Flashback:Sherlock activated his messages, trying to see if there was anything new but no, just that cryptic anonymous one from a few hours ago.

"Midnight by the pool"

The pool.

A pool.

A pool was where it had all started; the very first time he tried to catch a murderer.

Chapter 37- The last deduction

For a confused second Sherlock thought it really was John, tripping over his feet in the dark.

The short height, close cropped hair and wings were the shapes which the detective normally associated with his best mate, but after a pause of short reflection Sherlock realised it couldn't possibly be the doctor. John's white wings were so bright even in a dark room, that it really would be impossible for him to sneak up on anyone.

Sherlock checked his watch.

11:52 pm

There was still time.

Sherlock swooped down from the ledge he was using to watch over the gymnasium's pool, and grabbed the unwanted visitor by the loops of his belt. With a soft sigh of irritation, the detective then returned to his perch and offloaded Molly's boyfriend on the space next to him; pressing a warning finger against his lips so he wouldn't speak.

Vigilantly, Sherlock turned to scan the area, trying to ascertain if they had been discovered. However, after a few tense minutes had passed and there was no out of place movement, he turned to face his "guest".

Jim looked so young with his grey black feathers fluffed out in an excited puff all around him, that for a moment it caught Sherlock off guard. He never paid much attention to the man, and he was surprised and annoyed that he was having such a difficult time of deducing him now.

In the last few days, John had undertaken to talk to Jim in a discreet manner, hoping that the situation could be resolved quickly and tactfully, without disrupting the work dynamics of the three persons involved namely Molly, James and Sherlock. Sherlock didn't know what John had said, (neither did he care) but it hadn't been at all effective.

Later, the doctor would reveal to him how uneasy he had felt when he came to realise that Jim was following them around, waiting for Sherlock to be alone. John had been quite furious one night to find a confused Sherlock neatly cornered by the young man in the men's room of St. Bart's, begging for a photograph. The doctor had dragged Jim off the detective then, and practically pelted him out the door. Ever since that moment, a war of snarky words seemed to have developed between the the doctor and the IT technician, culminating one morning when John almost punched Jim in his baby soft face, as the man bravely remarked infront of everyone that Sherlock was too spoilt and needed a strong hand to put him in his place.

'Didn't Dr. Watson speak to you several times about following me?!' Sherlock snapped sternly in a whisper, 'Go home. Go home now!'

Jim's happy excited expression naturally flashed to one of stunned outrage at being addressed like a bad dog.

''You should have listened to Watson,' Sherlock continued, 'he was trying to shield you from me. I don't do nice.'

The detective's head was unfortunately facing away so he missed the other man's strange smirk.

'Isn't all this sneaking around, sniffing for clues in the dark a bit under your pay grade?' Jim sneered in retaliation.

'Your pathetic attempt to discomfit me is not effective, neither is it necessary,' Sherlock replied in apparent resignation, 'you can participate if you wish, but do shut up!'

'You know, that's actually one of the many things I love about you,' the technician replied, 'you are not afraid.'

'Why are you still talking?!' the detective hissed furiously.

Silence mercifully reigned but eventually, Sherlock's curiosity got the better of him.

'Afraid?'

'You've never noticed how afraid everyone is, all the time?' Jim answered, swinging his short jean clad legs companionably, 'Afraid to think, afraid to speak, afraid to take?'

Sherlock's eyebrows furrowed, feeling that there was a subtext here in this inane dialogue that because of his absence of social grace, he wasn't skilled enough to grasp. 'There is some danger but you will be safe if you stay here and not speak. That last part especially.'

Inspiration suddenly made itself felt, and Sherlock tightened his grip on the revolver in his pocket. He would knock Jim in the back of his head, and tie him up. That would keep him out of his hair for awhile.

Jim tilted his head with an inquiring look of suspicion as if picking up on the other man's thoughts, 'Can I ask you something?

'Oh Lord,' Sherlock muttered under his breath in exasperation.

'I was wondering, is that a British Army Browning L9A1 in your pocket or are you just pleased to see me?'

?

Jim giggled like a little child, to see the sudden light of realisation gradually move across his companion's face.

'I have always admired your methods, Sherlock even though its been a bloody nuisance at times,' Jim admitted, 'I was aiding General Shen's enterprise in London when you really got my notice again. You got in deep there in a way I would not have done.'

What the hell?

