This is a sequel and as such it should only be read after reading He Feared He Would Never Know and He Feared It Would Never Stop. I do not own this show at all. Now that that is out of the way please enjoy the story.
Sherlock lay on the couch his dressing gown sprawled out beneath him in a puddle of blue silk. His eyes were closed and though he had not moved in hours he wasn't asleep. He was thinking, his hands pressed under his chin like a child praying, wandering through a palace he'd fashioned in his mind. He ran through hallways talking to the shadows of memories of everyone he could find imploring them for information, for substance, for a clue in the only case that mattered. He threw open door and raided rooms searching for anything that might provide answers but he always left them bitter and empty handed. It was becoming quite clear to him that nothing was fitting together and the puzzle he was trying to solve had so many missing pieces that he couldn't even begin to fit them together.
Normally in such circumstances he would talk to John and the doctor would force him to have a cuppa tea, or some other form of nourishment, or ask a question that actually shed some form of light on the mystery. But that was the problem John wasn't there. He wasn't in his room, he wasn't out with Mike, or on a date in a short term relationship that would amount to nothing, and he wasn't in the kitchen complaining about the state of it or the various body parts in the fridge. No John Watson was absent from his life and had been for three weeks now. He hadn't even said he was leaving. He didn't take anything with him. He was just gone.
John had been acting odd after the incident at the pool and such things were to be expected after being kidnapped by a madman and facing a brush with death. Even so John was not the type of man to run from his problems, not when he thrived in stressful situations. He lived for the battlefield for the adrenaline and danger singing through his veins and Sherlock had provided that. Sherlock huffed as his eyes opened and he forced himself to sit up ignoring his body's complaints against moving with an ease that came naturally. He slouched in his seat looking around the room with barely concealed disgust. It was so dull without John there and without the doctor he felt like an artist whose muse had deserted them. He hadn't even touched the cases Mycroft and Lestrade brought over for him. They sat there gathering dust no matter how much he itched to put his brain to work on a mystery he could handle.
He stood abruptly furiously picking up his violin and dragging the bow over the strings. The discordant raucous noise he forced from the strings painting a picture of the inner workings of his head. He was furious and it showed in the flaring of his nostrils and the jerk of his arms as he played. Every note and screech he coaxed out of the strings only serving to bring more of that anger to the surface. He finished barely restraining himself from throwing the violin in the state he worked himself into. He out the instrument back in its case and threw himself on the sofa descending into his mind palace again.
Hours later when it had just started to grow light out as the sun began to rise and Mrs. Hudson's voice filled the flat from where she was speaking at the front door drawing Sherlock out of his mind palace. "He's right upstairs but I'm afraid that he's been a bit moody lately. He's been turning people away ever since John disappeared."
"He's the only option I have left." A woman said her voice shaking and even through the walls he could tell it was from physical pain.
He heard the footsteps his brain automatically cataloguing the new information from the sound of the client's footsteps. She was stumbling, unsteady from putting most of her weight on her right foot keeping the pressure off of her left leg. She was short with a compact build judging from the length of her steps. She walked into the room and when she saw him on the couch she stood in front of him to plead her case.
"Are you Sherlock Holmes?" The woman asked her blonde hair cut short but she was just as petite as Sherlock had pictured her.
"Obviously." The consulting detective said turning to face her with cold judgmental eyes.
"My name is Mary, Mary Morstan and I need your help." Mary said with conviction standing tall in spite of the wound to her leg. "My life is at stake and if you can't help me then I have nowhere else to turn."
Sherlock's brain instantly latched onto every detail turning her over and around in his head until the small details everyone missed became deductions. This was a real case, not an affair or a missing pet and his brain desperately needed a case. Boredom was singing in his veins made all the more prominent by the absence of the one person who mattered. One thing however stuck out to him the most and he pounced on it immediately. "Liar your name is not Mary."
"You're right I'm not really Mary Morstan but I am unable to use my real name now. There is someone after me and he is a dangerous man one that I fear. I do not often find myself afraid Mr. Holmes but this man I would be a fool not to fear him."
