A Daring And Imminent Escape

[the_new_sexy]

Follows this. NC-17 for sexuality

He runs. The sand is hard and cold beneath his feet, and he secretly longs for the shoes that are far more comfortable than the ones he wears in London, but they would've been completely obvious with the rest of his disguise. He can taste his breath against his mouth in the mask he's wearing, but that's not so bad, it does offer some warmth. It's only going to get colder in comparison to the suffocating heat of the desert during the day.

An explosion hits not far from them, and he all but pulls her around the corner of another building.

"Get down!"

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[whatyoulike]

She hits the ground, barely registering the impact before scrambling up again and heading for the next piece of cover. Exhaustion and stress have her running on automatic, reacting to the shouts and explosions and flashes of light with barely a thought. Her body just moves.

Her legs are bruised and scraped from the knee down even through the thick fabric and her palms, uncovered, are raw from catching herself against rough brick walls. She doesn't feel any of these things.

The building ends and an open space looms up ahead. Skidding to a stop, she flattens herself to the wall. A quick shake of her head to save breath. Risky, too exposed.

[the_new_sexy]

Sherlock flattens himself against the wall and looks out into the open space. There's another explosion, and he turns his head away from the light, back to Irene.

"You're too obvious dressed like that," he says. "Not a lot of women around here. Put you out in an open space, they'll see you immediately."

He looks around the corner, then grabs the boot of a fallen terrorist, which he pulls towards them.

"And while I'm not normally one to suggest a post-dinner dress..."

[whatyoulike]

"It wasn't my first choice either."

A change of clothing suits her just fine and she strips with efficiency, leaving the garment pooled at her feet in a matter of seconds. She steps over it and sets to relieving the dead man of his attire. It isn't the best fit, but it shouldn't hamper her motion any more than what she'd been wearing before. And, as a side benefit, the tunic is loose enough to conceal her breasts.

The boots are much too large for her, so she unlaces one and uses the cord to tie back her hair.

Ready to continue, she chances a glance round the corner. "I think we're clear."

[the_new_sexy]

Sherlock, meanwhile, checks the weapons still on the dead man for their efficiency. He can clean and load the weapon, but he doesn't pretend that he's the best shot he knows. That would be John Watson, for certain. All the same, it would be better to be armed with something with range, rather than just a sword.

He looks back at her once she speaks, and he's astounded by how easily she can change her appearance. It's not just the new outfit, it's the way she holds herself and pulls her hair back. The secret to disguise is knowing how to blend in, and even being a white English woman, he imagines she might be easily looked over in this place.

He doesn't hesitate to hand her one of the guns. He gives her a nod, then stays low as he moves into the open space.

[whatyoulike]

Irene is very good at being someone else. Call it a holdover of her former profession. She learned a long time ago how to control every aspect of her presentation.

She follows, the gun a comforting weight in her hands.

Despite the appearance of emptiness, she still feels apprehensive as they make their way out into the open. But no one dashes out of hiding and no shots are fired, save those in the distance. It seems they have found a pocket of stillness amidst all the upheaval. All the same, she won't allow herself to relax even a fraction until they've crossed.

Her eyes dart around the space, trying to take in all angles of approach. About a third of the way in, she spots movement in a gap between two buildings on the far side.

[the_new_sexy]

Sherlock, while eternally observant, is too far ahead to notice the movement between the space in the buildings. He keeps his gun faced forward and his eyes on the walls. Gunshots, explosions---he can calculate exactly what's happened with each of the walls and see the casualties dead at the ground.

How far to the train? He knows the direction he came from in order to get to the terrorist site, even remembers where the dead man was he took his disguise from. But that was during daylight, and now it's getting dark. He lets the map fill his mind of this place, of the ways out. He turns back to tell the Woman where the next place they need to go is when he sees the gun between the buildings.

The gunshot is sharp and clear, and Sherlock dives towards the Woman to move her out of the way before it hits her. Idiotic, of course. He should be focusing on saving himself, but---but if he was doing that, he wouldn't be here anyway. Sentiment.

[whatyoulike]

For her part, Irene had been sizing up whether she could get a shot off at this distance—unlikely—when she was beaten to the punch. She hears the crack of the gun and then something hits her from the side. Sherlock, not the bullet, and they go down in a tangle of limbs.

Her own gun flies out of her hands and skids across the ground, landing a few feet away. The impact leaves her momentarily stunned then, recovering, she scans the area frantically for the shooter. She thinks he hasn't moved out of the alley yet, but it's hard to tell. Her view is somewhat obstructed.

