wasn’t dizzy, not anymore.

She just felt hollow.

The beanie was off now. Her skull cold to the air. No eyebrows. Cheeks sharp. The hollow of her clavicle more defined.

Michael returned from the hospital with the meds. He didn’t ask where she’d been.

He set them on the table beside her with a glass of water.

She took the pills.

Not because she was asked to.

But because it was part of the plan.

They sat like that for nearly an hour. No words.

Only the quiet.

And somewhere, in the farthest part of her consciousness, the boy was gone.

But another voice — quieter, older — had started to echo.

Not grief.

Not guilt.

Just… memory.

“You felt fear,” House had said. “That’s something.”

She didn’t believe it.

But she hadn’t denied it, either.

WEEK SEVEN — FINAL SCAN

The tumor had shrunk another 6.3%.

Still unoperable.

Still lethal.

But not terminal. Not anymore.

“Month by month,” Wilson said. “We stay the course.”

House was silent.

Watching her walk out of the lab, spine straight, steps clean.

“She’ll be back,” he said.

Wilson nodded. “To treat the tumor.”

“No,” House murmured. “To see if she can prove us wrong.”

Chapter Text

LOCATION: LONDON – ENOLA’S FLAT (MAYFAIR DISTRICT)
 POST-RETURN — 08:03 A.M.

The flat was dark when they arrived.

Not because the lights didn’t work—because Enola didn’t turn them on.

It smelled faintly of concrete and lavender. Dust hadn’t had time to settle. Mycroft had likely sent someone to clean it while they were still mid-flight. Every surface was sterile. Every room already stocked.

Medical fridge. Blackout curtains. Preloaded blister trays.

Routine. Predictable. Safe.

London was still grey.

The flat was quiet again.

Too quiet for London. The kind of quiet you only got when the walls were built for secrets.

Enola sat at the kitchen table, spine straight, hands folded neatly in front of her. Her hoodie was grey. Her face was pale. Her hair—what little of it remained—had begun thinning along the scalp line, brittle at the temples. She didn’t touch it anymore.

The pill tray in front of her was divided with surgical exactness:

• Temozolomide (200 mg) – three small, pale tablets; her new mainstay

• Neuroquelin-C – clear capsule, white powder with red specks; a potent neuroinflammatory modulator originally designed to reduce electrical overactivity in the brain—lethal if taken alone

• Vascanon-D – oblong, pale blue with a translucent coating; a stabiliser developed to neutralise Neuroquelin’s fatal cascade, rerouting its effects to serve as a sedative and neural dampener

• Ropinirole – dopamine agonist; small and oblong

• Nuroceptin-R – deep blue capsule, QR label that didn’t scan anywhere

• Oxytocin Spray – black-capped nasal applicator, resting like a sidearm next to the water glass

• Ondansetron – anti-nausea; her only concession to comfort

Seven items.

Five swallowed. One inhaled. One — the Neuroquelin — still watched her like a loaded question.

She took it first.

Because of course she did.

The capsule clicked against her teeth before she swallowed it dry. No theatrics. No pause. Just ritual.

Then: Vascanon-D.

The antidote. The silencer. The only thing that turned the poison into purpose.

It tasted like chalk. It always had.

The others followed in order. Temozolomide. Ropinirole. Nuroceptin-R. A sequence. A countdown. Oxytocin spray last—one burst per nostril. Nothing. Not even a flicker of muscle memory. No response.

Michael leaned against the wall, arms crossed. Watching from the threshold.

He hadn’t said much since they landed.

Just: "We’re home."

And she didn’t reply.

Now he crossed the room. Poured himself black coffee. Sat opposite her.

“You feel anything?”

“Fatigue,” she said. “Chemical noise. Slight liver strain. Throat dry.”

He said nothing.

She stared down at the empty tray. “No emotional side effects. No autonomic shift. Heart rate baseline. Skin conductivity neutral. Same as yesterday. Same as always.”

Michael’s jaw flexed.

“You’re not even hoping.”

“Hope isn’t part of the protocol,” she replied flatly.

A long pause.

Then, reluctantly: “House said the dopamine agonist might increase hedonic response if there was any latent emotional memory—”

“House also said it might do absolutely nothing.”

He looked at her. “And?”

Enola picked up the water glass. Her fingers shook just enough to ripple the surface.

“I don’t feel anything,” she said again. “But I know you do. So if you’re about to ask me to lie for your comfort, I suggest we skip it.”

Michael’s jaw tightened. But he didn’t answer. Just watched her—too still, too quiet.

She drained the water in two gulps.

The silence held between them like a suspended sentence.

Across the flat, the medical fridge hummed. Inside: six more weeks of poison and potential.

