Chapter Text
There’s not a whole lot about mornings that appeal to sane, normal folk. The slow waking, the necessity of facing the day, the hauling of a worn body out of a bed. The hauling of a worn, aged body out of bed for some. It seemed to John Luther that only a lunatic would enjoy the whole masochistic process, and while he could put himself in those shoes, he’d never be one of them himself. Forcing himself upright in the too-soft bed, he held onto that notion with a bit of pride and used it to lever himself out of bed. Then he followed the smell of slightly-better-than-cheap coffee to the suite’s kitchen.
“Good morning, John!”
Only a lunatic would love these hours and it appeared that Alice Morgan was in fine form this morning. Glowing from a morning jog, she was still clad in her running clothes and waiting patiently by the percolator.
“Good morning, Alice.”
“For some reason, I had always had a picture of you as a morning person, John. Up with the birds to watch the dawn. Have you no appreciation for beauty?”
“Oh, I can appreciate beauty. Dawn, too. It’s just that I’m usually on the other side of it.” John said, accepting a mug from her. “And I’m more appreciative of my rest these days.”
“Well far be it from me to argue that, it being the point of all this,” Alice said, waving at the general state of their hotel suite. “But I should point out there are other forms of rest and relaxation than bedrest.”
“Yeah, that there are. What’s New York got for us today then, Ms. Morgan?”
Vacationing with Alice Morgan was… an experience. You could expect to see the usual tourist traps for one hour and then be dragged into an electric chair museum or an abandoned underground station. John vastly preferred the former, but refused to let Alice bait him with the latter. Today, though, seems to one of the safe, sane trips.
He had to admit, the Smithsonian was high on his lists of places to visit. As a child, he’d always appreciated the arts and sciences, even as his father tried to push him into more military, manly interests. The place was massive, though, taking up several city blocks and large enough to get lost around. So it was for that reason that John stuck with Alice, she with the smartphone, and not for the worry of losing a semi-reformed malignant narcissist in New York City.
Thankfully, though, Alice was in her element, or at least one of. She was more than happy to lead the way around the Air and Space Museum and perfectly content to let John pretend he was leading the way around the others. They split their interests and in lieu of a library, John made due with American art and history museums. He’d certainly seen enough of what the British had back in London.
Altogether, he thought, it was shaping up to being a right pleasant day. A drastic departure from his days with the Met, and all the better for it. It’s not that he hated Alice being right, but this was good for him. He could feel it. A while longer of this and he could sort out the rest of his life. Funny, how looking at pictures of deep-sea plantlife could be calming.
That was, of course, when the all-too-familiar clatter of feet rose up out of the background hum of the world. He shut his eyes in exasperation and let out a sigh, drawing the attention of Alice next to him. Any second now…
“Stop him! Stop that man!”
Marcus Bell was a fit man, and he prided himself on staying that way. But the murdering sonuvabitch administrator that he was chasing ran marathons in his off-time and every burning stride the police detective took was testament to how out-classed he was. Still, he didn’t need to catch the bastard, he just had to keep him in sight until backup arrived.
That wasn’t going to be easy in this crowd though. The man slammed into visitors to his own museum, sending them sprawling, forcing Marcus to dodge or slam into more as they went dodging, all impeding his progress. Not for the first time, he cursed his small stature, which would normally be an advantage here. The damn administrator dodged between two large tour groups about to brush into one another and the swearing in Marcus’ head turned verbal.
He elbowed and shouldered his way through the groups, yelling for people to get out of the way and wishing he had his badge out to scare them apart. When he finally got to the edge of the crowd, the murderer was well on his way to a clean break. Tearing after him, he yelled,
“Stop him! Stop that man!”
Like he’d pulled the trigger on an invisible gun, a dark shape hurtled out of the crowd of bystanders. It struck the runner like a thunderbolt, driving him to the ground in something that started as a tackle and ended as a full on body-slam. The murderer groaned in pain and curled up as the large black man got to his feet. Older than Bell, he still towered impressively and had a hard, resigned look to him.
As Detective Bell slowed to a jog in front of him, the man spoke up,
“I sure as hell hope you’re a copper, else I’m going to regret that.”