He glared at the woman the thought crossing his mind that this was exactly the kind of woman John would try to get a date with. At the thought of John he shot up and turned toward her snarling his teeth bared like a rabid dogs. "I don't care what you need! I am already on a case and until I find John Watson nothing else matters! You want me to help you either find John Watson or take care of your own problems!"
"If you cannot help me all of London is a stake!" The tone of her voice told him that she fervently believed that what she said was true but to Sherlock it didn't matter.
"London is always at stake!" Sherlock snapped. "It has survived without me before I am sure it can manage until I find John."
"Then I wish you the best of luck in your endeavor Mr. Holmes." Mary said bitterly as she stormed out the door.
He groaned and stood pacing the flat putting force into each step like his stomping could make John appear to admonish him for all the noise he was making. But all his pacing did was wear him out and leave him feeling just as frustrated. He'd called Harry, he'd hacked the CCTV cameras, he'd checked with his homeless network again and again and all it did was turn up nothing. He turned to look at the mantle seeing the empty sockets of the skull gazing back at him. He glared at it. "I suppose until John returns you could be a suitable replacement."
He restarted his pacing this time keeping his eyes on the skull. "John vanished the day after the pool incident. Theory he was kidnapped by Moriarty, evidence against it Moriarty would have made a move by now. Ergo he was not kidnapped by Moriarty. Besides Moriarty who do I know that would want to kidnap John?"
He looked at the skull his face flushing in anger as he stomped to his room and got dressed in his suit and threw on the scarf and Belstaff. He turned to the skull. "Guard the house I'm going to have a word with my brother."
"Mycroft!" Sherlock shouted his eyes blazing with his anger as he stormed into his brother's office startling his secretary and gaining what was Mycroft's equivalent of a glare.
"Anthea please reschedule the rest of my appointments for today and go see to anything that pops up. It seems my brother wishes to talk to me." Mycroft said sounding bored but Sherlock knew Mycroft better than that. He could practically hear the smug satisfaction in his brother's voice as Anthea left the room to give them a semblance of privacy.
"What have you done with John?" Sherlock shouted as he slammed his hands down on the desk uncaring of the pain that shot through them as he did.
Mycroft scoffed. "What makes you think I've done anything with your flat mate?"
"Who else could have kidnapped him without leaving a trace?" Sherlock asked sarcastically his arms crossed over his chest as he fell into the chair opposite his brother.
"And what makes you so sure John was kidnapped?" Mycroft asked a sly smile creeping up on his face. "You do have a tendency to push people past their limits brother, is it really so surprising that John would reach the end of his?"
"If John left willingly then why is his stuff still sitting around our flat?" Sherlock hissed standing to tower over his brother who remained seated at his desk.
"I suppose I shall have to tell you then." Mycroft said with the kind of false sadness he usually used when someone at a party mentioned the recent death of a pet. "John had to leave not because he wanted to but because he had to. Don't worry he's safe, but you should be more careful about gathering enemies Sherlock."
Sherlock leaned down glaring at his brother. "You're lying through your teeth brother. John would not leave over a kidnapping he's addicted to danger Mycroft."
Mycroft shook his head amused at his brother's logic. "Not over his own safety no, but yours well that is an entirely different story."
Sherlock's face fell but turned to stone almost instantly. "John would have stayed."
"Not when his presence put your life at risk Sherlock! The pool incident opened his eyes to the danger he put you in just by being close to you. I offered him the chance to leave and he took it but if it bothers you so much I will have someone come by to pick his stuff up from the flat."
"Don't bother. I don't know what you're trying to pull here Mycroft but it won't work. I'm going to find John and if I find that you've done something to him to ensure his disappearance no amount of governmental power will save you from me." Sherlock said venomously.
"John is the one who chose to leave Sherlock." Mycroft said softly as his brother stormed out the door.
Sherlock turned back throwing one last statement over his shoulder before vanishing into the all. "We'll see about that Mycroft!"
The older Holmes brother shook his head as his brother stormed off. He knew that Sherlock would never bother to recognize why it was necessary to do what he had done. He would not even try to see why it was so important. He would tell his brother everything if he wouldn't attack him for it. in this matter silence was sadly necessary. He feared he would never understand.
If you enjoyed this be on the lookout for the multi-chapter continuation The Pinocchio Complex sometime next year.