Enola stood.

“I’m going to shower.”

Michael nodded once.

She walked past him. No touch. No pause.

But before she reached the hallway, she stopped.

“If anything changes…” Her voice didn’t soften. “You’ll be the first to know.”

Then she vanished down the corridor, bare feet silent on the floor.

Michael remained at the table for a long time.

The tray was empty.

But the pills were still working.

And they weren’t done yet.

LOCATION: VICTORIA EMBANKMENT – BLACK VEHICLE INTERCEPT
DATE: MAY 3RD – 17:46 BST

The photograph arrived in Mycroft’s encrypted inbox exactly twenty-six minutes after the subjects crossed into the city.

He didn’t request it.

He didn’t have to.

Protocol tripped automatically when either of them returned to UK airspace — the biometric scans flagged their entry, and satellite pings tracked the taxi as it left Heathrow, winding toward the familiar geography of central London.

The file attached contained four images.

The first: a wide-angle of the street. Rain-slick pavement. Taxi mid-turn.

The second: interior shot, taken from street-level surveillance.

The third: zoomed. Sharpened.

Enola Holmes, seated in the back left seat, her head against the window.

Unmistakable.

But barely recognisable.

Her cheekbones were sharper. Not carved, but worn. Her skin was grey-toned beneath foundation that didn’t quite hide the pallor. Her hair — or what was left of it — was tucked beneath a scarf, wisps escaping along her jaw. Her eyes were open. Focused. But flat in a way that set off something ancient in Mycroft’s spine.

The fourth photo showed her male companion — Michael Hanly, her so-called partner. Still unreadable. Still inconveniently loyal.

Mycroft stared at the photos for thirty-seven seconds before speaking.

“Time stamp?”

“Seventeen-fifteen, sir,” said Anthea from the other side of the desk. “Cab was tracked through Knightsbridge. Dropped them near Mayfair.”

“Are they registered under aliases?”

“No. She’s using her name. He’s still Hanly. No official flags. No health records. No flagged prescriptions. But they had diplomatic passage clearance through Heathrow's fast-track—someone intervened.”

Mycroft exhaled slowly.

They had help.

Not him.

Not anyone he approved.

“Do we have the building?”

“Already confirmed. Shielded residence. Lease filed under a trust out of Malta. No digital footprint. Blackout curtains. Medical-grade refrigeration unit was delivered yesterday. So were three sealed crates marked as computer equipment.”

He stood.

The photos were still on the screen.

And Enola — his Enola, the storm he’d tried to contain with training and blood and war — looked like she’d been scraped clean of her own shadow.

Not broken.

Not dead.

But something in-between.

“She’s not well,” he said finally.

“No, sir.”

“What’s she doing back?”

Anthea paused. Then: “Nothing visible. No pings. No data trail. But whatever she’s here for… it’s not our mission.”

That sat wrong.

Everything about this sat wrong.

Mycroft stared at her expression again — the weight behind the eyes. The scarf. The skin. The way she didn’t lean toward her companion. The way she didn’t lean at all.

Enola never hid.

Unless she had something to hide.

Or nothing left to lose.

“Watch the flat,” he said. “But from a distance. No interference. No drones.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And Anthea?”

“Yes?”

“If anything changes — anything — I want eyes on her doorstep before she finishes blinking.”

A pause.

Then Anthea tilted her head.

“She’ll see us coming.”

“I’m counting on it.”

The screen dimmed.

But the ghost of that photo stayed burned into Mycroft’s mind — the shape of a girl he didn’t recognise, staring out of a cab window like she’d already written the last page.

LOCATION: PRIVATE GOVERNMENT OFFICE – WESTMINSTER, LONDON
DATE: MAY 4TH – 09:18 A.M.

John Watson had learned to dread certain phone calls.

The kind where the voice didn’t ask. It just told.

This morning, that voice had been Mycroft Holmes.

“Ten minutes of your time. You’ll want to see the photographs.”

No location. No context. Just a name. And when Mycroft Holmes said Enola — something always cracked beneath it.

Now, John sat across from the most powerful man in Britain — watching him pretend not to care.

The photos lay on the desk between them.

Grayscale. High resolution. Clinical.

Airport footage. Street-level surveillance. A zoomed-in still from a security cam: Enola in a taxi, face to the glass, scarf tied low on her brow like it was shielding her from more than wind.

John didn’t touch the pictures.

He didn’t need to.

He saw it instantly.

The weight loss. The ghost skin. The microtremor in her hands — caught in frame as she adjusted her scarf. Her posture screamed control, but her muscles told another story.

John exhaled slowly.

“So,” he said. “She’s back.”

