Sherlock? A fugitive?

Within hours the day had gone from being just confusing, to an absolute mess. It was entirely possible that all those years Sherlock Holmes had been a fraud of a genius, and sometimes Greg had wanted to believe that he had been. However, that last case of the missing children had been solved by the great consulting detective in a way that even DI Lestrade had trouble believing in. From the scent of linseed oil Sherlock had deduced that the kid had written in invisible ink, had the kidnappers tread in it, and discovered exactly where the children were. If Sherlock hadn't been there, the kids would both have died painful, lonely deaths.

Then, when Sally-Fucking-Donovan and Idiot-Anderson came up to him and expressed their doubts in vehement, stubborn voices, he couldn't ignore it anymore.

The fact that Sherlock might have been cheating him since they met over six years ago was painful to think of. In fact, no matter how hard Greg tried he couldn't get it into his head that the man who had saved his ass on more than one occasion was a fraud. No way, it wasn't true.

Maybe Donovan and Anderson had just been accusing Sherlock because they had resented the man, Sherlock had insulted, humiliated, and out-smarted the two of them over and over again and the kind of resentment that they felt must have built up to unbelievable proportions. Then, with the idea placed in their minds, they exploded.

Greg had felt like he was trapped in a corner, he needed to ask Sherlock himself if he was a fraud but the genius hadn't gone with him; he had outright refused to be accompanied by a police officer! No surprise there, but considering the matter involved his reputation he had to have felt the need to go. Couldn't he?

Well, after going to the Chief Superintendent and getting scolded like a schoolboy they were off to arrest one of the smartest, greatest men on earth. Of course, he went quietly, only complained a bit. John, however, was an entirely different story. Why couldn't Lestrade have a friend who cared that much? The man had yelled at every man there, and then, to the complete shock and humiliation of the entire police force, Captain John Watson of the fifth Northumberland fusiliers had chinned the Chief-Superintendent and given him a bloody nose. That was him in handcuffs as well.

All of that wasn't even the best part of the night yet! While everybody was hovering around the fuming Chief-Superintendent, Sherlock had managed to get a-hold of a gun and was backing away with a surprised John as his 'hostage.' Greg's police side had felt the need to go after them, whereas his conscience was telling him to let his friends go. Sherlock would have done the same to him. No, wait, who was he kidding? Sherlock would've gone after him like a cat chases a mouse if he had done anything wrong.

Having attempted, and promptly failed to arrest Sherlock, Greg went back to his office knowing that he was in trouble from the Superintendent, again. Bugger.

Well, thought Greg, tonight has been fun.

And it had been, in a weird, stressful way. Why didn't he get out more? When Sherlock and John came back he would find a way to clear both of their names and then head out to solve another case, just the three of them off to be heroes just like they had been for Henry at Dartmoor.

The Detective-Inspector sat down at his desk with a sigh of relief and lay back into his chair. Now what was he supposed to do? The Chief-Superintendent had organized the team that would find Sherlock and John and he had purposely left Greg off of it knowing that he was a friend of theirs.

Slowly, without realizing it, Greg began to drop off to sleep in his office chair that wasn't even all that comfortable. His eyes closed, and he was out.