Day 10:

The morning was too bright, the people were too loud, and the weather was too hot. John sat out in the shade of an umbrella at a café. He was writing a note to Mary explaining what she should do to find the parents of Jenny. He also was writing a separate letter to Mycroft, asking him to tell Harry if he died. His handwriting was scrawling and tight; his hands were shaking, threatening to make his the notes illegible. He stood up when he was done and walked to the nearest post, which was not too far away, and mailed off the letter to Mycroft. He didn't dare call the man in case the call was recorded or tracked him to where he was. He limped to Mary's apartment and slid the letter to her under the door.

John found himself walking to the beach. There was nothing there for him, he knew, because it was inevitably going to be filled with loud tourists and screaming children, locals working bars and pickpockets sliding among the people silently. He did have his eyes out for his own 'homeless network,' but he was at a disadvantage because he didn't know which children were looking out for Sherlock and which ones were simply running around with tourists.

John missed his flat. He missed his sister. And most of all, he missed not being tired. That was the best way to describe how he felt. He didn't want to move, he didn't want to talk. He just wanted to sit down and stay there. John was resigned to death, because he saw no way to escape from his deal with the devil.

"Look, John, you're a nice man, but you shouldn't have come here." The ex-soldier turned around swiftly to see Mary standing behind him. Her eyes were tracking the ocean on the horizon, as though she could not make eye contact with him. "You could have just ignored Moriarty, or gone to someone for help. What made you think you could do this on your own?"

Insulted, John raised an eyebrow. "I had to find Sherlock, and I didn't care about what happened to me."

"Do you now?"

That quieted the man. Mary looked down at her sandals. They were new, expensive, and red. She was wearing a white top that bared too much of her breasts and a grey skirt that bordered on being scandalous for a married woman. She was so young, though, and there was something in her eyes, something sad.

"You can't win, John. Moriarty's rigged the game. From what he told me, he just wants to use you to force Sherlock out of hiding. Your death would do that. That's why you won't be able to win this. You should never have taken his offer!"

"Why do you care?" John was rattled. She was admitting that she was, in fact, everything that he had feared her to be.

"You're a nice man, John. You've got your head screwed on right, and you're agreeable. I mean, you watched over me, you're feeding homeless children, and finding a girl's lost parents. Why should a man like you die?" Mary's hands tightened on her purse that she was carrying. "I mean, look at Dominic! Well, you call him Dominick… But Moriarty hired him off of the streets to be an actor. That man enjoys watching things burn so much. I heard that he burned his wife and children to death. He lit a home on fire here, full of elderly people, not a week ago. Why is it that he's allowed to live and you're not?"

"Because I was stupid enough to take Moriarty's challenge."

"Stupid?" the woman shook her head. "No, you're not stupid. You're loyal. So very loyal. You just could have just let it be! But what did you think would happen? You'd go back to London with Sherlock? Somehow you had to know that it never was going to happen like that." Mary shook her head slowly.

John stood up, working with his cane to keep his legs from protesting. "Mary, you will look for the girl's parents, right?"

"Yes. I may work for Moriarty, but that doesn't mean that I'm as heartless as him. I'm only following his orders for the money. The man does pay well." She pulled her bag in front of her. Immediately, John grabbed her arm, worried that she was carrying a firearm. "John, please, I'm not going to hurt you." His slowly pried his fingers off of her skin. She pulled out the letter that John had put under the door of her and her 'husband.'

"I read it, and I will take care of her. But I can't promise the same from you. You're going to die, John, and there's nothing that any of us can do about it." She pulled John into a quick hug and kissed his forehead, "You are a dead man, Dr Watson, but I wish you the best."

"Mary," he asked as she turned away. She stopped moving and finally made eye contact with him.

"Yes?"

"Is that your real name?" The woman gave a small smile.

"I can't tell you that." With a small smile and a hand on her hips, Mary turned away and walked onto the street. She was quickly lost among the crowd. John stood there, a bewildered look settling on his face. He looked to where she had been standing. There was another syringe there.

