If you skipped the authors note prior to this, please stop in and take a quick look at that to understand what happened in terms of updates and what's happening going forward, including when I'll post new chapters, how many more chapters there are in this fic, and how the christmas special will affect my writing!

Everyday I feel this pain
But you just turn and walk away
I just can't keep hanging on to you and me
I just don't know what is wrong with you and me

John slowly started to open his eyes again, coming to after passing out. He was trying to reconnect to his surroundings, adjusting to the leather seat below him and the unnatural light shining in his eyes. He turned his head slightly to see Sherlock standing above him, looking down with a hint of concern in his face, though that is changing due to John's condition changing. "Glad to see you come to." Sherlock said, before moving back across the room. John shifted to lay on his side, watching Sherlock walk to a table near the door, reaching to grab a glass of water for him. John moved to sit up too quickly, which caused his head to quickly become light and forced him to sink further into the sofa. Sherlock saw this, and rushed back over to him to give him the glass of water. John took it willingly, and slowly started sipping at it, careful to not spill any on his jacket.

"So, what do we do now?" John said, working on sitting us slower this time.

"Well, we can guess that he's not going to just sit around with her waiting. We should be getting a sign or a clue from him soon. He wouldn't pay me a visit and make us work out all the clues by himself, contrary to what he did after he was set free." Sherlock explained.

John set the glass down on the table next to the sofa and swallowed, trying to keep calm. It was hard to though, considering his wife with his unborn child was in the hands of a murderous sociopath.

"Are you sure he didn't leave any clues behind? Did you check upstairs for anything yet? Or check the elevator?" John argued.

"Considering you fainted right as I said Mary had been taken, it was kind of hard to go do that because I wanted to make sure you were ok first. We can't lose her and you both." Sherlock rebutted, a pained tone in his voice when he said that last sentence.

John took a moment to recognize the genuine concern Sherlock is showing for him and Mary. It wasn't necessarily surprising anymore, based on what Sherlock has done for him in the past, but this time it was easy to understand. Before Sherlock would show this kind of concern in a more secretive way for John to decode on his own, or until Sherlock would explain it. But this time... This time he is admitting to it freely. It was a refreshing change, but this meant that this time, this case will be much more serious than their other attempts of defeating Moriarty.

John gave Sherlock a gentle smile, then turned his face stone cold again. "Well obviously I'm fine now, so where do we go from here? Upstairs?" he demanded.

"Upstairs would be the obvious choice." Sherlock smiled, happy to see John healthy and ready to go again.

John stood up slowly, standing still until his balance returned to normal. Then, he walked to the door ahead, ready to head to Mycroft's office. Sherlock met him at the door, holding it open for him as he passed by. The two walked in sync together towards the stairs, opting to not relive the trauma that just occurred in the elevator.

Once reaching the floor with Mycroft's office, the guard at the door stepped to the side to let Sherlock and John pass through, trusting that they are the real thing and trying to help his boss. Opening the door, Sherlock's posture changed as he suddenly became on edge. There were no noticeable differences to John's eyes, but he knew better than to assume, as most of the time when there were no problems to him, Sherlock saw it.

Sherlock slowly walked through the hallway that felt much longer than it did before. "If Moriarty really did take Mary, he would hide his clues anywhere within here," Sherlock determined while looking at every detail he past. If even something looked out of place in the room, like a scratch on the wall or a speck of dust on a table, Sherlock would examine it, seeing if it was actually a message from Moriarty.

The two men stopped dead in their tracks when they looked into Mycroft's office at the end of the hallway. It seemed as a storm came through, throwing portraits off the walls, pulling drawers out and scattering their contents across the floor. "Well he was obviously looking for something." John said, not moving his eyes from the scene.

Sherlock started to move forward slowly, in case of a trap laid by Moriarty within the wreckage. He stopped once he reached the doorway to the office, inspecting every aspect to see if he could decide on what he was looking to do. He could tell that part of this mess was his own rage, as he did lose someone close to him with the death of Moran. He began shuffling into the room, turning every so slightly so he could see all the damage done. Once he took in everything, Sherlock made a b-line for the desk, as that was the place with the most information, and was the most likely target of his search.

John continued to stay still at the other end of the hallway, still stuck in fear of the mess Moriarty has made, which did not help the already bubbling fear about what he would do to his wife since he had her captive. His own memory jumped back to the swimming pool incident when he was turned into a suicide bomber, and the fear he saw in Sherlock's eyes when he first came out and revealed himself to him. He smacked him head, trying to get the memories out, and then began walking forward to join Sherlock in the office.

Sherlock picked up what was once the top drawer of Mycroft's desk, but now in pieces thanks to Moriarty's forceful throw of it onto the tile floor. John came up behind him, not surprised at the view in front of him. "Obviously he was angry about Moran, but was he also angry that he didn't find the item he was looking for? Maybe this is a situation like Magnussen, kidnapping Mary so you'll get Mycroft to give him what he wants." John debated.

"No no, this may be much worse. I think Moriarty is no longer looking for anything but revenge. Since we dismantled his network, and killed the last link in his chain of power, he has very little. So as a revenge for destroying that part of him, he may just kill Mary and everyone close to me, to take away from me what we took from him."

I'm getting dark and sadistic. Whoops.
New chapters for this fic will be posted on Wednesday (I hope).