This is a fluffy case fic humour piece, written thanks to another of those damned plot bunnies. It's inspired by the obscure yet still UTTERLY HEARTBREAKING real life cold case of… my… my favourite Winnie the Pooh Little Golden Book, "Winnie the Pooh Meets Gopher", which went missing sometime in the 1978/79 academic year, when I was in Kindergarten and had taken it to school in my backpack. For the record, my book was never found, and I believe it was replaced in time, but it just wasn't the same. I feel confident that Sherlock Holmes and John Watson will have better success in finding Rosie's favourite book than I had in finding mine when I was 5… And with that, my Sherlocked friends… THE GAME IS ON!

Dr. John Watson bounded up the steps leading to the flat he shared part time with his best friend Sherlock Holmes and his wife, Dr. Molly Hooper. He stopped dead in his tracks to see Sherlock, flat on his back on the sofa, his long legs stretched out and ankles crossed casually. His open dressing gown was draped haphazardly over the edge of the sofa, and a pistol rested loosely in his hand, hovering over the carpet.

"Bored!" Sherlock said. "Booooorrrreeed." He raised the pistol and pointed it at the ceiling.

"Sherlock! What the HELL are you…"

"BOOOOORRRREEEEEED!" Sherlock squeezed the trigger, and a rather loud, yet strangely anticlimactic popping noise was all that resulted.

He rolled his head over to look at John, his expression as blank as John had ever seen. "Well, that was disappointing," he said, letting out a heavy sigh that was, well… bored. John narrowed his eyes in a glare at his best friend as Sherlock allowed his hand, still gripping the air pistol, to drop to his side.

Sherlock rolled his eyes towards the ceiling. "John, you didn't ACTUALLY think I'd be firing a real pistol in a flat with a toddler?"

John sighed and took a breath, silently counting to ten.

"Why you would… no, why you HAVE fired a real pistol - no make that a revolver now that I think about it, inside a flat at ANY time is still a mystery to me Sherlock. But yes, I suppose you know better now."

Sherlock swung his long legs around to plant his feet on the floor, bringing his slender frame around to a sitting position. "John, I am bored."

John squeezed his eyes shut. If this man weren't his best friend in the entire world… as close as a brother… his daughter's Godfather, and the father of his own imminent Godchild… he swore…

"Yes, Sherlock. I sort've gathered that." John sighed deeply as he took his place in the easy chair opposite Sherlock's usual spot of rest and relaxation.

"What about Greg? Where is he? He's usually got something for you." The question was innocent enough. When Sherlock was bored, DI Greg Lestrade nearly always had something for him to occupy himself with. Crimes so minor that Greg simply didn't have time to deal with them, so perplexing that they had brought the DI's own investigative progress to a standstill, or even the juiciest of the juicy – a cold case just ripe for re-opening.

"Oh. GREG," Sherlock said, with barely contained facetiousness as he voiced the name of his Scotland Yard copper friend. "Well he's gone for the next ten days, off wandering about the Canadian sub-arctic of all places, chasing after polar bears in a glorified jeep. A Tundra Buggy I think he called it. Churchill, Manitoba the pamphlet said. Claims to be the polar bear capital of the world. I suppose it will make him appreciate the London climate if nothing else. In the meantime, I am BORED. BORED BORED BORED."

"Yeah, got that the first time mate. And the second through eighth time you said it as well."

"Molly is gone to a medical conference, so she isn't around and wait just a BLOODY minute…" Sherlock glared at his best friend, narrowing his eyes in a suspicious scowl as the realization suddenly struck. "Weren't you supposed to be gone to that very same conference? What are you still doing here?"

John cleared his throat, sounding rather self-conscious. "I uh… I developed a cough."

"John. You are not coughing."

"Yeah… well… it was one of those… you know…" John cleared his throat, as he was apt to do when he was making things up on the fly, "24 hour coughs. Happens you know, with a toddler in daycare. They bring back all sorts of bugs and such."

Sherlock raised an eyebrow and shook his head, knowing damned well that Rosie hadn't shown any symptoms of any sort of communicable disease of any kind. "Well then… good news John. Tag, YOU'RE IT. We need a case. I don't care what it is. And when I say that, I mean I TRULY don't care what it is. I am bored. I need SOMETHING TO DO. While Greg is off chasing photo ops of Ursus Maritimus off the shores of the Hudson Bay, and Molly is at a medical conference doing that thing that responsible doctors do so well." Sherlock smiled sweetly and widely at John.

John thought a moment, then he remembered. Oh, Sherlock was going to hate him for this, he was certain of it. But it would be worth it to keep him from firing an unloaded air pistol in a flat with a sleeping toddler in the next room. Then again, this WAS for Rosie, and Sherlock was bored. Desperately bored. And he knew how utterly devoted Sherlock was to little Rosie.

"Well… alright then. Rosie has a favourite book. Well, she HAD a favourite book. It's gone missing. She's begging for it but it's gone, and it's a vintage copy, older than me even. A little hard to come by."

Sherlock's face fell a little. "Oh no. Not Winnie. Winnie the Pooh Meets Gopher? I love that book. It's the first one I read to her as soon as she was old enough to appreciate it. She giggles every time she sees Winnie's substantial arse trapped in Rabbit's window."

"Yeah, that's the one. The Little Golden Book edition. It's gone missing and nobody knows where it was last seen. It's a rare copy, I think Molly found it in an antique bookstore a few months back. So uh… yeah, if you're desperate enough, there's your case. It would make your Goddaughter VERY happy. And when Rosie is happy, Daddy is happy."

"Yes yes," Sherlock said, "And when Daddy is happy, everyone is happy. Same goes for Goddaddy for that matter."

There wasn't much Sherlock wouldn't do for little Rosie Watson, especially since Molly had announced her pregnancy several months prior and the reality of impending fatherhood had begun to take root.

"Well then, John," Sherlock said, reaching for his deerstalker hat. John knew the situation was dire when Sherlock actually literally donned "the damn hat".

"The game is on."