Mycroft gave a slight nod. “Three days now. No overt activity. No traceable work. But she’s in London.”

“No alias?”

“No. She’s using her real name. Enola Holmes. Landed with Michael Hanly, short-term lease in Kensington. Nothing flagged yet — but the medical delivery logs are... unusual.”

John raised an eyebrow. “And you still managed to catch her on camera.”

“I always catch her,” Mycroft said quietly. “The difference is — sometimes, I choose not to interfere.”

John looked at him now. Really looked.

“You’re worried.”

Mycroft didn’t deny it.

He simply pushed one of the photographs an inch closer.

“She doesn’t look well.”

John didn’t blink. “She doesn’t want to be seen.”

“She allowed herself to be seen,” Mycroft countered. “To someone. Somewhere. Just not to me.”

John gave a humourless smile. “You don’t get her trust. You get her tolerance.”

“And you?” Mycroft asked.

“I get threatened slightly less.”

They sat with that for a moment.

Then Mycroft leaned forward — elbows resting on the desk, voice lower now. Less politics. More… human.

“I’m not asking you to tell me what she’s doing. Or what she’s taking. Or why she looks like she’s been hollowed out with surgical care.”

John tensed — just a fraction.

“She’s alive,” he said. “She’s functional. That’s all you get.”

Mycroft didn’t argue.

He just stared at the photo again. At the line of Enola’s jaw, sharp enough to cut silence.

“I’m not interested in control,” he said quietly. “I just want to know she’s not dying without anyone watching.”

John considered that.

Then reached for the photo. Looked once more at Enola’s scarf. Her eyes. The stiffness in her hand. The wear in the seams of her sleeve — like she’d been sick for a while and hiding it for longer.

He slid the photo back across the desk.

“She’s not dying,” he said finally. “But she’s not fine.”

“That,” Mycroft said, “is the most honest answer I’ve gotten all week.”

“I’m not doing this for you.”

“I didn’t think you were.”

John stood.

“I’ll check on her. She’ll hate it. But I’ll go.”

“Good.”

“And you won’t hear another word from me unless she’s bleeding out.”

Mycroft gave the faintest nod. “Understood.”

John turned toward the door.

And paused.

“I meant what I said, by the way,” he said. “She’s scarier than you.”

Mycroft’s expression didn’t change.

LOCATION: LONDON – ENOLA’S FLAT, MAYFAIR
DATE: MAY 5TH – 11:02 A.M.

John stood outside her door longer than he meant to.

The building was quiet. One of those tucked-away Mayfair blocks with coded entries and no buzzers. She hadn’t left a name on the mailbox.

Of course she hadn’t.

But he remembered the door.

He knocked once. Sharp. Not too loud.

No answer.

He was about to try again when the lock disengaged with a soft click, and the door creaked open.

Enola Holmes stood on the other side.

And John froze.

Because the photographs hadn’t done it justice.

The weight loss was more severe in person. Her cheekbones jutted like blades, sharp and deliberate. The shadows beneath her eyes were deeper, more sunken. Her hair was thinning, tied back with clinical indifference. She was barefoot, wrapped in a black jumper that looked like it might have belonged to someone else.

But it wasn’t just that she looked sick.

It was that she looked hollow.

And somehow — still entirely herself. Still dangerous. Still calculated. Like she could defuse a bomb while bleeding out, and still win the argument afterward.

Her hand didn’t leave the door.

“John,” she said. Flat. Unsurprised.

“Jesus,” he breathed. “You look like you’ve been hit by a truck.”

“I’ve been hit by worse,” she replied, stepping back. “Come in.”

He followed her into the flat.

It was clean. Almost sterile. Dim lighting. Minimal furniture. One room clearly prepped for treatment: blackout blinds, a medical cooler, a folded IV stand tucked beside the wall like a threat defused.

John didn’t sit.

“You’re doing chemo here.”

“Yes.”

“And you didn’t tell anyone.”

“Not necessary.”

“Where’d you even get clearance?”

“I didn’t.”

She crossed to the kitchen, her movements slow, careful, like her limbs had stopped trusting her weight. He watched her — saw the fatigue written in how she stood. How her hands trembled, just slightly.

“There’s tea. Or water.”

“I’m not here for tea, Enola.”

“Hydration is still important.”

She poured the water like this wasn’t new. Like her body hadn’t been under siege for months. John had seen it before — the clinical detachment, the need for control. But this was different. Sharper. Older.

“You didn’t tell me.”

“You didn’t ask.”

“That’s not how this works.”

“It’s how I work.”

He didn’t argue. Not right away.

Instead, he leaned on the back of a chair, scanning the room. Not for threats. Just for proof she hadn’t dropped dead when no one was watching.