Speaking of which, "Normally I'd be thrilled to have you on top of me, but we're presenting a target."

[the_new_sexy]

"Stay down," he hisses. "I don't think he knows if he hit either of us yet."

He presses the weapon into her hand. "Can you hit him from here?" He knows he can't. And from the sudden, rather unpleasant burning sensation in his firing arm, it's becoming very apparent that he's going to need her to shoot.

[whatyoulike]

"I can try."

Her experience with guns is largely limited to brief lessons from certain police and military affiliated clients and her own trial and error at the practice range. Paper targets don't stand much of a chance, but a live human at this distance?

She aims the gun at where she saw the figure before they went down and tries to still her breathing. Her hands are surprisingly steady, which calms her as she peers into the shadows. There. Movement. She squeezes the trigger and feels the gun recoil. Not waiting for a response she fires two more times in quick succession just to be sure, though those shots suffer less precise aim.

From this angle she can't tell if the shots hit the gunman or merely took him by surprise.

[the_new_sexy]

Sherlock turns his head and watches the man go back into the darkness. From the angle he fell, Sherlock imagines that he was injured, probably severely. The Woman may not have John's aim, but sometimes that's not necessary.

"Nicely done. That'll have bought us some time."

Sherlock moves to get up, to get them away, but he finds that his right arm shoots significant pain down his side when he moves it. Right. All right. This is going to be difficult. He winces, but uses his left arm to get leverage to get to his feet.

"Don't run, just walk quickly."

[whatyoulike]

His pained expression draws her attention and she notices the dark, spreading stain on his sleeve. A wave of lightheadedness entirely unconnected with feeling squeamish washes over her.

"You've been hit."

What a silly, obvious thing to say, but it spills out of her mouth nonetheless. Tramping down worry, she scrambles to her feet, tucking his gun into her belt for the moment and going to retrieve her own. With it in hand, she moves to his side.

"Which way? I'll lead." No question of that now.

[the_new_sexy]

"I'm fine," he says, immediately. He can handle pain, and better than most people he knows. He can't handle little things like catching the flu or being bored, but he can handle an injury. He's handled far worse.

"Left," he says. "We're going to have to go up, on the rooftops. We'll be less of a target when we aren't at street-level."

[whatyoulike]

She nods, not wanting to waste time with arguing, and sets off in the indicated direction. It isn't long before the buildings are once again close enough to do as he suggests. Of course, there's still the question of how to get to the roofs in the first place.

Since no one has been thoughtful enough to leave a ladder laying around, climbing from the outside is out. Improvising or trying to outright scale the walls just isn't feasible when one of them only has one usable arm.

That leaves breaking in. One building in particular seems likely to have roof access, judging by the number of potted plants visible over the edge. Irene peers in the nearest window and, seeing nothing moving within, smashes it in with the butt of the gun.

[the_new_sexy]

Sherlock spots the same house and nods when she approaches the window. She's more than moderately clever, and he already knows that. His mind is a little swimmy with the unexpected pain in his shoulder. Probably not that bad, he tells himself. Can't look at it now. Like hunger or thirst, it has to wait until he's ready to handle it, no matter the situation.

He turns his back to the Woman and keeps an eye on their surroundings. He can't fire the gun right now, but he's not about to have her shot in the back, not after everything. Primarily, flying halfway across the world in order to get her out of this situation.

[whatyoulike]

She uses the gun to knock any remaining glass shards out of the frame, then climbs through. The noise didn't bring anyone running from upstairs, so that's a good sign. Still, she goes to the entrance of the next room to make certain before turning back and motioning for Sherlock to follow.

The steps are old and, every time one creaks, she can feel her heart speed up as she waits to be discovered. Creak, pause to listen, continue. There are three whole flights of this maddening sequence before they reach the roof.

[the_new_sexy]

Sherlock nods, and then follows quickly behind. A day's travel to the train, he tells himself, and then they'll be away from this place. They can get the Woman safely into some sort of protective service, or just build her a new life. At the time he decided to do this, he had only half-formed a plan in his mind about what to do once she was safe, but the closer they get to freedom, the more that plan is going to need to be perfected.

His phone goes off. A slight ding. He digs it out of his pocket.

From: John Watson
How long was it until you're back from France? Lestrade wants to know.

Not now, he thinks, and he stuffs his mobile away.

[whatyoulike]

Struggling with the latch on the roof access door, Irene doesn't turn around.

"Nothing urgent, I hope?"

