Thank you to everyone who has read and reviewed, your comments mean a lot!

Posting this on 8th September…Happy Birthday MF!

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the Sherlock characters (Still wish John was mine though!) – Thanks to all the actors, writers, etc etc that make the original series so worth writing about!

Colin Mulhearn looked up as the sun rose through the window of John's ICU room and pondered on the weirdest night he had ever had. It should have been a simple medical check on a prisoner – generally the easiest half hour's pay he would ever earn – but so far he had been half strangled, had wrestled his patient into restraints, had sat listening to the fretful sobs that had followed the hysterical giggling, and now here he was, standing sentinel with the man for whose attempted murder he had been arrested in the first place! He had tried to talk to the man sharing his vigil, but once his questions had been satisfactorily answered all communication stopped and as far as the doctor could ascertain he had withdrawn into himself.

In truth Sherlocks attention had never wavered from John's face, his eyes only flicking towards the police surgeon when the alarm sounded, but each time it seemed John was pulling himself back towards the land of the living without the need for medical intervention, and each time he acknowledged the other man's reassurance with a brief nod before returning his gaze to the man in the bed. Memory was slowly returning, and the pieces of the puzzle were slowly coming together…..

The doorbell sounded..…a single ring….maximum pressure, just under the half second…their next client! Sherlock grinned as he moved swiftly down the stairs to answer the door. Mycroft's case was as good as done – he was just waiting for John to return and confirm his suspicions that Alexia Katerinochkin was indeed in the country and not, as Mycroft's contacts believed, back home in her native Russia. A new case was just what he needed right now! He opened the front door….

"Mr Holmes" To passers-by the couple on his doorstep would have looked like any ordinary couple and would not have attracted the slightest attention, but as Sherlock looked down he saw the muzzle of a semi-automatic hand gun pointing at his heart. His eyes moved back up, and he found himself looking into the cold black eyes of Russia's most dangerous drug dealer…..

With a start Sherlock sat up. Like floodgates opening information swept like a tsunami into his brain and his memories along with it. Frantically he searched his jacket pockets for his phone. Mycroft! The idiot hadn't brought it from the flat!

"Give me your phone!" he demanded of Mulhearn

"What?"

"Your phone – give it to me! Now!" One thin, impossibly elegant hand was stretched imperiously towards the other man who handed over his mobile before he'd even realised what he was doing. Without a word of thanks Sherlock opened a new message and typed furiously, hitting the send button and almost throwing the device back at its owner.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

Mycroft pulled his phone from his pocket and looked at the number displayed – not one he knew – but something stopped him from just deleting the message. His thumb hovered over the message indicator for a second more before lightly brushing the touch screen and opening the text.

KATERINOCHKIN. SH

He looked from his phone to the printout of an e-mail that had been handed to him not five minutes earlier.

Mycroft,

Your niece Kate and her boyfriend have yet to return from their holiday in Europe. Their itinerary is not known, and therefore their return date is unclear. Funds placed in her account were transferred two days ago – this account seems only to be used for holiday funds, no other transactions. We will advise when she returns, and ask her to contact her favourite uncle.

Yours,

Ralph.

He frowned, too little information still. How like his brother he was when it came to this appetite for data. Swiftly and decisively he opened the e-mails on his phone and fired off two more requests – requests that the recipients would take as orders, or risk losing their jobs!

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

Locking the Baker Street premises once more, Lestrade and Anderson had gone their separate ways – Lestrade back to the hospital, Anderson home to try to reclaim some of his lost sleep. The DI had been sufficiently impressed with the forensics officer's work that he had virtually ordered him to take the morning off. Now he glanced at his watch as he strode along the hospital corridors. Damn, he was going to be late and Mycroft will have dragged Sherlock of to whatever country retreat/mansion/palace that serves as the family home! Bugger! Increasing his pace he allowed himself a wry grin at the thought of the Holmes brothers living in a palace….well John had said that Sherlock had a mind palace – why not a real one too? That thought caused his stride to falter slightly. John… he wondered how he was doing, berating himself for not thinking sooner about the normally placid and unassuming doctor who over the past eighteen months or more had become Sherlock's constant shadow, the buffer between the sociopath and the people he insulted and belittled, the soothing influence. His gut instinct told him that no news was good news, that he would have been told if John had….no, he didn't even want to think that word! The sinking feeling he'd experienced when Sherlock had identified the drug in John's blood returned with a vengeance.