“Mycroft’s worried.”

She didn’t look up.

“He should be.”

“You’re admitting that?”

“I’m acknowledging risk.”

“And the difference is?”

“One’s tactical.”

They were silent for a long breath.

Then John said, quieter, “You scared him.”

“I always scare him.”

“You scared me.”

That, finally, made her pause.

Not visibly. But something in the set of her shoulders shifted — subtle, mechanical.

She set the glass of water in front of him and lowered herself into a chair across the table. Not slowly. Just carefully. Like sitting had become something worth planning.

“I didn’t want you here.”

“I know.”

“I’m not going to cry. Or collapse. Or give you a scene.”

“I’m not here for that.”

“But you’re still here.”

“Because you look like hell,” John said. “And because you’re alone.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Michael’s out.”

“He’s still with you?”

“Yes.”

He didn’t ask more.

She didn’t offer.

Instead, she reached for a small plastic tray at her side. Pulled it closer. John caught a glimpse of the prescription labels — most were worn off. Whatever she was taking, it wasn’t NHS-issued.

He didn’t ask yet.

Instead, he said: “Let me check your vitals.”

“I’m not your patient.”

“You’re not anyone’s patient. That’s why I’m asking.”

She held his gaze for a long moment. Then extended her arm.

Her pulse was fast.

Her skin was cool. Not cold, but too close.

Her breathing was shallow — masked by posture, but still off.

John pressed two fingers to her wrist, counting silently.

“Resting heart rate’s too high.”

“I didn’t rest.”

“Appetite?”

She didn’t answer.

He glanced again at the faint bruising around her inner elbow — faint IV marks. Fresh.

“You’ve been doing this longer than three days.”

She didn’t deny it.

“You went somewhere,” he said. “Did this under someone’s radar. Not in London.”

Enola said nothing.

John sat back, exhaling. “You’re running black-market chemo from your own flat.”

“I’m receiving treatment,” she corrected. “With full supervision.”

“Whose?”

She didn’t blink. “Not yours.”

A long pause stretched.

Then John said, softer: “Are you scared?”

"No."

But her hand twitched, just slightly — resting beside the empty tray.

And she wasn’t looking at him.

She was looking at the chair across from her.

The one always pulled out.

The one no one ever sat in.

John sat forward now, elbows braced on his knees, staring at her.

“Who’s your doctor?”

Enola didn’t answer right away. Instead, she rose — slowly — and crossed to the small drawer tucked beneath the cooler unit. She pulled out a single black file. Thick. Bound. Clinical.

She set it down on the table between them with the precision of someone placing a weapon.

John stared.

She slid it toward him.

“Primary glioma,” she said. “Left frontal lobe. Initial mass was unresectable. Chemo has reduced inflammation, but full surgical removal is still off the table.”

John opened the file. Charts. Imaging scans. Blood panels. A typed cover page from a U.S. facility — redacted identifiers, but the signature was clear:

James Evan Wilson, M.D.
Department of Oncology – Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital

John blinked.

“You went to America?”

“I needed someone who didn’t report to Mycroft.”

He turned a page. And another. His face went tighter with each line.

“Chemo daily for six weeks... Jesus, Enola. You did this alone?”

“I wasn’t alone.”

“Not with someone qualified to handle this.”

“I made it through the first phase,” she said simply. “Adjuvant treatment continues monthly. Home-based. Tolerated so far.”

John looked up, eyes hard. “And the prognosis?”

She didn’t blink.

“Three percent.”

The words hit like a punch.

John sat back — breath catching in his throat.

“Three—” He stopped. Tried again. “You’re telling me you’ve been walking around, pretending everything’s fine, with a three percent five-year survival rate?”

“I’m not pretending,” she said.

“You’re not telling anyone.”

“I’m telling you.”

“That’s not the same thing.”

Enola folded her hands on the table. “What would you like me to do, John? Announce it? Email Mycroft a death clock countdown? Bake a cake and write glioma in frosting?”

John’s face went pale. “This isn’t a joke.”

“I’m not joking.”

“Then you need to tell someone.”

“I’m telling you,” she repeated.

“No, you need support. You need real backup, not Michael watching you shake and pretending it’s tactical fatigue—”

“He knows.”

“Good. Great. That makes two of us.”

John’s voice rose — not loud, but sharp. Controlled rage through clenched teeth.

“You think that’s enough? You think you can play martyr through this and come out the other side intact?”

“I’m not trying to come out intact,” she said.

Her voice was flat. Cold.

“I’m trying to complete the work. Stay operational. Long enough.”

John’s breath caught again. “Operational.”

“Don’t pretend that word is foreign to you.”