He was English and his name was John Luther. He also had no problem waiting around for his statement to be taken while Bell dealt with the perp. The woman at his side looked pretty pissed though and whatever he was saying to placate her wasn’t working. Well, it was too bad that this ruined his vacation or whatever, but that wasn’t Bell’s problem.
“Ah, Detective Bell, you have apprehended the criminal, excellent!” This, however, was. He was mostly fine with Sherlock these days, but his micromanagement on this case was getting irritating.
“Yeah, thanks to some help from on of your countrymen here,” he said, gesturing at Luther. Then he saw both men’s faces fall and knew he had an even bigger problem.
“Detective Chief Inspector Luther.”
“Not anymore, Holmes.”
“Finally kicked out, were you?”
“I quit, actually.”
“Really? Shocking. But good for you. I see your instincts remain as brutally effective as ever.” The scorn in Sherlock’s voice was a palpable thing. Bell’s eyes flicked between the two men, different as could be. The slim, almost frail white man holding himself rigidly, ever attentive with nervous energy crackling off him deeply contrasted with the tall, muscular black one, hands in his pocket and almost slouched with laziness. For a second he thought maybe that could have been the reason for Holmes’ derision. But then he saw Luther’s eyes. Flint-hard, calculating, the eyes of a man driven, and the eyes of a predator about to strike.
He opened his mouth and Bell cocked an eyebrow, viscerally interested in what was about to come. But Luther cocked his head, shut his mouth and gave a weary smile. The woman slipped her arm into his and pressed herself close to him, looking up to him with concern.
“Yeah, that’s about right Holmes.” He shrugged and rolled his shoulders back. “Bloody poor way to get on with a holiday though. If you don’t mind, Detective Bell, point me to an officer I can give my statement to?”
Thinking it would be best to just break this whole thing up, Marcus replied, “Don’t let us keep you, Mr. Luther. You can just swing by the station whenever you have a minute.”
He handed the Brit a card, which the red-head snapped up with a frosty smile.
“Thank you… Detective Bell, was it? We will be sure to do so.”
He watched them go, vaguely apprehensive. Neither looked back, and the woman sidled right back up to the former cop.
“Who was that woman annnd why do I feel like her having my name is a bad thing?”
“I have no idea and because it quite probably is, respectively.”
“So who was that?”
“Hmm?”
“The other Englishman. Holmes?”
“Hmm,” Luther rubbed at his beard, too grown in to be called stubble at this point. His eyes focused on some distant point, the past. “Sherlock Holmes. Deductive genius. Worked with Scotland Yard some, interfered with Met cases some, got hooked on drugs and then went away some.”
“And now he’s in New York?”
“Apparently. Listen, Alice…” Luther drew the phrase out as he did when he was thinking, or when he was wrongfooted.
“Yes?”
“I don’t want this to ruin this holiday of ours. Holmes is the past and that back there… well, it was just reflex.”
Alice was quiet for a moment before speak, softly. “Don’t lie to me John. You can lie to yourself and others all you want. But do not lie to me. You knew that chase was coming. I saw you tense and slump a good three seconds before you hit that man like a rugger. You made that decision yourself.”
And John huffed a breath. “Yeah, I suppose I did. I decided to act on instinct and that instinct was to stop that man.”
His companion cocked her head, red tresses shining in the wan afternoon light. “John, we were agreed. This trip is about rest, about letting go.”
“I can’t just let go of what I think is right, Alice.”
“But you can trust it to others. That Detective Bell seemed a good sort. Let him and others like him fight the good fight. Let it by.”
“Let it by,” John mused. He slowed his pace, stopped and stared up into the sky. Let it by. Alice had been right, back in England. The life he’d been leading would kill him. Would kill others around him, because of him. Because he refused to let things go. The question wasn’t whether he could let things go, but whether he was even capable of doing so.
“Alright, Ms. Morgan. What’s next on the agenda.”
“What about going to the station?” Alice asked, a slow smile already curling her lips.
“It can wait. Tomorrow, maybe.”
“So who was that?” Joan asked, coming up to Sherlock and Marcus.
