Only her. Only his daughter. Only Astrid. Sherlock thought she was probably the only child in the world that could manage to get kidnapped and it be totally unrelated to the case he was working on, that one case he was always working on.

That was what they decided, after some discussion: John, Sherlock, Lestrade, and Mycroft. After all, if it had been Moriarty's doing, Sherlock would have received a text by now, probably some ill-conceived anatomical metaphor, signed JM.

John had been giving a lecture when he got the news. He was in the middle of the stage at a podium, speaking on PTSD in veterans, from the perspective of a doctor as well asa soldier. He was cut off, mid-sentence, by one of the organizers of the event walking on stage and grabbing his arm. "A Mr. Sherlock Holmes for you, sir. He said it's urgent. A matter of life and death."

God love Sherlock, but he had pulled this before when John wouldn't reply to his texts, so as John announced an impromptu intermission and walked offstage, he took the phone and said, "Sherlock, honestly, you cannot keep doing this. I'm in the middle of a speech."

"Astrid's gone. Been kidnapped. We don't know where. No one's seen her since she left this morning."

A thousand things flashed through the mind of John Watson. Fuck no Astrid? You're too smart for that please God no where how when who bloody hell why notAstrid are you ok? Pleasebeok don't be dead don't even think that John what is your problem rapist

Murderer serialkiller Astrid's tough tough enough? Maybe not. don't think that

He settled on a stunned "What?"

"Look, John-" Lestrade's voice now, he must be on speakerphone-"we're working on it. Sherlock says Mycroft's got some kind of CCTV network, so we're using that to track her movements from this morning. We don't know who or how or why yet, but there's been no ransom demand and-"his voice lowered-"we need you to come home. Now. No one can handle Sherlock right now." Clearly not on speakerphone. Lestrade must've taken Sherlock's phone from him. And if Sherlock would allow that to happen, then he was in a bad way indeed. "And we need him." Lestrade's voice was so weary. "Because I will be the first to admit that I'm out of my depth here."

Sherlock had been on John's computer, scouring the internet for any trace of Moriarty after his disappearance from the pool a few months ago. His phone started to ring. Seeing it was Lestrade, hoping he had an answer to a question Sherlock had posed a few hours ago (more precisely, at 3:03 AM), he had answered.

"Sherlock, has Astrid left yet?" She had gone to visit Lestrade because she had made him an apology cake for the 3 AM phone call. Astrid made apology baked goods a lot. Mostly it was apologies for Sherlock. Actually, it was always apologies for Sherlock.

"She's been gone nearly two hours, Lestrade. Surely she's there by now. Maybe she's being polite, sitting and waiting somewhere for you to not be busy." Sherlock didn't understand his daughter, but he did love her. She was just a bit…normal.

"Well, she isn't here," Lestrade countered. "I've looked all over."

From then, it had only taken 30 minutes to establish that she was gone.

85 minutes

When John got home, he walked into a scene of utter chaos. Sherlock was vacillating between berating the people scanning the CCTV footage for Astrid and berating the Scotland Yard officers for…well, he wasn't quite sure, but one of the newer ones looked positively terrified.

"Sherlock." He said it strongly but quietly; that was all it took. The consulting detective looked up and for just a moment, for the briefest of seconds, John could see the unimaginable pain and fear flicker in his face. By the time he'd seen it, Sherlock had fixed his mask of disdain and anger back into place. John, in another time and place, would've held out his arms, expecting whoever his partner was in this alternate universe to fall into his arms and cry.

This was Sherlock; this was here; this was now. There would be no wailing and gnashing of teeth, no rending of garments, just a quiet, all-pervading worry devouring Sherlock's insides until he felt so full of it he could vomit yet so empty he was just a shell of himself.

John took a few steps further into the room and touched Sherlock's arm; Sherlock reached out and grabbed his wrist like it was a lifeline. Maybe it was.

Just then, Sherlock heard a disturbance from the vicinity of Astrid's room. He took off in that direction, John following behind, Sherlock still clinging to his wrist.

They were searching her room, looking for 'clues' ("As though you'll find anything here that I haven't already!" "Sherlock.").