He looked back down at the file, hand trembling as he flipped another page. The most recent scan. The tumor had shrunk — slightly — but the margins still lit up like a halo of danger.

“You have a medical team back in the States. You have treatment scheduled. You have plans. Why not tell Mycroft?”

Enola didn’t flinch. “There’s nothing he can do that I haven’t already done.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do,” she said simply. “I’ve read the literature. I’ve consulted the specialists. I’ve run every statistical model from every relevant case since 2009. I’ve pushed the protocol further than most facilities allow, and I’m still upright.”

John leaned forward, voice sharper now. “He has reach. He has resources you don’t. Access to technology—people—experimental trials—”

“Which are already accounted for,” she cut in, calm and unshaken. “Or ruled out. Or too invasive. Or irrelevant.”

Her gaze flicked to him.

Cool. Honest. Quiet.

“There is nothing Mycroft Holmes can throw at this that hasn’t already been calculated.”

John’s mouth opened—but nothing came out.

So she went on.

“He’ll interfere. He’ll try to ‘fix’ it. He’ll quarantine me like a dying national asset. And the moment he realises I might not be useful anymore—”

She stopped.

Didn’t finish the sentence.

Didn’t need to.

John’s voice dropped. “He’d never abandon you.”

Enola met his eyes. “Not intentionally.”

And then, softer:

“But you’ve seen how he lets people rot in place if it keeps the bigger picture clean.”

John didn’t argue.

Because he had.

He’d lived it.

Still, he said, “Then tell Sherlock.”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because he’ll come apart.”

That hit.

She continued, quieter now. Not gentle. Just low.

“He won’t show it. He’ll turn it into obsession. He’ll try to cure the incurable, solve the unsolvable, outthink biology. He’ll collapse from the inside out trying to save me.”

John stared.

“And if he fails,” Enola said, “he’ll carry it like a scar until the end of his life.”

She looked away.

Not at the floor. Not at her hands.

Just somewhere… not here.

“There’s no point, John,” she said. “No point in making everyone’s lives miserable just because mine got complicated.”

John’s hands curled around the edge of her file, knuckles pale. “They deserve to know.”

Enola tilted her head. “Do they?”

“Yes,” he snapped. “You have a three percent chance of surviving five years. Three, Enola. And you’re walking around like that number means nothing.”

“It means everything,” she replied, unbothered. “It means I plan better than most.”

“It means you’re dying, and the people who care about you are being left in the dark while you—what? Power through it? Pretend this is just another operation?”

She didn’t answer.

Didn’t need to.

John’s voice softened, but only slightly. “You think you’re sparing them. But what you’re really doing is stealing time from them they’ll never get back.”

That made her pause.

Not visibly. Not in any way most people would notice.

But John noticed.

Because he was trained to.

Because he knew her.

And he saw it—the stillness. The fraction of a second where she didn’t blink.

Then—

“Three percent,” she said. “Is better than none.”

“It’s also real,” he said. “And real things hurt people, Enola. Whether you tell them or not.”

She looked at him now.

Expression neutral. Voice steady.

“I’m not afraid of dying, John.”

“I know,” he said. “That’s what makes this worse.”

He leaned forward, elbows on the table, lowering his voice like it might carry less weight that way.

“You’re not a ghost. Not yet. But you keep treating yourself like you already are. Like everyone around you should act accordingly.”

Enola stopped mid-step.

Her back still to him.

Then, calmly — precisely — she spoke.

“No,” she said. “You’re the ones who treat me like a ghost.”

She turned, eyes sharp and unflinching now.

“I’m here. I’m functional. I work. I think. I live. I don’t need to be mourned like I’m already in the ground just because I’m thinner and take pills with names that sound like weapons.”

John didn’t speak. She didn’t give him the space.

“I will not die from this,” she said. “And I will not let anyone pretend I will.”

Her voice didn’t rise.

But the force behind it? It landed like a controlled detonation.

John stood slowly. “Enola—”

“No,” she cut in. “You came to check if I was breaking. I’m not. And if that’s disappointing, you’re welcome to try again another time.”

He looked at her — this version of her. Pale. ravaged. But still sharp enough to cut glass.

Still… her.

“Do you ever stop fighting?” he asked.

She held his gaze.

“If I stop fighting,” she said, quiet but firm, “I will die.”

There was no poetry in it. No drama. Just a fact spoken like gravity — unyielding and ever-present.

John swallowed. “You don’t have to fight alone.”

“I’m not alone,” she said. “I’m just not surrounded by people who know what kind of war this is.”

He exhaled through his nose, glancing around the flat again — the silence, the sealed windows, the medical corner like a battlefield triage.

“You think we wouldn’t understand?”