'Those triads be crazy!' the young man replied, his eyes widening in mock fear; the blue green light from the pool reflecting eerily off his pale features.

'You assisted the General?' Sherlock repeatedly stupidly, turning fully to face the other man.

'And you were right about the cab driver in the case of the murder suicides!' the technician exclaimed happily, punching him lightly in the bicep. ' I am sure you would have caught up with him eventually but he died...cancer. Boring, I agree.'

'How?' Sherlock stuttered, his mouth hanging open.

'He was one of mine too. Creative bastard wasn't he?'

'Quite,' Sherlock murmured in breathless agreement, 'one of the most imaginative Londoners in all my years.'

Now it was Jim's turn to be surprised.

'I almost believed that part of you was lost; that part where you can be overwhelmed by the beauty of a murderer's mind,' Jim explained, 'I am very, very happy to see it's still there and not beaten out of you by that droll brown mouse always trailing behind you.'

In the meantime, Sherlock's wings began to open of its own accord; mantling high in the air as if readying his body for fight or flight. The other man looked up in fearless admiration, as the dark wings gradually came to overshadow him; casting him into more and more into blackness.

'Thanks for coming tonight. I really wanted to talk to you without your little ...pet.'

'Go on,' Sherlock murmured softly, still a bit too shocked to string together anything more coherent. How could he be so blind? It boggled his hard drive that he was taken in by Jim's sleight of hand. He had been hunting for this man for close to two weeks and there he was all the time. Sherlock could almost see the metamorphosis in front his eyes as Jim (was that even his name?) sat up straighter, and his voice became smoother and his words more polished.

John, you're not going to believe this. I don't believe this. I will take a picture.

'I kept tabs on you on and off for awhile for years,' the man then revealed unexpectedly, 'there was this one time I found you when you brother was trying to force you into rehab. I should have snatched you then and added you to my collection. You were so gorgeously wild in those days, but now...you're domesticated! Curse, John Watson!'

'You've killed so many people,' Sherlock croaked hoarsely.

'Now that was unimaginative,' the other man snarled in disappointment, 'Watson has truly ruined you. I should run over the flightless bitch with my car.'

'I would rather you didn't.'

'HE RUINED EVERYTHING! Jim shouted crazily, 'how can you defend him?'

The small man closed his eyes, panting with exertion, 'He's ruined you. Don't you understand, we could have been amazing together'

'The consulting detective and the consulting criminal?'

Jim looked up with a sad sort of smile before reaching out to tuck a stray curl behind Sherlock's ear. 'We would have been amazing, but now I am not sure what to do with you. You cant be allowed to carry on...you just can't.'

Of course, the detective pulled away from this intimacy but it was much too late, and he winced as something sharp, pinched the side of his neck.

The other man held out his hand to him palm first, so he could see the small syringe he had hidden there.

'So what does this mean?' Sherlock remarked defiantly, 'if you can't have me no one else can? And you accuse me of being unimaginative.'

'It should be a comfort to know that the very last deduction you will ever make, was the correct one.'

John knew he should get up to make sure the flat was clean, and put out the breakfast things. The morning lightly shone brightly on the back of his eyelids as if trying to nudge him along, but in response he rolled over on his stomach and snuffled down into the sofa cushions. He and Harold had an energetic night on the town, and he was talked out. It was after two in the morning when he finally brought the man to Baker street and offered him his bed, while he took the couch.

Surely, Sherlock could make their guest some food by himself.

'John?' a soft male voice called out to him, right on cue. 'Wake up.'

'For the hundredth time, the tea is in the second drawer,' the doctor mumbled, 'wanker.'

'Is he drunk?' another familiar voice asked anxiously.

John's left eye popped open and slowly he peeked over his shoulder to find their Australian guest and half of Scotland yard sitting in the living room behind him.

'Hi,' he said stupidly.

There was a mixed chorus of good mornings and hellos in return, as Lestrade pulled him up and another officer pushed a mug of something steaming in his hand.

'John, Sherlock is missing,' the Inspector began to explain.

The doctor's eyes reflexively darted to Sherlock's empty chair by the fire place, which was of course empty with only Mycroft standing there, holding on tightly to the back cushion with one hand.

It was the older man's strained expression that made John wake up completely, and he downed the scalding tea in one go.

'As a precaution, Sherlock checks in with my office every eight hours,' Greg continued.

'How the bleeding hell did you get him to agree to something like that?!' John interrupted in such shocked surprise, that a low chuckle reverberated around the room.

