Six months of nothing. Well, 6 months, 1 week, and 36 hours of nothing. Approximately. Sherlock had been so pointedly present at Scotland Yard that Lestrade took holiday to escape him.

It had been fruitless. There was not a single case that was out of the ordinary. Nothing unsolved, nothing suspicious. Sherlock even broke into Lestrade's laptop one quiet Sunday morning and spent the day opening and reclosing any case he wasn't already directly involved with in the past year. In retrospect, had he bothered to disguise his presence in Greg's home at all, the inspector might have stayed in town. Something something, boundaries, something something, breaking and entering. Irrelevant.

The really important take away from that day had been that nothing had the right signature, no crime had the right implications to lead him to believe that Moriarty or anyone affiliated may have been involved. It was infuriating.

"Did you miss me?" Sherlock whispered to himself as he finished his reconciliation of the serial numbers of 500,000 pounds obtained in a laundering scheme. Lestrade would be proud of his team, the record keeping on this case was laudable, and Sherlock's time was wasted.

In a brief moment of frustration, he violently cleared the kitchen table of 15 police files, the bank notes, and three uneaten meals that Mrs. Hudson had not been thanked for. The racket this made was enough to wake the dead, and as that phrase fluttered through his mind, he hoped that was not his sincere intention.

"Is this a bad time?"

Sherlock looked up to the hall and smiled half-heartedly. "Never for you, John. Come in."

Sherlock stomped across the flat and slammed his entire body down onto the sofa, in an excellent impersonation of a toddler. He did look over to John as his friend stepped over the pile of money left in the kitchen to settle into his comfortable lounge chair. "How are the girls?"

"Oh, nobody's sleeping much, but Abby is so sweet it's worth it. Yesterday, you aren't going to believe the bubble she made with her spit just after being burped it was really ado-"

Sherlock may have strained an extraocular muscle with the force of his eye-roll. "Please stop. I only need to be alerted to problems."

John relaxed his excited posture and sighed, "Of course. I'll let you know when my infant gets in over her head with the Russian mob."

Sherlock only closed his eyes and steepled his hands below his chin. "I have found nothing to lead me to believe that Moriarty is alive or that any of his admittedly vast network is in any kind of power to be a significant threat."

"What do you think is going on, then? Is he waiting for something?"

Silence stretched. There was no need for him to say the words out loud, it was clear by the entire topic that he didn't know.

"Sherlock, you need to just wait. You've done it before. Our criminals come for us, there shouldn't be this much chasing involved. Until an actual crime is committed, that is. Keep an eye out, he'll make his move, just like the pink phone, just like after his trial."

"No one seems to understand the potential dangers of our current situation! Mycroft is doing what he can, but surprisingly enough, he doesn't actually have an entire platoon at his disposal. The security detail on my people is growing thinner every week."

The doctor cocked his head to the side and frowned. "Your people?" This question was met with a soft grunt. "You mean Mary, Abby, and myself."

A sigh, this time. "Of course I mean you."

"And Mrs. Hudson."

"Yes."

"And Lestrade."

"Ugh, just one man on him, he is on the police force."

"And Molly Hooper."

To this he only got silence, and was not surprised. "Sherlock, what about Molly?"

"What about Molly?" This sentence came out of Sherlock's mouth so forcefully it seemed as violent an action as the one the doctor had walked in on this afternoon.

"Are you having Mycroft watch her?" John said these words slowly, he knew he had to tread lightly over this if he wanted to continue the conversation the way he wanted to.

Another non-committal sound came from somewhere at the very bottom of Sherlock's throat. Knowing that that was the extent that this line of questioning would get him, he decided to take a bathroom break.

"Whoever set that broadcast is successfully stressing you. When he makes his move, you will be tired and half off your rocker, and he didn't even have to try."

Sherlock turned to watch his friend saunter off down the hall. He may, in fact, have a point. Sherlock made the decision that moment to get back into a healthy routine. His mind was not meant for paperwork, it was made for science.

This particular scientist was nothing more than a blur as he lost his dressing gown and threw on his jacket and coat. He banged on the bathroom door as he left his bedroom, "I'm going to Bart's. Give my love to Mary and the baby, and I will tell her if you stay here and nap instead of going home straight away!"

The front door slammed as John left the bathroom. He smiled to himself and grabbed his lumbar pillow from his old chair. "I had just the hardest time getting a cab, it was the strangest thing," he rehearsed as he successfully stole 30 minutes for himself and settled down on the sofa.