“I know you wouldn’t.”

A pause.

“Because if you did, you wouldn’t keep asking me to stop.”

Chapter Text

LOCATION: LONDON – ENOLA’S FLAT, MAYFAIR
DATE: MAY 5TH – 11:47 A.M.

The lock turned with a soft click.

Enola didn’t move.

John turned just slightly in his seat, eyes flicking toward the door like a soldier registering a pressure shift before the shell hits.

Michael stepped inside. Quiet. Clean. No coat — just the worn black long-sleeve and a canvas bag of groceries in one hand. Shoulder holster barely visible.

He stopped when he saw John.

Didn’t speak. Didn’t blink.

His eyes landed on Enola. Assessed.

Pale. Drawn. Posture tight. Her hand trembled just faintly against the edge of the table — a side effect of treatment, not fear.

Then his gaze dropped to the open file.

The scan.

The surgical notes.

The tumor.

The number circled in red: 3%.

Something in his jaw set like a pressure seal about to fail.

“Watson,” he said finally. Not hostile. Not warm. Just fact.

John stood. “Michael.”

They eyed each other — two soldiers on opposite ends of a ceasefire, each wondering who broke first.

“I didn’t know,” John said quietly. “About the tumor. About how bad it really was.”

Michael didn’t look at him.

His eyes stayed on Enola. “She told me.”

Enola exhaled through her nose. “He’s not here to spy.”

“No,” Michael said. “But this is why I told you not to let anyone in.”

“Too late,” John muttered.

Michael crossed the kitchen and set the bag on the counter — milk, apples, a cold-pack of syringes, one protein bar she’d pretend to eat. He moved toward her and crouched beside her chair, ignoring John completely now.

“You okay?” he asked, voice low.

“I’m fine.”

He didn’t blink.

“I’m functional,” she clarified. “That’s what matters.”

Michael’s fingers brushed the back of her hand. Not soft. Not needy. Just grounding. A silent I’m here.

“You didn’t answer your phone,” he said.

“I was busy.”

He sighed. “Getting interrogated by Watson doesn’t count as busy.”

“Apparently it does,” she murmured.

John folded his arms. “Someone has to talk sense into her.”

Michael looked up. Cold. Precise. “And you think that’s you?”

“I think someone who isn’t too close might actually help.”

“Too close?” Michael stood. “You think I’m too compromised? That I’m blinding her with care?”

John’s tone sharpened. “I think she’s one person, with a tumor in her skull, hiding it from everyone who could actually help her.”

That hit.

Michael’s mouth twitched — not a flinch. Not rage.

Just the flicker of something deeper, quieter.

Regret he’d never speak aloud.

“I know what’s in her skull,” he said. “I read every line of that report the night it printed.”

Enola stood now too.

Between them.

Not blocking.

Just… anchoring.

“No one is dying,” she said. “Not yet. Not today.”

The silence that followed wasn’t relief.

It was just something to lean on.

Michael’s voice dropped again. “I brought the new Vascanon-D lot. Lower toxicity. You’ll feel it by morning.”

Enola nodded. “Fridge.”

He turned to put it away.

John watched the motion. The fluidity of unspoken logistics. The way they moved around each other like a war plan in motion.

And still — despite it all — despite the file and the prognosis and the ache curling under his ribs—

He said, “You two really are your own battlefield.”

Enola looked at him. Gaunt. Clear-eyed.

“Yes,” she said. “But we win.”

LOCATION: 221B BAKER STREET – JOHN’S ROOM
DATE: MAY 5TH – 23:37 P.M.

The flat was quiet.

Not dead quiet — nothing ever really was in Baker Street. The traffic murmured through the windows like distant waves. The occasional creak from upstairs. Sherlock’s violin case open, untouched. His mind elsewhere.

Always elsewhere.

John sat on the edge of his bed, hands steepled under his chin, eyes fixed on nothing in particular. His jacket still hung on the back of the door. He hadn’t changed. Hadn’t moved much since he came back.

He’d told Sherlock he went to see a patient. That was technically true.

He hadn’t told him who.

Across the room, Sherlock leaned against the window, posture taut. He hadn’t asked questions when John returned. Not right away. But now—

“You’re quiet.”

John didn’t respond.

Sherlock cocked his head, watching him. “You’ve been quiet since 20:42.”

“Have I?”

“Statistically unusual for you.” A pause. “Did you see someone?”

John gave a half-smile. “Always.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“Not one I’m giving.”

Sherlock narrowed his eyes, studying him. His gaze was sharp — cutting, almost bored — but not unaware.

“Is it Enola?” he asked suddenly.

John blinked. “What?”

