Chapter Text
To his credit, Sherlock actually shows some restraint once they're outside the safety of the hotel room. John puts up with the possessive arm around his shoulders as they walk through the lobby without comment, knowing that it's not uncommon for newly mated or bonded pairs to be extremely protective over each other. Were he not so wound up over what he's going to say to his sister, he would probably be feeling the same way.
Mycroft ushers them both into a private car, where Anthea is waiting. She smiles at John and leans over to run a fond hand through Sherlock's hair. He snarls at her, but she just rolls her eyes and turns back to her Blackberry. Sherlock crosses his arms, scoots an extra inch closer to John, and sulks. Mycroft is left looking between his mate and his brother with such a perfect expression of put-upon exasperation that John is hard-pressed not to giggle.
They're not far away from the hospital at all, and before he knows it the car has stopped right outside the main doors. John is the last to get out, and for a split second he actually contemplates pulling Sherlock back into the car and begging the driver to just drive. In the end, he reluctantly climbs out and follows the rest of them inside. He can't stop remembering his last encounter with Harry. She wasn't drunk but she'd definitely been drinking, and her offhand comments about omegas and guides still hurt.
"Do you want me to come in with you?" Sherlock asks as Mycroft leads the way to Harry's room.
John smiles weakly, touched that Sherlock actually thought to ask. "No, it's fine. It probably won't take very long."
Sherlock raises his eyebrows but says nothing, just leans against the wall right beside the door. Concern is practically radiating from him, though, and John gives his hand a quick squeeze before he walks into the room alone. Right away, he is grateful for the fact that Sherlock remained so close. Hospitals were nearly unbearable before, when he had no protection from the pain, suffering and terror of the patients. Harry's emotions in particular would have been overwhelming because of their familial connection.
Now, as he closes the door, Sherlock's shields gather warmly around him like a metaphysical embrace, protecting him as he looks at his sister so that he can't feel anything else. She's reclining in a hospital bed, looking back at him. Her hair is greasy and she looks awful, skin pale and eyes red, a bad bruise peeping out from under a bandage wrapped around her head. There's an I.V. dripping a couple of different fluids into the line attached to her right arm and a heart monitoring machine clipped to her finger.
He clears his throat and says, "How are you?"
"I've been better," Harry says, touching the button that lifts the back of her bed until she's more or less propped upright. "How are you?"
"About the same."
"You sure as hell don't look like it."
"Yeah, well, that's what happens when your guardian tries to kill you," John shoots back. He feels a tiny flicker of guilt when she winces, but refuses to feel bad. Moran had never really tried to make nice with him the way he had Harry. Now he knows it's because Moran hadn't thought that John was important enough to get on his side, but he still hates that she sided with Moran so easily.
"John, I'm sorry. If I had known that he had any intent to harm you... I never thought..." Harry shakes her head, chewing hard on her bottom lip. "What he said about alphas and omegas and everything, it just made sense."
"Only because you were the one who benefitted from it," he says wearily. "Did you care at all that I didn't want to be trapped at home? Or that I didn't want to be mated?"
Harry visibly squirms. "I thought you would come around to the idea. I mean, you must have. I can smell you from over here."
"That's because it was my choice, Harry. I didn't mate or bond with someone because I had to or because someone else made the decision for me," he snaps, clenching his hands into fists. "I did it because I wanted to. That's the difference between you and me. I don't want to do things just because my biology says I should."
"Hey!" Harry says, looking insulted. "Mum and Dad taught us better than that. I got carried away, okay? Sue me. I let Sebastian - Moran convince me to go to that school even though I knew I shouldn't have. I was curious to see things from the other way around. Is that so wrong? I'm not a beta, I'm an alpha. Why shouldn't I want to live like one?"
John folds his arms across his chest. A part of him knew that she wouldn't get it, but he'd been hoping anyway. "So is that what you're going to keep doing, then?"
"I... I don't know," she says, taken aback by the question. "I can't go back to Huxtable Academy even if I wanted to. The school has been temporarily shut down while authorities investigate." She licks her lips, avoiding his gaze. "Um... while I was being kept prisoner, I think I went into withdrawal. My doctor is recommending that I go into rehab. Your... Mr. Holmes said that if I was willing to go, he would pay for my treatment."
"And are you? Willing to go?"