Rounding a corner he saw that his two officers were still in place, and he released a breath he hadn't realised he was holding. If Mycroft had already taken Sherlock he was sure they would have looked….different…somehow. Mycroft had that effect…

With a nod to the men he entered John's room. It was surprisingly calm and quiet, and his entrance went unnoticed by Sherlock and the police doctor, both men were standing over the bed, watching its occupant intensely.

"What now?"

"Oh!" Mulhearn's head swivelled round, his eyes widening in surprise, "didn't realise you'd be back so soon Greg."

"Soon? It's been four hours! AND I didn't manage to get any sleep!"

"He's calmer now" the doctor waved a hand in the direction of the bed "but he seems to be trying to ask for something…someone maybe? It's not like before, it's more…." he thought for a moment "structured? Like he needs….I don't know.." frustration trailed the sentence into silence and he looked helplessly at older man.

"I think he's trying to tell me something." Sherlock leaned closer, trying to catch the words.

"Like what?" Greg's voice was disbelieving "For God's sake Sherlock – he's been drugged….overdosed! And you think him still capable of…."

Sherlock smiled a chilling half-smile. "I don't think Lestrade, I know. Even with his system still addled by drugs John is more capable than most of your officers on a very good day!"

"There really isn't any need to be rude, brother dear!" Mycroft stood in the doorway, his eyes taking in every detail of the room and its occupants. "I see you recovered remarkably well from your…..um.. indisposition."

"You received my text? "

"I did"

"I knew John had nothing to do with this…"

"My contacts in Moscow have been doing some checking into that bank account..."

"When are you going to realise, Mycroft…."

"Just because Katerinochkin.."

Greg Lestrade took his life – and his career – in his hands and for the third time in less than 24 hours he stood up to the embodiment of the British government, and stepped between the warring brothers. "I think we have sufficient evidence that John didn't shoot your brother, Mycroft. In fact we should have realised that if he had, then Sherlock would be residing in the mortuary right now."

"Well of course he didn't!" Sherlock's tone was scathing. "It was Katerinochkin. Or her lackey, Fazil Sahin, known to his comrades as Fasse, Turkish national. He fled from Denizli following his implication in a series of particularly vicious killings." He stopped, and looked keenly at Lestrade. "You say you have evidence that will clear John?"

The DI drew in a deep breath, exhaled slowly, flicked a glance between the three other men in the room and rubbed a hand around his chin. "Well, if you discount the fact that the man's a soldier, so he should be able to shoot straight" he gave Sherlock a calm stare as he said this. "Anderson of all people found the one piece of evidence that gives cause for doubt – that you were already on the floor before the shot was fired."

"John was sitting on the couch." Sherlock frowned, reaching for the memory. "She had the gun pressed to his head. Wait – you let Anderson loose in my flat?"

"Be thankful I did Sherlock" Lestrade was angry now, angry and really pissed off with being spoken to like an idiot by these two. "While your brother here was trying to prove his guilt Anderson gave up his night to prove otherwise!" If he thought Sherlock would be grateful he really should have known better.

"That man is so inept I'm surprised he can find his way home! It took him ALL night? I would have…."

Lestrade didn't allow the genius to continue. He stepped up close, his face inches from the other man's face. "You ungrateful shit, Sherlock. You don't have to like the man, but at this moment I for one am thankful that he has given me a reason not to take John back to the cells when he gets out of here, and so should you be." Then for good measure he turned to face Mycroft. "And you. Don't you have people that can sort this mess out? Shouldn't you be helping prove John's innocence instead of taking this lunacy at face value? I thought you cared about your brother – funny way of showing it mate, trying to get his only friend arrested for attempted murder!"

For a moment you could hear a pin drop, such was the silence in the room. The hum from the machines faded into nothing. Sherlock was looking at his brother with just a hint of a smirk twisting his lips, Mycroft on the other hand looked as if he had swallowed a wasp! If it hadn't been for the fact that Lestrade could definitely hear the sound of his career flushing down the toilet he would have laughed at that expression – it was priceless. At least he would go out with a bang!