The question is disingenuous; what could be more urgent than this? She manages to wrench it upwards with a nasty scraping sound and the door swings open. It's darker now, night coming on quickly. The rooftop is dotted with dim shapes which resolve into plants upon closer inspection. They're even more numerous than they appeared from the ground and packed into every available space, forcing her to pick her steps carefully as she crosses to the far edge.

The roof of the next building is close enough to jump to, but she hesitates, glancing at Sherlock.

[the_new_sexy]

"Nothing that can't wait the rest of my life," he says. Although he doubts he'll die here, the possibility does still stand, a bit like an errant thought in the corner of one's mind.

He follows her, looking down at the plants. They should keep moving, but he can't help it, he leans down and tears a leaf off. He gives it a smell and tilts his head in confusion.

"Mint," he says.

[whatyoulike]

"For cooking with lamb," she says, winding her way back through the plant maze.

She's about to continue with something about the local cuisine, but once she's facing him properly the banality of the comment in light of what they're doing strikes her as ridiculous. It's such an absurd moment — chatting about mint in a rooftop garden with Sherlock Holmes while on the run from terrorists after a foiled execution. Perhaps it's the stress of the situation seeking to vent through any available crack in her otherwise sturdy armor, but something about it gets to her and she starts to laugh. It's almost silent at first, one of those tiny shaking laughs, but it grows.

It's just- The bemused look on his face, and the leaf- Oh, he looks so silly holding it like that. She tries to get hold of herself, succeeds in reining it in for a moment, then bursts out laughing again. At least she has the good sense to put a hand over her mouth and muffle the sound. Wouldn't do to get shot over mint.

[the_new_sexy]

Sherlock, still holding the mint, looks up at the Woman as she starts to laugh. He immediately thinks she must be laughing at him, because it's so obvious that mint would be for cooking lamb, but that isn't it. She isn't laughing at him, she's laughing at something else. Something he doesn't see as funny. He looks over his shoulder, but there's nothing funny there, too.

"You should tell me what's so funny about all of this," he says, his lip upturning just a little. "John always tells me I have no sense of humor."

He looks back at her as she covers her mouth to stifle her laughter. He wants to tell her that they should keep moving if there's no mystery here---though he's loathe to believe that this much mint is up here for lamb only---but he actually thinks he rather likes watching her laugh. It's a very free sort of thing, like her hair down around her shoulders. He immediately takes that thought and bundles it up tightly, shoving it to the back of his mind. It's entirely possible that the Woman will die during this, and he's not about to let himself get more sentimental than he already is.

[whatyoulike]

It proves nearly impossible to get a word out while laughing, at least nothing intelligible. So it is with some effort that she regains enough control to explain.

"Here we are, running for our lives, and I'm about to start parroting cooking programmes."

[the_new_sexy]

Cooking programmes. Sherlock's seen a few of those when John's turned on the television and told him to shut up. They appeared to be absolutely idiotic, in Sherlock's opinion. It is simply more efficient to have someone else make his food for him, rather than learning to make it himself. Though, really, had he known anything about cooking, he'd have related the mint to lamb immediately, rather than assuming something odd was going on.

He looks down at the mint, and then back at the Woman. "I imagine that, of those on the television right now, you'd be the only one worth watching. And not for your recipes."

He tosses down the mint, and starts across the garden-like rooftop. They've still got a long way to go.

[whatyoulike]

Certainly not for her recipes. Irene's knowledge of cooking is much like Sherlock's knowledge of sex — academic and largely untested. She likes the programmes because she likes food and fancying that she knows something about it. But in the end the cooking is left to someone else.

Still, looking around at the place, it is rather a lot of mint. Unless the residents run some sort of family restaurant, it seems unlikely they would need all, or even half, of it. She kneels beside one of the planters and begins pushing the leaves apart.

She isn't sure what she's looking for exactly, just that there must be more to the story and ignoring curiosity has never been her strong suit.

[the_new_sexy]

Sherlock watches the Woman as she bends over the mint. Something's wrong with this, he thinks. Something isn't right. It isn't just the heavy smell of gunpowder and the explosions in the night sky around them. It isn't even the fact that his extremities appear to still be tingling just a little---a strange sort of side effect of their exertions, he deduces. No, there's something wrong with this rooftop. This rooftop, and the fact that several other rooftops around them appear to have similar gardens.

"Leggy," he says.

[whatyoulike]

The significance of that is clearly lost on her judging by her expression as she looks up. Gardening is a subject she can't even be bothered to absorb via telly.

"What?"