Chapter Text
~ ~ Null and Void ~ ~
After two months of cases and weekly outings with the Yard, John was faring much better. He still had his episodes, but not as often as he used to, and they never lasted as long any more.
That was, until Lestrade called them in on another case.
It was a damp, drizzly night, thick clouds obscuring the night sky. Stepping out of the cab, Alice pulled her favourite jacket closer to her body, locking herself behind the dark cloth and away from some of the frigid chill. Behind her, she heard John bid the cabbie a good night before the vehicle sped off down the road.
Stepping forward, she kept her pace slow until she felt John's presence at her side, then together they walked forward and ducked under the police tape. Greeted by Lestrade, John stopped short to talk to him and Alice strode forward, completely ignoring the looks on the police officers faces.
Even though it had been a solid two months since they had begun working with the Yard, some officers still found it difficult to believe that Alice was supposed to be there. She did look young, she supposed, definitely younger than her twenty-seven years, but still.. there were many people who joined the force younger than herself.
Most of them, however, didn't carry an almost unique identification card. She and John, after much deliberation, had agreed before demanding their own titles. A new officer stepped in front of her, a hand out in a peaceful gesture for her to stop. With an irritated sigh, she reached into her breast pocket to pull out her identification.
In solid black letters, just below her picture it sated:
"AliceWhittle.ConsultingDetective."
With a suspicious frown, the man checked her ID twice before handing it back and letting her in. "Thank you." She said, "And try flowers. She might forgive you." Ignoring his confused and offended look, she took her place beside the body.
Frowning, she looked down at the body, then up at the warehouse they were outside of. Craning her neck, she looked to the top and worked out the trajectory before returning her attention to the crumpled figure on the floor.
"34 Year old female. Not married. No children. Business woman." Lestrade was saying as he and John approached. "We're trying to determine if it was suicide or murder."
Alice was about to reply to him, when she heard the strangled sound that came from John. He'd seen the body. Turning quickly, she placed her gloved hands on his shoulders, holding them tightly and looking up into his face. She wished she was taller, wider, anything so that she could block the sight from the man before her.
"Butterfly." She shook him a little, trying to get his attention. "Butterfly, look at me." His pupils were wide, his body trembling. "Shit." She mumbled, bodily pushing him away from the woman on the ground. Taking him around the corner, she turned to Lestrade, who had followed them closely, a look of concern and surprise on his face. After a moment, the surprise turned to realization.
"Shit. John. John, it's okay." He didn't know what to say, and neither did Alice. Instead, she just gave Lestrade orders to get him home. It showed how frazzled the DI was that he didn't contest her orders-or point out that he was the one in charge. He simply followed them and gently piled the army doctor into a cab with Donovan.
"What's with him?" Anderson asked, raising himself from beside the body to join them as they returned.
"You really are an idiot." Alice couldn't help herself. She spun on her heel and glared at Lestrade. "How could you call us to a case like this and not warn us!?" She roared, anger literally turning her face red. "What the hell did you expect to happen!?"
"What's going on?"
"Shut the fuck up Anderson!" She didn't even bother turning around to address him. "John watched his bestfriend, my brother jump to his death! What the fuck did you think would happen when he saw this!?" She vaguely gestured to the dead woman.
Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes and tried to calm herself. A nerve on her temple twitched and she violently turned to stalk away from the police inspector- who was smart enough to keep his mouth shut at this point. As she neared the body, she looked down at it in disgust. "She was murdered." She told them. "Thrown from the third story window, bound, head first."
She didn't bother to explain how she knew this. The trajectory of the fall, the way the skull fractured on the ground, the position of her arms and feet. It was all obvious really, but she was angry enough that she didn't care to talk more than she had to.
Looking up at the building, she took two steps forward before noticing something. Time seemed to slow down as her eyes widened in horror. The small spark of light emanating from the second story gave way to a much larger one. It moved its way outward, upward, a roaring sound in its wake.
"DOWN!" She yelled, her voice seemingly coming out at half speed.
She turned and launched herself forward, but she wasn't fast enough.
The heat got to her first, the feeling of her skin caressed by the feather-light touch of the flames. It was warm, too warm and she felt like she would melt. Next came the sound. A sound so loud, so horrendous that she was sure the heavens were opening up and devouring the earth whole. The resounding bang was followed by the crackles of both flame and falling wood.
