Glass: After the Storm

I Am You

Sherlock hurried down the hospital corridor, pushing past police as they convened outside the ward. He was worried, yet he still noticed them looking at him; their eyes scanning his T-shirt and pyjama bottoms, stunned to see him looking anything less than perfect.

He made his way through the ward and pushed back the curtain surrounding Margaux's bed. She was sitting up, her legs dangling over the edge as she talked to Greg who sat in a chair beside her. He could tell the nurses had tried to clean her up, but there was no hiding the blood dried into the collar of her shirt, the bruises beginning to darken across her face.

"Margaux," he breathed as he approached her, taking her face gently in his hands. "Are you alright?"

"I'm okay," she replied, placing her hand over his as it cupped her cheek.

"Are you certain? What about the baby? Is she- is everything-"

"Don't worry, they did an ultrasound when I got here and everything's fine."

He closed his eyes, breathing out a sigh of relief.

"Sherlock, I know who it is - the copycat - it's-"

"William Warren."

She nodded.

"What did he do to you?"

"He made me stop the car. I tried to talk to him, ask him why he was doing this. I tried to tell him he could stop all of this and I could help him. He said it was too late for that." She stopped for a moment. "I asked him if he was going to kill me. He said he'd thought about it-"

Sherlock let out a growl.

She placed a hand on his chest to calm him. "But he didn't."

"No, he just beat the shit out of you instead," said Greg, finding it hard to hide his own anger.

"He knew I wasn't just going to let him leave; I work for the police, I had the authority to arrest him. So he elbowed me in the face." She gestured to her swollen nose and split lip. "I think he was expecting it to knock me out. So when he saw me trying to reach for the door, he hit me again in the side of the face, and everything went black."

"So you have no idea where he went?" asked Greg.

"She said he knocked her unconscious, how could she know where he went..."

"It's just a question. He's killed people, yet he left her alive knowing she'd be able to identify him as the copycat."

"Yes but he's obviously proving some kind of point. He leaves clues, riddles, breadcrumbs. Nothing he does is accidental. If he wanted Margaux to be another clue, he'd have made sure of it."

"Look at your wife, Sherlock!" he gestured to her face. "Do you really think he did this for any other reason but to antagonise you?"

"I'm very aware of what he has done, thank you, and you'll hope to find him before I do if you want to bring him in alive. But I have to look at the trail, I must assess the-"

Margaux cleared her throat. "Would you like a professional's opinion?"

The two men looked at her, falling quiet as she raised her eyebrows at them.

"By all means," said Sherlock reluctantly.

"I think knocking me out was his way of sparing me. I think the plan was to get close to me, use me as access to Sherlock and then kill me as a final act of hatred towards him. What I don't think he expected was to actually like me; no matter the intentions, he had to develop a relationship with me, which he did, and it made it hard for him to go through with it. But by that point, he'd already revealed his identity to me. So he knew the only way to get away from me without being followed or chased, was for me to not know where he'd gone. Knocking me unconscious was a mercy. It shows he's not completely lost it. Not yet."