“Yeah,” followed up Marcus, “What’s your deal with him, Holmes?”
“The former Detective-Chief-Inspector is merely an acquaintance from London. I had the occasion to work with the Metropolitan police department that he was assigned to, the Serious Crimes Unit.”
“And that bit about him getting kicked out…”
“The man is a wild dog, indifferent to rationality, hostile to common methodology and above all negligent of procedure.”
Joan and Bell exchange a look. Other than the first part, it sounded familiar.
“Can’t be that bad, if he made it to DCI. That’s pretty high up there, isn’t it?”
“Oh yes. He climbed the ladder well. He simply left a trail of ruined lives and careers behind him that… well. Enough about him.” Holmes sounded uncharacteristically bitter.
“Not exactly like you to be upset about people who get left by the wayside when getting the job done.”
“I care when my one of the few colleagues I might have called a friend are destroyed because of one of his adrenaline-fueled lunatic pursuits! Mark my words, Detective Bell, your city will be better off without him in it.”
With the look of someone eager to head something off, Joan brought her hands together in a soft clap. “Right, so, since we’ve caught the criminal, we should let the police do the rest of their jobs. Captain Gregson mentioned possibly having something else for us at the station. Come on, Sherlock.”
“Oh don’t try to herd me, I’m perfectly capable of noticing social cues.”
“Yeah, it’s the following of them you’re not great at.”
Marcus Bell watched the two of them go off, and then looked down at a name in his notepad. A moment’s consideration, then he pulled out his phone
“Yeah, Detective Bell here. Can you please get me everything on a DCI John Luther? No. No, just uh, heading something off here. Thanks.”
After a long day of running about one of the largest cities in the world and dealing with the mental labyrinth that was having conversations with Alice, John was quite happy to collapse onto the suite’s sofa and turn on the TV. Alice was in the shower so he was alone with the clicker for now. He flipped through the channels, idly looking for something maybe covering football, but really just content to zone out. The news stations he didn’t even give the grace of his attention. There was never any good news. Let it by.
He found an ESPN covering a match he was sufficiently interested in and let that play, decompressing. Ever since Ian and Justin had left him, there just weren’t any lads about. He very much doubted that Alice had an interest. She probably preferred tennis, or chess or more likely something he had never heard of.
As it goes in such situations, John couldn’t really have told when he nodded off, but he was woken by the soft click of the bathroom door, barely audible over the quiet din of the TV. Blinking awake, he immediately zeroed in on Alice, framed in the doorway. Christ, but were the hotel’s robes ever short.
“There is a bed for that purpose, you do realize? Two, even.”
“Yeah, was just…” Luther gestured at the TV with no further elaboration. Alice took it in and wrinkled her nose.
“Of course. I don’t suppose I could have expected you to leave everything behind in Britain.”
“What? Football isn’t just British, it’s humanity’s sport. Played across the world.”
“Yes, certainly.” She slid into the space beside him and propped her head up on the arm. The smell of her, freshly showered, filled the room and John fixed his eyes on her hair. Still dark and gleaming from the water, it was a safe spot for his attentions in a suddenly rather compromising room.
“Are you alright?”
“Hmm? Yeah, like I said, just… tired.”
“I mean regarding meeting that man today, that detective…”
A sigh. “Holmes isn’t a detective. He’s a consultant, gets hired on by small-minded bureaucrats to patch-”
Luther stopped himself. Let out a breath. “You know what? Not worth it. Not worth the explanation, my time, your interest.”
Alice smiled indulgently. “That’s what I like to hear! You’re finally getting into the spirit of things.”
“I’ve been in the spirit of things since we started this trip. Other things just seem to keep cropping up though.” He placed his hands on his knees and levered himself to his feet. “I’m getting a drink, can I get you anything?”
“Whatever you’re having.”
“Scotch?”
“Certainly, so long as it is quality.”
“In this place? I’m sure it will be.”
Alice watched John leave the room, bemused at his awkwardness in the face of her relative state of undress. She took up the tuner and John’s pass-time as well, looking through the offerings.
