Part 17 - Puppeteers
Dec. 14th, 2012 07:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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13th_sherlockby Soledad
Author’s note: Just some background action to bind up the loose threads.
PART 17 – PUPPETEERS
Mycroft Holmes was sitting in his limousine – which was, in turn, currently parking in front of the classical marble-columned entrance of the Diogenes Club, waiting for him to enter his refuge – listening to Ianto’s report. He could have done so in the Strangers’ Room, of course, but Ianto needed to keep a low profile as long as he was officially dead.
Hence the car; but the location didn’t change the fact that he was content with what he’d heard.
“Mrs. Hudson is willing to accept him as a boarder, then?” he asked, somewhat unnecessarily, just to summarise the facts for himself. Ianto nodded.
“She seemed quite happy to do so, sir. I assume it was you who ensured that her insane husband would be executed for his hideous crimes, instead of being pardoned and put into a psychiatric hospital?”
“No; that was genuinely Sherlock,” Mycroft smiled vaguely. “Or rather the Doctor, in his eight incarnation; he used to visit Florida at the right time. I just changed the alias he’d used during his stay in the States to Sherlock’s name, that’s all.”
“He did it?” Ianto was surprised. “I thought the Doctor despised violence; and that he opposed lethal penalty. Jack always sang in the highest tones about his peaceful ways.”
“Harkness is – was – completely biased when it came to Doctor, as you know,” Mycroft replied. “Besides, he only knew him during his ninth and tenth incarnations. Each regeneration is different. We not only change our looks, we often develop very different personalities, too. It can be a tad… confusing sometimes.”
“Well, the one I knew from hearsay was certainly a bastard,” Ianto said darkly.
Mycroft sighed. “Ten did have his moments; fortunately, the following versions showed much improvement. In any case, as we are the last ones of our race still alive – at least on Earth – I’m responsible for him; and I take my responsibilities seriously.”
“Are you sure there aren’t any others, sir?” Ianto asked. “The Master has fooled both of you before.”
“And he can do so again, which is something of a concern,” Mycroft admitted. “There’s no way to recognise a Time Lord in human disguise – not even for another Time Lord. Which is why you must keep that watch safe, by any means necessary. Do you have it on you?”
“All the time,” Ianto fished the fob watch out of the pocket of his waistcoat and weighed it in his palm thoughtfully. “It’s an odd feeling, really. Holding in my hand everything that makes him the Doctor. As if I had him at my mercy.”
“That is an illusion,” Mycroft warned. “You can’t harm him through the watch, you know. Should you destroy it, you would only release his true nature.”
Ianto nodded. “I know. And it’s not so as if I’d really want to harm him. Punch him in the nose, yeah, definitely, but harm him? No; I was just thinking how Jack would sell his soul for the chance of becoming his keeper… and I, who never wanted to have anything to do with him, have been assigned this task. Why me, sir? You could do that. Or Anthea.”
“We could,” Mycroft agreed,” but that would be wrong. Of us all, including Harkness, you’re the only human truly from Earth. The only one who really belongs to this time period. It’s your right to decide when he can be unleashed over this clueless planet again.”
“What if I decide that Earth has had enough of him?” Ianto asked. “If I choose to encase the sodding watch in concrete and bury it on the bottom of the ocean?”
“Then he’ll live out the natural life of a human; and when that human dies, he’ll be gone forever, as he won’t have a body in which he return,” Mycroft gave Ianto a sharp look as if wondering whether he’d misread the young man. “Is that what you want?”
Ianto shook his head and pocketed the watch again. “Nah; Jack would never forgive me.”
“And you’d spare him just because his demise would upset Harkness?” Mycroft arched an inquisitive eyebrow. Ianto shrugged and Mycroft’s glance sharpened again. “You still make your decisions dependent on how Harkness would react. That can be dangerous.”
“I care for him,” Ianto said calmly.
Mycroft shook his head with a sad expression. “Caring is not an advantage, Ianto. It makes you vulnerable.”
“No,” Ianto replied. “It makes me human, sir. And it makes you human, too.”
“That, again, is something I wouldn’t consider as an advantage,” Mycroft said dryly. “No offence intended.”
“None taken, sir,” Ianto shrugged. “Your opinion about us is positively flattering, compared with that of the Doctor. So I can’t deny seeing a bit of poetic justice in the fact that he’s got to live as one of us again – and be completely clueless about it.”
“Speaking of which, I assume you’ve taken care of the transferring of his funds?” Mycroft asked. “Including the necessary restrictions, so that he wouldn’t be able to access most of the capital?”
Ianto nodded. “Of course, sir. May I ask why you chose the Shad Sanderson Bank, though? I thought you’d prefer the older, time-honoured ones.”
“I do,” Mycroft agreed, “but Sherlock wouldn’t. Choosing a modern bank in Tower 42, with all that glass and chrome and revolving doors and high-end technology is a very Sherlock thing to do… just like the website, the smartphone and all the other little gadgets. Besides, Sebastian Wilkes, the Director of the Trading Floor at Shad Sanderson, is a schoolfriend of Sherlock. A genuine one.”
“Isn’t that a bit risky, sir?” Ianto asked with a frown. “What if he notices the difference?”
Mycroft shook his head. “Unlikely. They haven’t met since university and people, especially young people, change a lot in ten years. We’ve managed to find a fellow student with a matching personality and simply altered the name and the personal data, adding a few fake memories about them being causal friends. Well, acquaintances. Sherlock doesn’t have any friends.”
“Sherlock… or the Doctor?” Ianto asked.
“Neither,” Mycroft replied simply. “We Time Lords are too arrogant to make friends, even among our own kind.”
“I’ll take your word for that, sir,” Ianto said diplomatically. “I also presume there’s no chance for the actual schoolfriend to show up unexpectedly?”
“No; he died from a cocaine overdose a few years ago.” Mycroft explained. “About the same time Sherlock was supposedly in drug therapy.”
“How… convenient,” Ianto commented dryly, but Mycroft shook his head.
“Not our doing. But the fact gave us the idea to build up Sherlock as a cocaine addict in the first place. It explained why no-one would get to see him in person. It has been a ready-made alias for years; well before the TARDIS would crash-land in our back yard. By the way, where is she now?”
“Already delivered to 221 Baker Street as an XXL-sized fridge,” Ianto replied. “Anthea fixed the chameleon circuit and locked it, so that she’d remain a fridge until… well, until the Doctor would need her again. The perception filter also works like a charm, so nobody would even think that she could be anything else than a fridge.”
“Good,” Mycroft suppressed a smile. The TARDIS as a fridge was an amusing image, but it had been her choice to begin with. “Did Mrs. Hudson have any objections against having such a big fridge in the flat?”
Ianto smiled. “I told her it was a loan, so that Sherlock wouldn’t raid hers; or put any disgusting experiments into it. She was actually grateful. She’s excited about having him as a boarder, in truth. I think it will work out just fine.”
“Let’s hope so,” Mycroft sighed and got out of the limousine. “Have Anthea install that surveillance system anyway. This is a potentially volatile situation and we should be better safe than sorry.”
~TBC~
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Date: 2012-12-14 09:05 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-12-14 09:40 pm (UTC)