Sherlock ended up saving Irene's life.
John couldn't say that he was surprised.
He put on his best straight face when Mycroft came to bring him the news, and he accepted the mobile phone with a steady hand. He left Mycroft waiting downstairs and went back up to the flat where Sherlock was playing his violin as loud as he could in the hopes of dissuading his brother from visiting.
"I'm supposed to be trying to console you right now," he said, kicking the door shut gently. He took off his coat and tossed it down on the back of the chair. He knew that Sherlock was listening to him, but chances were what he was saying was only vaguely registering. Lestrade had been by earlier that morning with a file on some recent disappearances, and Sherlock had been mostly non-communicative since. Knowing what would get Sherlock's attention, he added, "Apparently we've decided to tell you that Irene is in the witness protection program."
Sherlock drew the bow lightly across the strings, coaxing a thin shivery sound, before he straightened. "That sounds like Mycroft," he said with a smirk, more pleased at the confirmation that he really had put one over on his brother than anything else. "He wouldn't want to tell me she was dead. Wouldn't be able to risk me doing anything foolish."
John looked at him fondly. "Foolish? You? Perish the thought," he grinned.
"Shut up, John, and give me that."
"The phone? Mycroft wants it back."
"It's mine," Sherlock said, and John knew he wasn't imagining the slight hint of whining present in his voice. "Irene gave it to me."
Which was - well, true, actually. John pitched the phone across the room and Sherlock caught it with one hand. He tucked it into the pocket of his robe as John turned and went back downstairs to get rid of Mycroft. It was easier than he was expecting. Mycroft didn't even seem to mind that Sherlock had insisted on keeping the phone. Knowing the way Mycroft and Sherlock were, he'd probably been expecting it. John was back upstairs in less than ten minutes. He walked in to find that Sherlock had decided he'd had enough of torturing his violin and was now sitting in John's chair, face creased in concentration.
"Four victims," he said as soon as John was in the room. "Two male, two female. Varying ages. Varying ethnicities. Two were married, one was single, the fourth was a notorious playboy. One man is rich, one of them so poor he doesn't have two pence to rub together, the other two relatively middle class. No connections. And all of them have gone missing in London during the past month."
"Why hasn't Lestrade brought it to your attention before?"
"Mycroft." Sherlock's already sulky expression went a little bit more pouty. John tried not to think it was adorable. "He kept Lestrade away, said that I had more important things to be concerned about than something so trivial." He sounded outraged, but it wasn't because Mycroft had decided the disappearance of four people was trivial. It was because Sherlock hated few things more than he hated interference, particularly when it came from nosy older brothers.
"Right." John sighed and rubbed his head, realizing that there wasn't going to be any rest between cases this time around. Things had just settled down and already they were diving head first into the next one. "What do you think, then?"
"There must be some connection that we're missing," Sherlock said unhappy. He hated admitting that he couldn't figure something out. "That's the whole reason that Lestrade brought the case to my attention. On the surface, it seems like each one is not connected to the other at all. It's surprising that he thought to link the four of them together at all."
Was that a tiny amount of grudging pride in his voice? John stared at him.
Sherlock caught the thought and glared back.
Before he could protest, either out loud or otherwise, John said, "Then how did he connect them?"
"He was the one in charge of two of the cases, and he found the other two when he did a little extra investigating. He noticed that the M.O. was very similar. All four victims disappeared in the early morning hours while they were outside of the home. There haven't been any ransom demands. It's as though these people simple vanished with no explanation. The two cases he worked on eventually went cold. The victim is believed dead in the third, and in the fourth case it was decided that the woman simply walked away." Sherlock stared down at the file in his lap and frowned. "Really, there is no proof that they are connected. But Lestrade believes, and he is correct, that they are related."
They were probably right, too. John crossed the room and picked up the file, idly flipping through it and pretending not to notice the way that Sherlock's arm snuck out and slipped around his waist. When Sherlock tugged him down, John went. But he didn't settle into Sherlock's lap. Instead he wedged himself into the small bit of chair left over so that he and Sherlock were sitting side by side. It was a little awkward because the chair wasn't really meant to hold two grown men, but it worked.
He said, "I noticed something weird. None of these four are bonded even though two of them are married."
Sherlock looked at him for a minute, his eyebrows furrowing. "No, they're not."
"I don't know if that means something." John shrugged. Some people got impatient or bored with searching, others were of the opinion that the idea of soul mates was nonsense and preferred looking for love on their own. Then there were the bonds that were platonic, between siblings or friends. He closed the file again.
"It might." Sherlock sounded far away, and his mind was churning up a dozen different thoughts. It made John feel dizzy when he tried to keep up with them all.
He set the file aside, knowing that Sherlock would probably be caught up in thinking for a while, and reached instead for a book he'd been slowly working his way through. He flipped it open and started to read, doing his best to ignore the constant stream of thoughts going on right next to him. After about fifteen minutes, he noticed that it was beginning to slow down. He kept reading while projecting calm and safety.
It was not a surprise when Sherlock's head hit his shoulder a few minutes later. The man hadn't slept since he'd returned from helping Irene to escape, and, since they only got into a fight whenever John threatened to make him sleep, it was about time that he'd finally given in. John just smiled to himself, resolving to stay where he was and think about nothing but his fascinating book for the next couple of hours, and turned to the next page.
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