“-lice confirm the report another murder of a young woman matching the descriptions of three oth-”
A scowl flickered across her bare face and she killed the TV. Here she was, trying to lighten John’s life, lighten John and all around them crashed and tumbled the corruption and violence of humanity’s tenebrous soul.
“Ice?” he called from the kitchenette.
“What? No, you savage!”
“So I kind of get why your partner was so angry over this Luther character.”
Three days later, Marcus was taking a break from the current case to go through the files International Liaising had gotten him. Joan was reviewing files pertaining to the serial killer had been for hours. He figured she could use a break. When her head came up, inquisitive.
“Sixteen counts of suspensions of some kind, eight B and E’s, three murder charges and that’s just what’s public. His IA, or Police Complaints as they call it, file is so huge, Liaising didn’t even bother to print it for me.” Marcus dropped a USB stick on the table.
“Wow,” commented Joan. “Three murder charges?”
“None of them stuck. Two he got right off on, the real killer having been found and one just didn’t get pushed.”
“He must have some friends higher up then. But with that track record I can’t imagine there would be too many to stick their necks out for him.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought. Then I got to the files not about his misdeeds.” And Marcus dropped another USB stick on the table, following by a second, and a third. Joan’s eyebrow rose with each one, until it described less of an arch and more of a straight diagonal. “He’d be the most decorated member of the Metropolitan police ever except his decorations kept getting taken away.”
“For the aforementioned misdeeds. Yeah, wow. Complicated person.”
“Yeah. And then you read some of the stuff he actually pulls…”
“Like?” Joan asked, leaning forwards over crossed arms.
“He makes wild leaps in investigations, chases down leads from directions no one has thought of, or even would think of, ever. It’s like reason is an afterthought, not the basis of his detective work.”
“Ah. And now we come to the part that sets Sherlock off.”
“Yeah. What’s more, he’s not afraid to get physical. Puts himself in danger regularly. So much so that some of the investigations call him hungry for glory.”
“And we know how fond Sherlock is of those types.”
“Like I said…”
Joan pursued her lips for a second. “Did the man that took down the fleeing administrator strike you as the gloryhound type?”
Marcus considered that. “No, not really. I mean, other than tackling him. Otherwise, he was pretty… I don’t know, self-conscious? Didn’t want to start anything. Walked off.”
“Yeah,” replied Joan, staring at the files in front of Marcus. “Wouldn’t be the first time Sherlock was wrong about someone’s character.”
“Yeah.” Silence. “Anyways, getting anywhere with those?”
“Not really, but there’s a ton to get through.”
“Gotcha. I’m gonna grab a coffee, want one?”
“That’d be great, thanks.” She flashed him a grin and he returned the smile before closing the files and heading out.
It was actually several days later, three to be precise, when John wandered into the station to give his statement. Alice had kept them busy over the past few days and John was certainly feeling better. Simultaneously more lively and exhausted. He wasn’t sure if he’d felt this way before the mad hurricane known as Alice Morgan had barged into his life, but now she was here and tiring him out thoroughly.
The woman on duty at the counter nodded at him professionally, with a slight frown after checking the date. She glanced at him with disapproval and he had to shrug, hands still in his pockets.
“I’m on holiday, mum. Gimme a break.”
She shook her head and handed him a folder with a pre-printed form in it. “Head down this hall to room 174. A detective will be with you shortly to go over the statement.”
John started heading in the indicated direction before stopping, realizing something. Now, how to ask it discretely…
“I don’t suppose it will be Detective Bell?”
“Marcus? No, it’ll be a junior detective. Did you want to talk to Detective Bell?”
“No, no, that’s alright. Thanks.” Holmes wouldn’t be making an appearance if he was being relegated to a junior detective. Perfect.
A lifetime of reading similar reports (and to be honest, filling more than a few out himself) saw John finish the statement long before the detective showed up. Clear, to the point, with nothing extraneous. The detective’s eyebrows went up, pleasantly surprised, before he went through the report just to confirm everything. That done, John was a free man, and so he ambled his way out the station.
But not before an older man caught his eye and seemed to recognize him.
“Hey, DCI Luther, isn’t it?”