The Inspector smiled as he continued, 'He checked in at 11 but not at 7. It's 10 now.'

'I don't know what to say. He's suppose to be here,' John fretted as he grabbed Sherlock's laptop and turned it on. 'Is his phone off?'

Oh God, I don't have the password.

'We don't think so, but he isn't answering.'

'Perhaps he left it on the train,' John suggested hopefully.

'Not likely,' Mycroft murmured, looking down knowingly at John's bent head, 'and besides, he would not be out of contact for so long; not if he could help it.'

Especially when he is away from you.

'Hey, can't we track him with that phone GPS whatcha-me-call it?' Harold chimed in.

'He's disabled that feature,' Sally answered.

Their visitor scowled, 'I don't understand. Why did he go off on his own if there is apparently so much danger?'

Anderson snorted in disgust, 'You don't know him like we do.'

Lestrade glared at his technician, ordering him to be quiet and not to express anything incendiary to upset the room. Their colleague was missing; nothing else mattered.

In the meantime, Sherlock's screen popped up and to John's surprise there was no password at all. The screen shot of some particularly disgusting autopsy was perhaps all the security Sherlock needed as those closest to John, groaned in tandem and hastily moved away.

Mycroft, stronger of stomach than most, leaned in closer, 'Midnight by the pool? Does it say which pool and who he was meeting?'

'We were investigating a murder from his past which he believed to link with a case that we are working on now, ' John answered. Switching to his own lap top, the doctor brought up his neatly typed notes which were far easier to read than Sherlock's choppy note taking structure.

With zombie like absorption, Mycroft drifted off carrying away the lap top in his hands.

Now John was a man of action, so after he had run up to his room to grab some clothes and shoes, he assumed that he would be assigned to a task. It was almost like olden days again when it was requested that he stay in the flat and wait, just in case Sherlock came back.

Manfully, he shouldered his assignment even though he knew it was going to be awful. It reminded him too much of patrolling in Afghanistan, where nothing would happen for days at a time, only to be broken by ninety seconds of activity where the whole world was exploding all around you.

He could do without the world exploding, this time.

Harold had offered to stay behind and John was grateful that the other man didn't hover over him, but instead sat in the kitchen with Sherlock's computer; checking it periodically for new messages. Without realizing it, John had fallen into a sort of mindless stupor as he sat there with one hand propping up his head, staring at Sherlock's empty chair. In his heart he didn't know how to feel as his mind splintered; swinging erratically from panic to guilt, from annoyance to pain.

In all of this his thoughts kept edging back to settle on the last time he saw his flatmate. Sherlock had hugged him so tightly in a reaffirmation of their friendship before he left last night; a rare instance that now appeared to have been a foreshadow of the events currently unfolding.

Sherlock, please. This doesn't work without you.

John was understandably at an all time low when the Inspector returned, as the fatherly man had undertaken the somber responsibility of bringing Sherlock's abandoned phone back to his best mate.

'We didn't find any blood or signs of a struggle,' Lestrade remarked reassuringly, 'he's a resourceful bloke, don't worry. I've seen him finesse his way out of countless tight spots. That's the reason why my hair has all gone grey.'

John clenched the mobile tightly in his hand and nodded quietly; too choked up to even speak.

Don't you leave me here all alone. Sherlock, do you hear me? God dammit, I am going to kill you!

'What now?' Harold wanted to know, as he held up his mobile, 'I can get some of the others here if you need help with an aerial search. In twenty minutes, we can get about 50 of our black winged friends in the air.'

'We need a direction first,' Lestrade said now with a hint of worry showing through for the first time, 'I left my team knocking on doors in the neighborhood. They should have something for us soon.'

'But perhaps not before you can find him first,' Mycroft drawled as he walked in and locked the front door behind him. 'John, where is Sherlock?'

White hot anger bubbled up inside the doctor as he locked eyes with the older man. Sherlock and his brother still had a peculiar sort of relationship, but John had always been willing to give the man the benefit of the doubt; no matter what his flat mate said to the contrary. All of a sudden though, he wasn't feeling so charitable.

'What the bloody hell is that supposed to mean?' John said frostily. 'he's missing, you tosser!'

'I think you can tell me where he is,' Mycroft refuted with such a ring of insistence, that both Lestrade and Harold turned to the doctor expectantly.

John frowned in confusion as Mycroft drew up an ottoman and sat infront of him.