Soufflés, Skype and Sherlock Holmes

Chemical Defect

Sherlock had gotten himself into trouble. Again. He had put the relations between Britain and the United States into jeopardy. Clara clutched her phone, pacing along the aisle of the plane. Bodies surrounded her. Clara tried to imagine them as snoozing passengers but the paleness of their skin sent ghostly thoughts into her head. They were all dead. Their grey skin softly illuminated in the fluorescent lights was a stark reminder. Mycroft was frowning at the ground, prodding the carpet with his umbrella. Clara knew a small part of him blamed her. Clara's one job was to keep Sherlock out of trouble. Actual trouble, not the petty murders he danced around. The terrorists had heard of the lifeless plane and now years of scheming had gone to waste. Because Clara Oswald was too jealous and too stupid to intervene.

Careful footsteps creaked on the other end of the plane. Sherlock was sniffing around, connecting the still people to actual death. "The Coventry conundrum," Mycroft said, his voice a poisonous waft of smoke. "What do you think of my solution?" Sherlock looked up, eyeing his brother and Clara. "The flight of the dead."

"The plane blows up mid air, success for the terrorists. Hundreds of casualties but nobody dies," Sherlock concluded, turning on his heels. His eyes flicked across the corpses and the interior of the plane.

"Neat don't you think?" Mycroft said. Something close to a smile washed over his face. Maybe it was a grimace. "You've been stumbling around the fringes for ages. Or were you too bored to notice the pattern?" Mycroft's face was nearly as pale as the deceased's. "We ran a similar project with the Germans a while back, though I believe one of our passengers didn't make the flight." He was talking about the body found in the boot of a car a few months ago. A ticket for this flight was there, even the silly biscuits given on airplanes. "But that's the deceased for you – late, in every sense of the word," Mycroft told them, his voice insensitive.

"How's the plane going to fly?" Sherlock wondered. Mycroft had hardly opened his mouth when Sherlock answered himself. "Ah, unmanned aircraft. Hardly new."

"It's never going to fly, Sherlock," Clara blurted. He stared at her, confusion plain on his chiseled face. Clara swallowed, avoiding his gaze.

Mycroft breathed in sharply, angrily. "The entire project is cancelled. The terrorist cells have been informed that we know about the bomb. We can't fool them now. We've lost everything. One fragment of one email, and months and years of planning finished."

"You're MOD man," Sherlock muttered, pacing forward.

"That's all it takes: one lonely naïve man desperate to show off, and a woman clever enough to make him feel special."

"Hmm. You should screen your defence people more carefully," Sherlock offered, quirking a brow.

"Sherlock!" Clara exclaimed furiously, pulling at her hair. He could be so incredibly dense sometimes.

"We're not talking about the Minister of Defence, Sherlock, we're talking about you!" Mycroft snarled furiously. The tip of his umbrella struck the floor angrily. He smiled ironically. "The damsel in distress," his voice turned sinisterly soft, "In the end, are you really so obvious? Because this was textbook: the promise of love, the pain of loss, the joy of redemption; then give him a puzzle...and watch him dance." Mycroft twirled his umbrella, frowning.

"Don't be absurd," Sherlock snapped.

"It's true," Clara pleaded. "I'm so, so sorry. I should've warned you." Her eyes grew watery and her hands sweaty.

"You knew?" Sherlock demanded.

"Of course I did!" Clara answered. Shame bubbled in her stomach. She was supposed to look after him.