“Ah, yeah. Former DCI, I retired.”
“Oh yeah? Good on you. Captain Gregson,” said the man, holding out a hand to shake. Hell, thought Luther, can’t catch a break, can I?
“Nice to meet you, Captain.” Luther gave the hand a firm shake, there being no reason to make this unpleasant.
“Just wanted to express my appreciation for your work. You handled that RPG killer thing yeah?”
“Christ, that was a bad one. It made it over here?”
“It’s the sort of loony action we’re used to, so when it happens across the pond the coverage is pretty good. A ‘Look, they’re crazy too!’ sorta deal.”
“Ah, the media. Same the world over.”
“Yeah. It helps that I spent some time with Scotland Yard, so I still listen to some UK resources.”
“Ahh. So that’s why…”
“Why Sherlock’s here, yeah. Good call there. Sorry that was what you were going to get at, yeah?”
John spread his hands, “You got me there, mate.”
“Ha, good. Listen, I gotta get back to work, but I did also want to thank you for the hand you gave us in the museum, yeah? Detective Bell said you were solid.”
“Solid? Well, I suppose.” Hit the blighter hard enough. “Er, tell him thanks or what have you.”
“No problem. I’d say see you around, but I don’t want to ruin your holiday.”
“Much appreciated, Captain.”
While John did his civic duty, Alice took the afternoon to herself. She loved John, loved him as much as she thought she could anyone, but she was inherently a solitary creature. She needed time, as the ex-copper would say, to decompress. She mulled that turn of phrase over as she sat reading a stimulating article out of NASA on exoplanet water vapour and its detection. Managing both those topics still did not take enough of her attention to avoid noticing the jogger making a beeline for her.
Alice’s head rose up to preempt conversation with what would commonly be regarded as a particularly fine example of a resting bitch face. But it did not dissuade the blonde woman, who stopped before her, chest heaving and managed
“Anyone sitting there?”
Her gaze slowly cooling, Alice gestured at the park bench. “By all means,”
“Oh, you’re English.”
“Indeed.” She took the other woman in at a glance. Pretty enough in a mildly severe way, with hair drawn back into a ponytail. A standard jogging suit, shoes broken in. Sheen of sweat glistening attractively across most of her body. Artificially flattened vowels. “And so are you, albeit eager enough to hide your nationality.”
There was only the slightest of starts from the woman, who then flashed a relieved smile. “You got me. It’s been a long time though. Guess I’ve just been trying to fit in over here.”
No, thought Alice, You’re trying to fit in with me. Your initial cover fell apart more quickly than you would have liked and now you’re improvising. She smiled, catlike, at the thought of pushing this woman further and further down the road of improv as she deconstructed her really quite passable acting. But the question, of course, was why was this fake approaching her and what would the consequences of that pushing be.
Certainly nothing good. And not even three years ago, she probably still would have pushed a bit, heedless of the consequences. But now she was thinking of them, weighing them. John had changed her, made her consider someone other than herself. Made her think of the wider-reaching consequences.
“Here on holiday?” the woman’s voice, now slipping a bit more into British pronunciation, broke Alice out of her reverie.
“That’s right,” returned Alice, having to make a conscious effort to keep her voice pleasant. “My partner and I are just enjoying some travel.”
“And how are you enjoying the Big Apple.”
“Oh, quite nice. But where are my manners,” Alice extended her hand. “Alice Morgan.”
In olden times to misrepresent yourself was among the gravest of sins, in many cultures outstripping the crimes of theft and even murder. The sworn oath, symbolized in the act of a handclasp, was one of the most sacred acts one could undertake. And to enter into another’s territory unannounced or under a false name was the sign of a criminal.
There are tells for when one is lying, when one is withholding the truth. There are tells in the very act of modern introduction, tells which reveal much about a person, depending on how the hand is shaken or a name said. Normally, they give you an idea of how the person feels about you. When you have spent as much time observing the human condition as Alice has, they can tell you a great deal more.
They can reveal kindred spirits.
“Oh!” Rubbing her hand on her sweats, the other woman took Alice’s grasp. “Irene Adler.”