“I said—is it Enola?” Sherlock repeated. “Because the last time you looked like that, you were about to tell me something you’d promised not to.”

John opened his mouth.

Then closed it.

Because he wanted to.

He really did.

He wanted to say, She’s not well.
He wanted to say, She’s dying — maybe. Or maybe just fighting like hell, and we’re pretending it’s normal.
He wanted to say, You’d want to know.

But—

Just then, Sherlock turned slightly, pacing toward the window. A shift in angle. His back half-turned.

And that’s when John saw it.

A glint of red on his chest — faint, precise, and perfectly still.

Laser. Centered. Watching.

It vanished before Sherlock turned back. Gone like it had never been there.

Sherlock looked at him again.

“Well?”

John kept his voice even. “It’s not Enola.”

Sherlock frowned. “Hm.”

Then, distracted, he turned back to the glass. Muttered something under his breath about Adler and passcode redundancies.

The silence stretched.

John exhaled.

Long. Controlled.

He stood slowly. Peeled his jumper off. Folded it over the chair with mechanical care.

Then turned off the light.

In the dark, he sat back on the bed.

Didn’t sleep.

Didn’t plan.

Just listened to the quiet.

And remembered her voice:
“No one is dying. Not yet. Not today.”

He didn’t believe it.

But tonight, that was the only truth he was allowed to keep.

Chapter Text

Mycroft was the first to recover — barely.

He adjusted his cuffs, composure snapping back into place like armour reshouldered.

“You’re late,” he said tightly.

Enola blinked at him, unimpressed.

“I’m late?” she echoed. “What, is she still a threat? Didn’t you retire this particular crisis last year?”

She nodded once in Irene’s direction — polite, vaguely curious, like someone asking why a museum piece was still on display.

“Has the British government not found a better blackmail deterrent since?”

Sherlock exhaled sharply through his nose — too amused to hide it, too wary to join in.

Irene turned toward her now, eyes narrowed just enough to signal interest rather than insult.

“And who exactly are you?”

Enola smiled — not wide, not friendly. Just enough to show she wasn’t pretending to be anything but dangerous.

“I’m Enola Holmes,” she said. “Weaponised sibling. Queen’s contingency plan.”

A beat.

She tilted her head slightly, still holding Irene’s gaze.

“Don’t worry. I’m only here because the situation is... actively stupid.”

Then she looked back to Mycroft.

“Well?”

Her smile dropped.

“What’s so broken this time you decided to involve me?”

Mycroft didn’t sigh, but his entire posture suggested he wanted to.

“The phone contains blackmail data—names, coordinates, access points. She’s been holding it over our heads for over a year. No one’s cracked it.”

“She?” Enola said, flicking her eyes at Irene. “You make it sound like she’s the problem. You’re the ones who let her keep it.”

Irene didn’t flinch. But her smile slipped.

Enola turned to Sherlock.

“You had her phone for six months,” she said flatly, “and still couldn’t decode it?”

Sherlock stiffened.

Her voice dropped to mock-incredulous.

“What are you, five?”

Sherlock’s jaw locked.

“That casing is rigged to destroy the drive on tampering. It’s explosive—”

“Oh, save the dramatic foreplay,” Enola muttered.

He glared at her, stepping forward. “If you think it’s so easy—”

“I know it is,” she cut in. “You’re just too sentimental to try.”

He hesitated.

And then—grudgingly, furiously—he held the phone out to her.

Enola took it in one hand. Turned it once. Studied it.

“This is what all the fuss is about?”

No one answered.

And then—without ceremony, without flair—she placed her other hand over the lower half of the phone—

—and tore the device clean in two.

A crack. A sharp, plasticky crunch. Metal and glass snapping like brittle bone.

Irene gasped.

Sherlock actually took a step forward. “Enola—!”

She handed him the top half of the broken phone.

“Fake,” she said, like it was obvious.

Sherlock stared at the shattered casing in his hands.

“What?” he snapped. “What do you mean fake?”

Even Mycroft looked up, frowning. “You’re certain?”

Enola sighed — not dramatically, but like she was disappointed it took them this long.

“She said her whole life was in this one phone,” Enola said, tilting her head at Irene. “And you believed her?”

No one spoke.

She stepped forward slowly, her tone turning colder by degrees.

“She fakes her death. Disappears for over a year. Slips through MI6, tortures the Americans with lingerie and riddles, and you think she entrusted everything to a single piece of hardware?”

She glanced at Mycroft.

“What if she drops it in water?”

Then at Sherlock.

“What if it slips out of her hand and shatters on the pavement?”

Her eyes flicked back to Irene, flat and cutting.

“No redundancy? No backup? No clone?”

Sherlock opened his mouth. Closed it again.

