"Not now, John. I need to go to my mind palace," Sherlock sat down on the sofa, steepling his fingers in front of his face and closing his eyes.

John stared for a second in disbelief, his mouth slightly open and a frown creasing his forehead. "Right, yeah, no problem. Or maybe," his voice rose, unable to contain his annoyance at Sherlock's sheer idiocy, "I need to clean and bandage every bloody wound that madwoman left you with!"

It wasn't the first time Sherlock had endured a beating from a criminal, and it was unlikely to be the last. It wasn't an experience he sought out, but on cases he did have a tendency to value data collection over his own wellbeing.

The pieces had come together 6 hours and 36 minutes ago, when he had deduced the location of the kidnapper's hideout. She had released the hostages unharmed (once she had realised she was losing the cat-and-mouse chase), but fled herself, meaning it would only be a matter of time before the Yard found her. Sherlock was fascinated by this one, and wanted to question her himself - Lestrade rarely (if ever) let Sherlock question a criminal once they had been captured.

So, the only thing for it had been to slip away under the pretence of questioning the priest again. John had raised an eyebrow, but Sherlock waved him away with his best 'I'm-smarter-than-you-and-have-important-things-to-do-so-leave-me-alone' look.

Which his body was now repaying him for, as he opened his eyes and looked up at John from his place on the sofa. He couldn't deny that the various lacerations, bruises and grazes the kidnapper bestowed upon him still stung, to say the least. This one had been particularly sadistic. Her methodology was surely elegant - she had ambushed Sherlock when he arrived at the hideout (he couldn't deny that the booby trap had been very cleverly concealed) and chained him up. She seemed resigned to the fact that the authorities would catch up with her, but was willing to play a game with Sherlock in the mean time. She would answer his questions truthfully, but he would receive a blow for every one he asked.

So naturally, Sherlock was now sporting a cut over his eyebrow, split lip and a smattering of cuts and bruises over his chest, arms and back. He considered it a relatively fair price for the information she had given him - not only names, but locations and details of the various active crime syndicates she had worked for in her 7 years as a crim-for-hire. Bits and pieces that gave him plenty of investigating to be going on with.

When Lestrade's team finally arrived (John, of course, had been the one to figure out where Sherlock had gone - only 3 hours behind Sherlock this time, his intellect was definitely getting sharper), the kidnapper gave up without a fight. Had her fun and was ready to settle down nice and quiet in prison, she said as she offered wrists to be handcuffed.

"No John, this cannot wait. The vast volume of data I collected tonight needs to be stored, I can only trust my short-term memory for so long."

John glowered at him for a moment, and folded his arms. Ah. That was the military stance that John employed when he was not willing to engage in Sherlock's nonsense. He looked vaguely comical, the picture of austerity all wrapped up in a big knitted jumper. Perhaps he ought to propose a compromise. "Fifteen minutes, John. I need fifteen minutes to file the most important information. Then you can patch me up." He eyed John carefully. "Please," he added for good measure. John sighed and nodded curtly before stomping away. Good. Sherlock closed his eyes again, shut out the world, and went to his mind palace.