John watched the officers with disinterest, mainly because his brain refused to engage in any thought that might lead to the acceptance that his daughter was missing. As they searched, they moved things around, shifting to get a look behind them, displacing objects from their careful arrangements that Astrid was so compulsive about, slowly changing the feeling of the room, knocking things off, generally doing a very thorough but disruptive search. For anyone else, any other room in the house, this would have caused nary a problem; it probably wouldn't even have been noticed. But here in Astrid's room, for Sherlock it was like they were invading on her space in his heart, in his mind, like they were erasing her as easily as they erased the careful formations of her makeup and beauty supplies on the vanity, as quickly as they disrupted the even line of her many pairs of shoes in the closet. Sherlock began to grow more and more tense, less responsive to John's voice or touch. Sensing that his (partner? Lover? Colleague?) Sherlock was nearing a meltdown, John did what he was best at: averted the impending catastrophe. He began to follow behind the officers, and as they displaced things in their investigation, he returned them to exactly the state in which Astrid had left them. Shoes were re-aligned, makeup replaced in its proper position, books returned to the proper (Dewey decimal) order, clothing that had been knocked off of chairs was replaced gingerly. Sherlock found the return to Astrid's order made it easier to think. He stopped trembling; only after he stopped did he realize he had been trembling at all.

1 hour, 45 minutes

Sherlock was deep in thought when he heard the tech shout for Lestrade. As the two men approached the computer, Sherlock observed the video that was looping: a few seconds of footage, a sidewalk that was empty except for a girl and a plastic container that knew was filled with pineapple upside down cake. The camera was focused on an area of two buildings split by an alley. Suddenly, a group of tourists walked past the girl, blocking the view of the camera for a few seconds, and she was gone. You would have thought she was never there, her disappearance was so quick and so complete.

"I need to go there," Sherlock stated.
"Of course. If you'll go by police car, we can have you there in five."

It was a mark of just how altered Sherlock's mental state was that he consented.

2 hours

Sherlock had done his best examination of the crime scene. From it, he had gleaned seven possible leads. Now all he needed was time to follow up on them, time he desperately didn't have.

It was a London alleyway, full of the detritus of urban life. However, Sherlock on his worst day being more than a match for a London alleyway on its best, he found a collection of dirt he was most certain did not come from anywhere in London. No one asked how he knew; it was enough that he did. If they had asked, and it had been any other case, he'd have explained about the different concentrations of fertilizer in the soil, the broken glass, the sheep excrement, and the piece of hay. For now, he simply jumped back into the car and said, "221B. I need to follow up on this."

2 hours, 43 minutes

John made tea for Lestrade. Sherlock had been tapping away at the computer as soon as he'd made it through the door. John had nothing to do, so he did what came naturally: made tea. Lestrade had sent everyone home but Sally Donovan. The two of them were determined to stay until a breakthrough was made.

John was lost in thought, mind circling around the endless possibilities of what can happen to a pretty teenage girl when she's been taken against her will. He tried to focus on something else, anything else, but his mind kept flashing images of Afghan women's bodies, battered and all but destroyed. Women that normally wouldn't leave the house in less than a full burqua, laid bare and naked. Abused, used for the whims of soldiers. He couldn't get the images out of his head, and worse, his brain insisted on showing him just how much each and every one looked like Astrid. This one had hair the same length; that one had the same nose. This girl was the same age, or nearly. This one had the same eye colour.

Lestrade didn't interrupt either man. What can you say at a moment like that? He didn't know, so he settled for drinking his tea in supportive silence.

They all jumped at the knock on the front door; John's tea sloshed all over him, burning his hands. He jumped up and hurried to the kitchen for a towel while Lestrade hurried down the stairs to intercept the person at the door. He encountered Mrs. Hudson on her way up the stairs with an envelope. It clearly contained something more than just a letter; the shape was all wrong. It was too thick, the kind of envelope that had bubble wrap lining the inside.

Lestrade took it from her and headed up the stairs with it. As he walked back in, John emerged from the kitchen, slightly less tea-covered than before. Sherlock looked up from his computer.

All three men looked at the unassuming yellow envelope the DI was currently holding. No one spoke. The tension in the room seemed to slow time down, laying like a blanket on the senses. It was almost as though no one dared breathe, all of them imagining what could possibly be in the package.

Finally, Sherlock came to his senses: "Well, open the bloody thing. It could be vital."

Lestrade did as he was told, sliding his finger slowly into the opening at the corner and tearing his way up to the opposite corner. Tilting it down, a DVD in a plain case, similar to one available at any office supply store, fell into his outstretched hand.

"Shall we play it?" John asked quietly. All hope of the package being unrelated to Astrid's disappearance was gone. If he were honest with himself, he'd never had any real hope of it to begin with.

In deathly silence, Lestrade made his way to the DVD player perched underneath the telly and pushed it in. He turned the screen on and stepped back a bit so the others could see. The disc loaded and on the screen there appeared a menu. It only had one option:

Time to Play

Sherlock picked up the remote (he always seemed to know where the important things were) and hit play, finger stuttering just for a second. It was his body's only betrayal, a huge feat considering he felt as though he was about to be ripped apart by the need to know, by the not knowing.