Mycroft looked… embarrassed.

“God,” Enola muttered. “You’re all so used to playing against each other, you’ve forgotten how actual threats think.”

She faced Irene now, voice like glass.

“Now,” she said, calm and absolute, “give me the real one.”

Beat.

“So we can end this ridiculous theatre.”

Irene’s mouth curled at the corner — not quite a smirk, but something close. Almost impressed. Almost.

She didn’t say well done. She wasn’t that generous.

But she reached into the inside pocket of her coat without hesitation and produced a second phone. Identical shape. Identical leopard-skin casing. Only difference was the weight — and the quiet truth of it.

“I suppose there’s no point pretending now,” she said, walking forward and placing it gently into Enola’s open palm. “The one you broke was… a test.”

Sherlock narrowed his eyes.

Irene glanced at him. “Oh, don’t pout, dear. It wasn’t meant to be cruel. You had it for six months. If you’d cracked it, well — perhaps I would’ve considered sharing the rest.”

Enola turned the real phone over in her hand. It felt heavier. Slightly. She clocked the thermal seal points near the edge — just like the other one. But sharper. More dangerous.

“Same explosive rig?” she asked without looking up.

“Of course,” Irene said smoothly. “Wouldn’t be a party without it.”

Mycroft interjected, voice tight. “How many passcode attempts?”

“One,” Irene said, sweetly. “And I do mean one. Wrong entry, and it eats itself alive.”

Enola didn’t blink.

She simply turned to Sherlock, held the phone out to him again — this time intact.

“Your circus,” she said. “Your lion.”

Sherlock stared at her, jaw tight.

But he took it.

Sherlock stood near the desk, the real phone cradled in his hand like a bomb — which, in a very real way, it was. His thumb hovered over the screen. He wasn’t breathing.

The phone blinked.

ENTER PASSCODE
1 ATTEMPT REMAINING
FAILURE WILL INITIATE DRIVE DESTRUCTION

He didn’t say it aloud, but the words were clear in his posture, in the minute shift of his eyes.

I am... locked.

He hated not knowing. The silence buzzed around him like static.

Enola, sitting cross-legged on the arm of a nearby chair, watching him and the phone like it was some mildly interesting street performance, raised an eyebrow.

“So remind me,” she said, tilting her head, “why don’t we just destroy it?”

No one answered.

Not immediately.

Mycroft looked stricken. Irene merely arched a brow and sipped her tea like this was all mildly amusing.

Sherlock didn’t look away from the phone. His voice, when it came, was tight.

“Because she claims British lives depend on it.”

Enola clicked her tongue. “Yes, but she also wore a GPS corset and faked her death using you’re sentiment. I’d say her claims are... flexible.”

Irene didn’t even flinch. “You're not wrong.”

Sherlock, jaw clenched, turned the phone over again — studying, calculating.

Enola leaned back with a sigh. “Still not sure why anyone thought you should be the one to guess the password. You’ve got, what, five facial expressions total and the emotional range of a brick?”

“I’m working,” Sherlock snapped.

“You’re stalling,” she replied.

The phone blinked again.

Waiting.

Mycroft slammed a palm against the desk — not loud, not wild, but sharp enough to fracture the tension.

“For God’s sake, Enola,” he snapped. “You’re the expert. Digital forensics, encryption—what do we do?”

Enola didn’t flinch. She tilted her head, unimpressed.

“Well,” she said dryly, “for starters, you don’t hack it.”

Mycroft scowled. “What?”

“There’s no hacking. Not in the way you’re thinking.” She slid off the chair and strolled toward the desk, casual as a cat. “If I try to brute-force the encryption, it’ll trigger a destruct protocol. Guess wrong? Same result. Boom. Gone.”

“So we guess the password,” Mycroft muttered.

Sherlock didn’t look up. “Already tried. For six months.”

Enola stepped beside him, glancing at the screen.
Enter passcode... One attempt remaining... I AM… LOCKED.

She frowned. Then she laughed.

Not bitter. Not mocking.
Bright, sharp, delighted.

Sherlock turned toward her, jaw tight. “What.”

Enola held up a hand, still catching her breath. “I’m sorry. But—you’ve had this for half a year and still don’t see it?”

“See what?” Mycroft asked, already regretting it.

She pointed at the screen, grinning. “‘I AM LOCKED.’ That’s not a system message. Irene set that herself. It’s not the phone talking.”

Sherlock stared at it.

Enola leaned in, her voice soft but sure.

“It’s a sentence. That phrase? ‘I am... locked?’ That’s not a status message, you brilliant morons. That’s the wallpaper. She chose that. For vibes. It’s branding. Aesthetic. She probably changed the font.”