Without another thought, John kicked it as far as he could. He didn't want to play anymore games. He turned away from the street and walked. He didn't know where he was going, but he didn't care. There was no way that he would find Sherlock. Moriarty had known the whole time, and Mary had simply led him to his end. For hours, he wandered around markets, churches, apartments, and hotels to get sufficiently lost.

He came upon a small, grungy park. The bench was half-eaten away with moss and rot. He didn't care. John sat down on it heavily. The sun was starting to fall, so he collected that it was sometime just after lunch. He had been walking for hours.

"Limp-man." A whisper came from the bushes adjacent to where the doctor was sitting. John knew the voice of a child when he heard one.

"Hello. You can come out." From the bushes, a scraped up and dirty girl came out. She had large brown eyes and small lips. Her brown hair was pulled back with a dirty rubber band, the kind that John had seen on produce for sale in local markets.

"Limp-man."

"I'm John." He held out his hand, trying to get the girl to say something else.

"Serluck Humes." She grabbed the hand that he had held out and tugged on it. "Found Serluck Humes."

John didn't dare believe it, but his heart skipped a beat. Maybe this was something that Moriarty had not seen coming from him. Perhaps this was his one way to win, his homeless network. He looked into her eyes and saw nothing but honest excitement. He could not believe his luck, so he was wary nonetheless.

"Take me to him, please." The girl's face lit up with an excited smile as she thought of getting money from the man and filling her stomach for the first time in weeks. She tugged on his hand and led him down the main street.

"Money if see him?" she asked softly, eyes locked on the alleyways for some reason.

"Yes, of course. I have forty American dollars on me right now. You can have all of it." John was only planning on giving away twenty of it so he could have a meal, but suddenly he didn't care. The girl might have saved his life.

She walked and walked, finally coming up to a large alleyway. She turned into it and made her way deeper into what she knew as the drug's district. There was a large dumpster that sat between a connection of three alleys. She led John to one side of it and sat him down.

"He come on minute." She grinned slightly and sat down across from him. As she thought of warm food, John thought of Sherlock, his heart pounding. This was it. He was going to have his life back. He could visit Harry and Clara. He could get his job at the surgery back. He could live again. And best of all, he would have his friend back again.

As night closed in on them, John grew uncomfortable. Sirens roared through the streets around them. There were gunshots and yells. He had known that he was not in a 'tourist-approved' area, but he hadn't known that he would have gotten himself somewhere too dangerous. He was about to open his mouth and ask the girl where he was when he heard a familiar voice.

"I have the money," Sherlock offered someone. Carefully, John peered out from behind the dumpster to see who he was talking to. Sherlock had a woman hanging onto his arm, and the man looked worse than John had ever seen him. His eyes were blood-shot and his eyes were sunken into his skull. He was even shaking, which surprised John more than anything else. A hooded man held out several vial of liquid. John's eyes narrowed. Sherlock gave the hooded man a wad of money, and the man gave Sherlock two containers of some opaque liquid. There was another siren and the man ran off.

Sherlock stood in the alleyway, staring at the vials. The woman clinging onto his arm pulled out two syringes from her purse and leaned Sherlock against the wall. She whispered something to him in a foreign language. Sherlock replied in the same language and pulled his sleeve up. From her purse, the woman produced a broken rubber band and tied it above the crook of Sherlock's arm. He moaned nonsense and pushed himself against the wall.

"Hurry up," he demanded roughly. "Dammit." She grinned and poured on of the vials into the syringe and pushed the needle into Sherlock's arm. His eyes fluttered back into his head. His breathing relaxed. He smiled at her as she injected herself and tore off the tourniquet from his arm.

John hardly remembered pulling out his phone. He pulled up the contact that had no name on it, other than 'Moriarty.' With steady hands he texted, -I won't be able to find Sherlock. Come and get me. I'm sure you know where I am.-
He handed the girl what money he was carrying and walked past Sherlock, who did not even recognise him. He stood on the street for no more than a minute before he was pulled into a sleek black car. A gag was put in his mouth and his eyes were covered.

There will be one more chapter after this, but it will be a short epilogue. Thank you for making this fic so popular!

~Shara