The screen was black. Then, a hauntingly familiar voice.

"Time to pla-ay, Sherlock. I know, you've never seen the famous Doctor Who, but I've got a little story for you. I'm sure John knows all about it. The Doctor's a time lord, which means he's got two hearts. People try to kill him, try quite a lot actually, but they always fail. Why? Because, they only ever plan for one heart. Now I've tried to blow up one of your hearts. That didn't go too well, I confess. Not one of my better days.

But now I've got the other heart, and she's not going to be nearly so lucky. Or maybe I should say, you won't be."

Slowly the screen faded to a not-black, a room of unknown dimensions. A single light source was focused on a limp body tied to a chair, harshly illuminating only that area. A painfully familiar body, whose ankle should not be bending at that angle. A figure dressed all in black and masked to conceal his face shuffled forward, grabbing her hair and pulling her head back to expose her face to the camera. Just as Lestrade was beginning to worry they were already too late, a zoom of the camera trained the focus on her face and neck, where everyone could see the too-rapid beating of her pulse, a flutter against the thin, pale skin on her throat.

"See, Sherlock? I've got your baby gi-irl…And if you won't come out and play, I'll just have to amuse myself with her." His voice turned dark and threatening. Sherlock felt goosebumps cover his skin.

With that final parting message, the screen went back to the main menu again. A few seconds later, the pink phone chimed. John, in a state of shock, wandered over and picked it up. Upon seeing the message displayed, he offered it to Sherlock.

After a moment, Sherlock broke the silence, never looking up from his phone.

"John, I think we can consider this our poorly thought out anatomical metaphor."

He paused, a hitch in his breath. John knew that in anyone else, that same hitch was the equivalent of a sobbing fit or a fainting spell. He wrenched himself back under control and continued, "Lestrade, it appears that I can no longer ignore a fact that I have been painfully aware of for some time now. They've got the flat under surveillance. Not just today, they've had it a while. Probably had a tail on her, too. This is premeditated. They've got the jump on anyone thinking of mounting a search or rescue."

The room grew quiet again as each man contemplated what exactly that implied.

When Astrid came to, everything was black around her. A few shades of slightly less black, the random glint of metal in certain places, but for all practical purposes, she may as well have been blind.

Then employ your other senses, a mental voice that sounded suspiciously like Sherlock prompted.

I'm working on it, her inner voice replied testily.

It was cold, but not too cold. Enough to set you on edge but not enough to badly disrupt homeostasis. A healthy human would only be uncomfortable. There was a draft, slight but present. Near the ground. A vent of some kind, or a slot in the door maybe. She was still fully clothed; while not at the top of her list of worries, it was still on the list. It also implied she hadn't been out an exceedingly long time. The draft combined with the amount of echo made her almost certain the room was metal or tile.

She could hear barely anything; the sound of her own breathing was so amplified she half-fancied she'd had a microphone attached to her. Of course she hadn't, but the room still echoed her respirations. Sparse, then. Not much to absorb the sound. No need to be quiet, then, either, so isolated.

A flashing red light in the corner (or what she thought might be the corner) caught her eye. She ran through a mental list of everything that had flashing red lights. It was exceedingly long.

Jarringly, the lights flickered on and she heard a door open somewhere behind her. Now that she could see her surroundings, she wasn't sure she wanted to. Everywhere she looked there were weapons, instruments of torture designed to cause pain, chemicals and other flammable solutions. Basically, she was in a room full of danger, held captive by an unknown number of people for an unknown reason. And they'd broken her ankle.

That last bit sort of pissed her off.

"Oi! Sleepin' Beauty's awake!" a gruff voice from behind her yelled.

"Oi! Sleepin' Beauty can 'ear you!" she yelled back, a perfect imitation of the man's cockney accent, before she could stop herself.

A cold, oddly familiar laugh filtered down to her.

"Shit," she said under her breath.

As she heard footsteps approaching her, she hazarded a guess as to who it would be.

"Hallo, Jim dear," she said, still unable to see anything going on behind her.

He circled around and stood in front of her, looking well-put together and nothing like a working-class hospital orderly. She'd never forget that voice, though.

"Hullo, darling," he responded, looking for all the world like a boyfriend recently reunited with the love of his life. He positively glowed. If there had been anything in her stomach, Astrid might have vomited.

"I'm hurt," she said, all false bravado and forced ease. "You didn't come back and visit like you said you would."