A pain spiked in her side causing every nerve ending to scream in agony even as she felt her self connect with something soft and then something hard and cold. Blessedly cold.
And then there was nothing.
~ ~ Null and Void ~ ~
Blinking her eyes open, Alice wasn't surprised to find nothing but white. Well.. she was surprised a little. Surely she should be burning?
There was burning before, she remembered that. It was hot, consuming, terrifying. Thankfully, there was none of that any more. Her left side was still tingling with the after effects, but she'd been burned often enough to know that the damaging factor was over.
Pain. So...not dead then.
Clear blue eyes blinked a few more times before she moved her head, attempting to figure out exactly where she was. It was easy to deduce that she was in a hospital. Where else would be so nauseatingly white and sterile? There was a sound to her right, muffled and barely audible. It was so quite that she could only tell it was there when she concentrated.
Another sound. This time a deeper rumble. It sounded like she was listening to the television three rooms away. A indeterminable hum.
Then suddenly there was a face above hers. She started a little, jumping back and yelping in agony as her body heavily protested the movement. Forcing her eyes open she looked directly into the worried face of one Doctor John Watson.
His mouth moved, and the muffled sound came again. Was that him talking? Frowning, she shook her head a little and tried to speak. Her throat was raw, painful to say the least but she was sure she had whispered something. Surely even in this state she could communicate. "Can't hear you." She tried again, forcing the words past her cracked lips.
Even her own words, which she was sure she had invariably shouted, sounded like nothing but a far off mumble.
Okay, now she was starting to panic. She could see that John could see that in her face. His hand slowly began to stroke her hair-on the right side of her face. He spoke slowly and loudly, yet Alice still couldn't understand the sounds that he emitted.
But she could read his lips. 'It'sgoingtobeokay.'. If only she could believe him.
~ ~ Null and Void ~ ~
It took them a while to find a way to communicate effectively. First they tried using a pen and paper, but it simply hurt too much for her to move enough to write. Eventually, they turned to her reading lips, which was slow and clumsy, and her simply forcing a few words here and there past her lips.
She was burned, surprisingly not too badly, down her left side. Two of her left ribs were broken, a further three were cracked. Luckily none had gone through into her lungs or heart but the doctors still wanted to keep her around for observation.
Her left wrist was heavily sprained and her ankle was twisted. But aside from those, and a few scratches and bruises here and there, she was lucky as far as injury goes.
Lestrade had come in for a statement, which was hard to give, but she gave it anyway. He slowly told her what had happened. The dead woman at the warehouse had been a reporter investigating the rumour of a gang stronghold in the warehouse.
"Idiot." Alice had managed to get out at that point, earning a solemn nod from Lestrade.
The rumours were correct- but incomplete. The group had been using the abandoned building as a base for building their bombs. The reporter had been found and the group panicked, not sure how to deal with her. So they had opted for the simple solution of throwing her out of a window.
Unfortunately for them, they had chosen the perfect time to do so- as a security guard was walking home past their building. He'd been the one who had put in the call.
There hadn't been enough time for the gang members to leave so they had done the next best thing- attempted to take the cops down with them.
Unfortunately for them, Alice had been the only one injured.
She hadn't been able to help Lestrade much on this case, she hadn't seen anything that they hadn't already noticed. So she was left to rest and to recuperate.
~ ~ Null and Void ~ ~
It took less than two days for the nursing staff to get sick of Alice. From her constant glaring to her all out refusal of food (her throat hurt!). Then, as she started to slowly regain her hearing and voice, she became worse. Demanding that the television be turned up loud enough for her to hear, regardless of the fact that it was two am, demanding ice-cream to sooth her throat, and basically making a nuisance of herself.
As soon as she allowed visitors (she didn't want anybody to be around before she could more or less hear them and speak to them in return), she was rewarded with a few at once.
John was there, and it was obvious by the look on his face that he felt at least somewhat responsible for her injuries. She made a mental note to confront him about that later. Preferably after Mycroft left.
