Despite the Odds

Chapter 17: Liar

There were very few instances where Sherlock was stunned to the point that he lost the ability to move or speak. The largest blow so far had been during the Adler case when he'd been caught off-guard by first Adler and then, more importantly, Marie.

Nothing had ever come as close to surprising him as her revelations, but this, this was coming in at quite a close second. He'd seen the liar in the woman before him now, but he'd never have guessed it was a lie to this scale. Not again.

Mary didn't even flinch as she kept her silencer pointed at him, asking calmly: "Is John with you?"

"He's, um ..." Sherlock got out before his mouth just gaped, still too stunned to fully even register her question.

"Is John here?" Mary repeated firmly.

"He-he's downstairs." Sherlock murmured, staring at her with wide eyes, his mind completely blank.

Mary's face became, if possible, grimmer, and Magnussen breathed from behind her: "So, what do you do now? Kill us both?"

"Mary, whatever he's got on you, let me help." Sherlock said, slowly breaking from his stupor as he took a step forwards, raising a hand in a gesture of peace.

But Mary said, a little apologetic but deadly serious: "Oh, Sherlock, if you take one more step I swear I will kill you."

"No, Mrs Watson." Sherlock replied firmly. "You won't."

He took another step, and Mary shot him right in the centre of his chest. He froze from the shock, before his head natural dropped to stare at the red spot that was beginning to grow on his shirt.

"I'm sorry, Sherlock. Truly am." Mary whispered, and Sherlock asked dazedly: "Mary?"

Mary swiftly turned around, her gun back at Magnussen's head and everything in the room blackened for Sherlock as he entered his mind palace to deal with the crisis.

Alarms began to blare as he tried to find something in his mind that would help, and suddenly Molly Hooper was behind him, saying: "It's not like it is in the movies. There's not a great big spurt of blood and you go flying backwards."

His mind changed to a white morgue as Molly explained: "The impact isn't spread over a wide area. It's tightly focussed, so there's little or no energy transfer. You stay still, and the bullet pushes through. You're almost certainly going to die, so we need to focus."

He slowly began to tunnel vision back into Magnussen's office, and Molly said sharply: "I said, focus!"

She slapped him and he was back in the white room as Molly commented while the alarms continued to blare: "It's all well and clever having a Mind Palace, but you've only three seconds of consciousness left to use it. So, come on, what's going to kill you?"

"Blood loss." Sherlock murmured, and Molly said: "Exactly. So, it's all about one thing now. Forwards, or backwards? We need to decide which way you're going to fall."

Anderson appeared, asking: "One hole, or two?"

"Sorry?" Sherlock asked, and Molly elaborated: "Is the bullet still inside you, or is there an exit wound? It'll depend on the gun."

Immediately Sherlock began to go through his mind's catalogue on guns, trying to identify Mary's gun quickly in the short time that he had.

"That one, I think. Or that one." He muttered, unable to decide, when Mycroft snapped: "Oh, for God's sake, Sherlock. It doesn't matter about the gun. Don't be stupid. You always were so stupid. Such a disappointment."