She shrugs, picking at a thread on the blanket covering her knees. "I'm not sure I need it."
"You should go," he tells her. There's been too many nights where Harry walked into his room stinking of alcohol, where she came home drunk, when she was more preoccupied with where her next beer would come from than with what would happen after their parents died. He can barely see his sister in this stranger anymore, and maybe rehab won't change that but at least it could give her a second chance.
"I'm thinking about it."
Her lacklustre response is more than a little frustrating, but John tamps down on the urge to yell at her. If there's one thing he knows about Harry, it's that she's every bit as stubborn as he is. She won't do anything she doesn't want to do. He takes a step backwards. "I'm going to go, then."
"Wait!" she says. "I thought we could, like, hang out."
"No, Harry, I don't think we can. Not right now, anyway."
"But John - Johnny!"
He closes the door behind him on the sound of her voice and finds himself immediately pulled into Sherlock's arms. The rest of the corridor is empty, he realizes, which can't be a coincidence. Not that it matters; he's just grateful for the opportunity to press his nose to Sherlock's throat and scent him, washing away the stench of medication and pain. He lets Sherlock wrap an arm around his shoulders and guide him down to the stairs, where they walk down four flights to the emergency exit that leads outside.
The hospital has a little green area where patients can get some fresh air, and that's where they end up. John sits down on the bench beside his mate and stares at the grass for a long time. He doesn't feel good about the conversation he just had, but at the same time he's not sure how it could have ended any differently. If Harry wants to go to rehab, he thinks he'd like to be a part of her life. But if she doesn't...
"Did Mycroft really offer to pay for Harry to go to rehab?" he asks.
"Yes," Sherlock says. "He told me he had as soon as you went into the room."
"I'll have to thank him," John mutters, because even if Harry refuses, at least Mycroft gave her the opportunity. "Where did they go?"
"They couldn't leave the office for long. Too much to do. John..."
John looks up, recognizing that tone. "What?"
Sherlock hesitates for a long moment, then sighs and says quietly, "Mary was arrested yesterday morning. It turns out that she was heavily involved in Moran's plans. There's even evidence that, on several different occasions, she posed as Moriarty's partner, right up until she became friends with you. At that point she stopped, likely because Moran wanted her to focus on you."
"She... what?" John goes cold all over. Sure he'd considered the possibility that she was part of it, but he hadn't really thought... "Are you sure?"
"I haven't seen the evidence myself, but based on what Anthea said it's very credible. They're still working their way through most of Moran's records. He kept a lot of them, from what I'm told. And also..." Again, he hesitates, clearly not wanting to say it. "John, when she was brought in for questioning she confessed to much of what she had done, though not all of it. What she's said, they have on tape. Anthea told me she suspects Mary's involvement goes a lot deeper. But they won't know for sure until they're finished with the records."
"Christ," John says, putting a hand to his forehead. For the first time, he's almost glad that Mary betrayed him to the army. This would hurt a lot worse if she hadn't put those first few cracks in their friendship.
"I'm sorry."
"It's not your fault, Sherlock. I just - I never thought she'd actually be capable of that. Shows what a good judge of character I am, I guess."
"There is no way you could have known," Sherlock says firmly. "Moran wanted her to fool you, so she did."
John just nods. "What will happen to her? Do you know?"
"I suppose it depends on how much she is willing to cooperate, and just how much she actually did for Moriarty's organization. Given her unique position, she's probably in a position to help Mycroft dismantle a good portion of it and that will go a long way. If you... if you want to see her, Mycroft could arrange that."
"No."
Sherlock looks surprised by the quick answer. "Are you sure?"
"Yeah. I mean... from what you say, Mary was never really my friend. She could've told me what was going on at any point, but she didn't. She used me, and in the end she and her father nearly got us both killed. I don't want to associate with people like that," John says, but it stings. In spite of what he's saying, for a little while, back in the beginning, he really did think Mary was his friend.
"If you change your mind..."
"You'll probably know before I do," John says with a faint smile, reaching for Sherlock's hand. He doesn't want to think about Moran, Mary or Harry anymore; he wants to sit here with his mate for a while and not worry about anything. He intertwines their fingers and puts his head down on Sherlock's shoulder, pleased to feel the pressure of Sherlock's head atop his a few seconds later.