She simply glared at her older brother, not enjoying the fact that he was there at all. "Have you come to bail me out?" She asked, her voice still low and raspy. She had come to call her current voice her "Russian hooker voice" because of it's depth.
He chuckled, a fake, put upon chuckle, and shook his head. Leaning his ever-present umbrella against the wall, he took a seat causing Alice to groan. If he was sitting down, he wasn't planning on leaving any time soon. Seemingly following Mycroft's example, John sat on her other side. Great. Now they'd surrounded her.
At least Anderson hadn't shown up.
"How are you feeling?" She almost missed Mycroft's words, they were at a normal volume and her hearing hadn't returned fully. She was more than half tempted to ignore him completely, but then John repeated the question louder, motioning to his ears for Mycrof's benefit.
Sighing, she attempted to shrug without aggravating her left side. It failed. Miserably. Wincing she sighed again. "I hurt. All over. Especially my left side." She paused to swallow and cough, "My throat aches and I can't hear. To top it all off, I sound like a Russian hooker."
"A...Russian hooker?" Mycroft looked confused. John simply looked amused.
A wiry smile was placed on her lips and she lifted her right hand, gesturing to Mycroft as if she was asking for money. "Nice time? Two dollar. Cheap cheap." she uttered in her low rumbles, winking at Mycroft.
That, at least, had John trying very hard not to giggle like a school girl. Mycroft looked faintly disturbed and Alice almost expected him to produce flash cards as to what a Russian hooker actually looked like in comparison to her. He used to love his flash cards.
Mycroft sighed softly and shook his head, a rueful smile on his features. "It seems then," He said, a little louder than he normally would, "That you are beginning to feel better. Should I bring for you lunch tomorrow? It is, after all, our usual day."
To say that Alice nodded eagerly would be an understatement. One could deal with hospital foods for only so long.
It wasn't long after that that both Mycroft and John left with the promise that they would be back the next day.
~ ~ Null and Void ~ ~
It took a total of three days for Moran to visit her. She had been wondering if he would come. Her mobile had been taken from her on her first day when she'd thrown it at a nurse, and she was promised that she would get it back when she was feeling (and acting) better.
So when Moran came to her, it was a little bit of a surprise. Well...he was her second in command, she supposed. He would have heard of the explosion, and it wouldn't have taken him long to put two and two together and find out where she was.
He had been shown into her room, and flashed her a massive grin followed by a concerned look as he slid into the seat to her right and took her hand. "Sweetie, how are you feeling!?" He asked, louder than necessary (especially now that her hearing had mostly returned).
What was he- ah. The nurse looked at him with a soft smile before excusing herself and closing the door behind her. As soon as she was gone, Moran pulled his hand back and leaned back in the chair. He made a motion, asking if the room was bugged.
Alice knew that it wasn't (as soon as Mycroft had left she had demanded that the nurse check every inch of the space that he had occupied) so she shook her head and he nodded.
"What went wrong, boss?" He asked, eyeing up her injuries.
"Nothing at all." She told him with a smile. "And don't call me that around here. You never know who's around." He nodded once. "Good. So, playing the boyfriend to get in?" She asked, a smirk on her face.
He simply shrugged, "Seemed the easiest way."
"Hnn. Well. While you're here, might as well make yourself useful. I need you to take over for a while. There's no way that John's going to let me out of his sight for a while and I can't be contacted. Most of my agents are underground. For the most part, they don't even know that I've taken over. Half still believe that they're taking orders from Moriarty, the other are aware that they are taking orders from the Red Queen." She'd been slowly accustoming her men to responding to the Red Queen, one at a time, slowly. Any that didn't accept the change simply disappeared.
"Take the phone in the office. Use that and the initials RQ to reply to anything. I trust in your discretion. The man that you were following, Sherlock Holmes, must not be touched. Under any circumstances. I have my own plans for him."
He nodded again, understanding and acquiesce in a single, simple gesture.
"I expect a full report when I return."
"When will that be?" he asked.
"I am unsure." That was the best answer that she could give him at that point. She had to remain in John's care until he believed that she was fully recovered. She couldn't leave or John was sure to have Mycroft follow her.
"Now go. I have a lunch appointment."
And with that, Sebastian Moran once more disappeared.
~ ~ Null and Void ~ ~