Climbing out of the cab with John and Mary in tow, Sherlock began to try to extinguish the dark feeling that welled up inside of him. If the child that lay on the floor outsides St Barts with Sophia's school bag was, in fact, his daughter not only would that be life-wrecking and devastating but there would also be that added guilt for Sherlock whose last conversation with the seven-year-old wasn't exactly great. They rarely ever argued. Sophia was usually in awe of her father. Their argument, in hindsight, seemed pretty trivial and pointless now. She was mad about being left behind in the police car when Sherlock continued with his case. Or was it that she was mad he had accidentally tripped her over or shouted at her? He hadn't even listened to her long enough to figure out what her specific problem was. Possibly the last conversation he would ever have with his child and he hadn't even bothered to listen.

"Sherlock, why are we here?" John pestered. Sherlock still hadn't told either of them. He couldn't say the words so instead just mumbled that it was a case. "What case could possibly be so important?"

"Sherlock." Lestrade's voice said gravely. He appeared from the crowd. Officers, crime scene officials and members of the public craning to see what was causing such a fuss. He frowned, a look of panic coming across his face as he lifted up the police tape. "Sophia's with Molly then?" Sherlock nodded and swooped underneath the tape, leaving John and Mary to follow. He knew what Lestrade was thinking. It didn't help Sherlock in the least. He had seen the body even he wasn't sure that it wasn't Sophia lying there dead. "Follow me." He said simply, leading the way towards a white tent. Probably erected to stop anyone seeing the tragic scene.

"Unknown female." Lestrade began. "Aged approximately between five and ten."

"Five and ten," John repeated, no emotion in his voice. "Sherlock, what's going on?"

"Dark hair, approximately 115 centimetres, found wearing a pink dress." He paused just outside the tent, glancing over his shoulder at Sherlock. "Kind of like the one Sophia wore on her birthday. The face is... well... unrecognisable." Sherlock didn't reply or show any sign of hearing the man. He heard Mary and John talking behind him but he had completely zoned out. He could faintly hear Lestrade saying something about Sophia's school bag being found nearby. About how that didn't mean anything because Sophia was safe with Molly. Wasn't that right, Sherlock?

He didn't reply and instead took a step into the tent, pushing past the police officers that stood around doing nothing, and making his way to the centre of the tent where a small figure lay. He could feel his stomach start to push the bile towards his throat.

The small body hadn't been moved since it was found. Faced down on the pavement, limbs limp and dark hair fanned out. Sherlock felt his head grow dizzy as he stumbled forwards. He needed to deduce what was happening. To figure out whether the girl on the floor was his daughter, but he felt as if he was going to faint. He didn't want to touch her. To turn her over and see her face.

Everything was getting further and further away.

He fell to his knees next to the body rather ungracefully and reached into his pocket, fumbling around for his magnifying glass. His body worked on autopilot. The information swam around in his head before falling back out. Nothing stuck there. All that was clear and solid in his mind was how mad his daughter had been at him when he last saw her. And how he resisting the urge to throw up.

"Sherlock." John's voice said from somewhere seemingly a million miles away. "Oh my God, it's her."

Reaching forward, Sherlock took the small hand in his own. He tried desperately to remember his daughter's hand. He searched his brain. Closing his eyes he saw Sophia jumping on his bed, hands splayed in the air in a wild attempt to keep herself balanced. He saw her sitting at his feet with a guilty look on her face and a bottle of Mrs Hudson's nail polish in her hand after painting her father's toenails whilst he had been in his mind palace. He saw her cackling wildly as he huffed in annoyance, trying to research a case whilst she was hanging off the sofa upside down. He saw her awake in her bedroom at one in the morning, painting a folded over piece of paper by the dim light of her bedside lamp, the words 'HAPPY FATHER DAY DADDY' painted in different colours along with hearts and flowers. He saw her the next morning looming over him as he woke up, a bowl of cereal and a glass of orange juice on a tray next to the make-shift card. There was paint smeared on her face from the night before and she smelt like strawberry shampoo as she leant down to attack his face with an onslaught of kisses.

He saw her hunched over her homework, big tears splashing down onto the worksheet because she couldn't figure the answers out even though he had got frustrated and told her she must be an idiot not to know. He saw her wide-eyed and open-mouthed in fear as he raised his voice to tell her to shut up for just five minutes, if she could handle that, whilst he focused on his case. He saw her face fall as he shooed her away in the laboratory at Barts when she held up a drawing she had done of the two of them.

He saw her sobbing that night she ran out into the crime scene. He saw her chin and legs and hands oozing blood as he dragged her away, too angry to deal with her. Instead snapping at her, asking if she was stupid and wondering if she could really be his child. He saw her the day before today accusing him of caring about a corpse more than he did her. A statement he hadn't even argued with.

Then it hit him like a punch to the stomach.

"This isn't her." He heard himself say. He flipped the delicate hand over in his and stopped himself smiling. "It's not her."

"Sherlock..." John said, his voice a warning as Sherlock jumped to his feet and spun around to face him.

"It's not Sophia." He declared, sighing when he realised neither John nor Mary were keeping up with his silent thoughts. "These hands are fine. They're clean and healthy. They're perfect. Sophia's weren't. A few days ago Sophia tripped over. She scraped the skin off the heels of her hands. They were still visible this morning. There's no way it would have healed this perfectly within a few hours."

"Oh thank God." John felt himself exhale. "But... who is it then? The, erm, the body..."

Sherlock didn't answer. Much to the protest of Lestrade, he strode out of the tent as calm as he had ever been. Ducking underneath the police tape, he slid gracefully through the crowd of onlookers. It was only when he was out of sight from anyone, behind the bins where it smelt like piss and off milk, did he drop the facade. Then, with one hand on the wall to steady himself, he doubled over and quickly expelled the contents of his stomach.

He'd later find out that the girl, a good few years older than Sophia, had died from natural causes and been taken from the morgue by an unidentified man. There was no doubt now that it was all an elaborate message from Moriarty. Whether the message was a threat or a clue of what was to come was still up for debate.

He would also, about an hour later, look into Sophia's school bag which had been placed next to the little girl and find a handwritten phone number scribbled across the inside of the maths workbook.

/

Moriarty was a strange man. He was scarier that Sophia had ever considered him to be. One minute he'd be smiling and calm and the next he'd be yelling and slamming his hands on the table. Sophia tried her best to stay quiet in a hope that it would keep Moriarty calm. It kind of worked because he eventually became bored with her. With his feet propped up on the table, he began to pay more attention to his phone than to her.

With his attention somewhere else, Sophia took the opportunity to write some notes that could help her if she managed to get them out of the building. Seeing as there were no windows that opened in this room, she decided that her only option was to wait until Moriarty left to go to the toilet or something. Then she could smash open one of the windows and throw her notes out of there. Until then, they would have to rest folded up inside her pockets.

Pleese call detective detectiv lestrord at scotland yard. im in the big tower. i need help.

She double checked her spelling before folding the note up into a quarter and quickly shoving it into her cardigan pocket. She reached forward for another piece of paper, eyes stuck on Moriarty to see if he'd look up and catch her writing her 'help-me' notes

get my daddy. i forgot his phone number. he lives a bee baker street. his name is sherlock holmes. tell him to come and get me pleese.

Just as she folded the paper as small as she could and stuck it into her pants pocket, she heard Moriarty begin to talk. She jumped in her seat, instantly thinking he knew what she was doing and wasn't too happy about it. But, as she looked up she realised he wasn't even looking at her. Instead, he was staring out of the window behind her, phone pressed to his ear.

"Tut, tut, I was beginning to think you'd never call." He drawled, leaning back in his seat. After a moment or two of silence, he let out a heavy, disappointed sigh. "Yes, yes, yes. She's fine. Honestly, I was hoping you were ringing to talk about me." Another pause. "Really? Already? You haven't even asked how I am?" Another, longer pause. The buzz of a familiar voice came from the phone. "Fine. Don't get yourself worked up."

Then, with a roll of his eyes, Moriarty leant over the table, shoving the mobile phone into Sophia's hands. Her first instinct was to drop it or maybe throw it back at him. But after an annoyed gesture from Moriarty, she lifted the phone up to her ear.

"Hello?" She whispered.

"Sophia. Are you OK?" A panicked voice asked in a rush. It took Sophia a second or so to realise who it was.

"Daddy!" She yelped. She heard someone crying, sobbing terribly loudly. It was only when she struggled to take in a breath that she realised it was her. "I'm fine."

"Has he hurt you?"

"No. He's just very scary but I'm being very, very brave, Daddy."

"I'm sure you are." She heard Sherlock reply. "You're going to be OK. Just tell me where you are."

"We're at the top of a big tower and I can see lots of other buildings and cars and-" Before she could continue the phone was snatched out of her hand. With a shout, she threw herself halfway over the table, hands out as she tried in vain to get the phone back.

"Enough of that. Why don't we talk about us?" Moriarty said, leaning back in his seat, the phone pressed against his ear. Sophia frowned and let herself fall back. Resting against the back of her chair, she tried her best to calm her sobs down. Eventually, they turned into heavy wet gulps broken up by gasps for breath.

"Oh Sherlock, you are a clever boy." Moriarty cooed at one point once Sophia had calmed down enough to listen back into what whatever Moriarty was saying. "I thought maybe you'd be getting a bit sloooooooooow having a brat in the house."

Sophia cast a glare over at the man. Sucking in a deep, shuddering breath she dragged the back of her arm across her face to wipe up any tears or snot that had made its way out of her face during her crying fit.

"Oh don't worry." He continued after a brief pause. "Sophia and I were having a chat and I realised you're not slacking. Not at all. You didn't fall for it, did you?" Another pause. The muffled voice of Sherlock snapped something from the other end of the phone. "It really was for your own good, Sherlock. Honestly. If everything worked out the way I wanted it to, you'd have thought the blue-eyed little brat wasn't yours and you'd happily send her back to the orphanage or wherever you found her."

"He didn't find me." Sophia snapped. "And I'm not from an orphanage. My mummy dropped me off because she had to go on holiday."

"Well, that would have been the easiest option for you both." Moriarty continued as if Sophia hadn't spoken. "It's fine for me either way. Seeing as you've ruined my first plan I'll have to go for plan B."

There was a long pause. Sophia liked to think that her daddy was shouting really mean things to him. Using all the swear words she was never allowed to use. But Moriarty didn't look hurt. He just smirked with an evil glint in his eyes.

"Well, of course, I'll have to get rid of her the hard way now." He eventually sighed. "Oh, really Sherlock. You know this is your own fault. Maybe if you just did her a favour and sent her on her way we wouldn't have come to this." Another break in the conversation. "I don't like this new father role you've taken Sherlock and, quite frankly I don't like her either. I afraid she really has to go. There's no way around it."

"I don't like you," Sophia muttered under her breath.

"Well, it was fun whilst it lasted. Sophia, say goodbye to daddy." And with that, the phone was thrust back into Sophia's hand. After scrambling with it for a few seconds she managed to press it to her face.

"What does he mean?" She asked, eyes not leaving the man in front of her. "You're not going to let him get rid of me?"

"Be a good girl." Her daddy said, not answering her question. "I'm going to get you soon. Just... be clever. OK?"

"I'm always clever," Sophia said, earning a sad chuckle from her father. "I'm being very brave. You don't have to worry. Just come and get me soon. OK?"

"I know." He replied. "I'm... I'm proud of you." Ignoring that the sentiment sounded rather forced and uncomfortable, Sophia let herself smile ever so slightly.

"I love you, daddy." She stated.

"Bleh." Moriarty boomed, snatching the phone from her hand before she could hear if her daddy would reply. Jabbing his thumb against the screen to end the call, he wrinkled his nose up in disgust. "I love you, daddy." He mocked, his voice high-pitched and shrill. Dropping his phone onto the table he leant forward to look into Sophia's eyes. "He doesn't love you back, you know."

"I'm not listening to you." Sophia stated, ignoring the lump that grew in her throat along with the overwhelming desire to shout and scream until her throat was raw. "You're stupid and you're mean. Daddy does love me. He's very, very clever and he knows how to find out where we are just by looking on his computer to see where your phone is. He'll be here super quickly."

"Oh, I'm counting on it," Moriarty smiled. Then, after a moment, he jumped to his feet in a burst of noise and energy, making Sophia jump in her seat. He walked around the table until he was a foot or two in front of Sophia's seat. Then, with a smirk, he stuck his hand out for her to take. "We're going on a field trip."

A/N: Urgh, I just typed out a huge A/N telling you all how much I love you and how much you all mean to me and then THIS HUNK OF CRAP LAPTOP DELETES IT?

ANWAY, first of all, I'd just like to give a huge shout out to Forgot-My-Password who gave me the sweetest review that made me almost sob and asked very politely for a shout out. Seriously, way to go and make me all fuzzy inside with the lovely review!

If anyone else wants to try to make me cry, go ahead. I mean, nice cry. Don't be mean. I want to happy cry.

ANWAY, I hope you all like this chapter. If you want to review as much as you did last time that would be lovely!

And in case you were wondering, a good few of you lovely lot are from America! We also have Italy, Mexico, Puerto Rico and someone who originally lived strangely close to me...

So today's question, seeing as everyone loved the last one, tying in with the username 'Forgot-My-Password' What's the story behind your user name? Why did you choose it?

So,

Please review! I love them. I live on them.