AN

Woohoo! First reviews are in! And I know, I know… I said I won't be publishing daily… and I won't! I just didn't want to keep you in suspense about wtf is going on for too long. I know, I'm awesome #snark

tanzanitehyacinth Thank you so much for leaving me the very first review of this new story! And double thanks for all the praise and those kind words. What a glorious first review!

Companion Teresa I knew I would be able to count on you to make an appearance in the reviews as well! I hope my story will excite you as much as it excited me to write it. As you've noticed… it really is quite different from Like Swans. I hope you don't mind the science fiction. I can promise it's for story setting and telling purposes only :D

Elbafo Well duh, of course I'd be dragging you into this the first chance I'd get! Thank you for your amazing review! You know how it's food for my soul! And yeah, little Rosie is cute as a button :D

Okay peeps, savour this one because it'll be a while before I publish again. Need to spend some time with my girls during summer break :D

S S S

The day of the Bridge activating.

"You can't prove it was me."

Oh, how wrong he was.

"Actually, I can. All I needed was one look at the footprints you left outside under the window of Hawthorne's office."

"My shoe size is 8,5. The found footprints were size 9,5."

"Yes, that is why the footprints were off. The indentations made by the noses of the shoes weren't deep enough. You went to great lengths to leave so little evidence behind, yet you neglected to brush away a couple of perfect footprints in dirt that is visibly soft. Conclusion... you wanted me to find the footprints."

Sherlock took a deep breath and quickly overwhelmed his victim with the stone cold facts. "As you said, your actual size is 8,5, so, you had to buy shoes of a larger size that you could easily dump afterwards. And that is why the shoes found in the skip bin a few blocks away were of such appalling quality because you did not want to spend a lot of money on shoes you would only wear once. Also, the button that is missing from your shirt sleeve was found inside the right shoe."

And... case solved right in time for lunch. He was good! Sherlock offered Raymond Cassidy, Hawthorne's associate, a tight little smile.

Cassidy seemed a bit at a loss and he pushed his glasses further up the bridge of his nose again. The ill-fitting glasses were most likely a spare pair as they kept sliding down his nose. He clenched and relaxed his hands repeatedly, his nostrils flared like that of a nervous foal and even from where he was standing, Sherlock could see the sweat on his brow.

"Yes, I killed him. I had to!" Cassidy blurted out. His voice was sharp and quivering, like an arrow that had just been fired.

Sherlock huffed in annoyance. "Well, of course you did! I just explained that to you"

Cassidy ignored his remark. "The fool was going to shut down the entire thing! Right when we were ready for actual testing, he had to suddenly sprout a conscience and worry about natural disasters possibly occurring due to the stressing of two universes by bringing them into synchronization. As long as the host reality is a close mirror to our own, the chances of accidentally destroying that reality are infinitesimal!

Scientists, they never knew when to shut up… "So, you killed Hawthorne because he was shutting down a project that would never have worked anyway. Brilliant!

I mean, come on, alternate dimensions? Yes, I've read your theory… It would have made for an entertaining story if it wasn't so BORING!"

Raymond Cassidy gave him a calculating look. He pushed his thick-rimmed glasses further up the bridge of his nose again, which briefly gave him an owlish look. Never keeping his eyes off Sherlock, the lanky middle-aged scientist took a few steps towards the large console standing off the side of the large apparatus with the overly large metal semicircles. The arms were reaching towards each other... an embrace forever just out of reach... "If you are so sure it won't work," Cassidy muttered darkly, "then you won't mind if I enter the starting sequence."

The machine came to life, making a loud noise as it apparently started doing something, which seemed to be creating a beam of green light between the spinning metal arms.

"Your fancy club light won't save you from spending a considerate amount of time in prison."

Familiar footsteps approached them and made him perk up his ears. He tutted disapprovingly. Couldn't she have arrived just a bit earlier? That way she could have witnessed him being brilliant and she, of course, would have awed at the cleverness of him. That sort of thing always pleased her. And he had developed a taste for that kind of admiration. Win win!

"Don't you move!" Sherlock warned the scientist. Cassidy, having shuffled closer to his big fancy club light, stopped dead in his tracks at his commanding tone.

Right, better keep an eye on this Cassidy fellow. All he had to do now was wait for Lestrade to arrive. Who, as usual and like Kyrie, was also late. But, judging the sound of sirens getting closer, Lestrade was at least well on his way to beating his own record.

Cue in Lestrade, the arrest would follow, leaving him ample time to have lunch with his family before heading to that school thing Kyrie had been talking about so much lately. Family... A previously foreign concept that caused a simultaneous tug at his heart and at the corner of his lips.

"I am not going to prison. Not for killing that bastard. He would have flushed twenty years of research down the drain!"

Sherlock glanced at his watch. "You are talking to the wrong person. I never stick around for the boring bits. You could always try and convince Lestrade..."

Footsteps close. At the moment not the familiar lively staccato of heels he was used to. He smiled to himself because he knew the reason why she was not wearing high heels at the moment. He looked up and there she was, her face alight with the sunniest of smiles and her hand, as usual, resting protectively on her belly.

"Not what I had in mind, but at least you won't be looking for me."

Something in Raymond's voice alarmed him but before his mind could digest this new information and spit out a conclusion, Kyrie had arrived.

"Hello!" She gave Raymond a friendly smile as she waddled past him.

Oh no!

"Kyrie, watch out!" He tried to warn her, but he couldn't prevent Raymond from harshly shoving her out of the way. The baby! In a flurry of movements, Sherlock twisted his body and dove right after her, trying to catch her so he could break her fall. Right as she fell into the beam of green light, the brightness intensified exponentially, briefly blinding him.

With a big ooph, the wind got knocked out of him as he thudded face down against the floor. All sound muted and his grasping hands caught nothing but empty air. The moment he was able to, he scrambled from the floor, rubbing his eyes and blinking repeatedly to get them to working properly again. Cassidy, of course, had taken the opportunity to escape. No doubt by now he'd fled the building. That was not of his concern though.

"Kyrie, you all right?" He was still busy with the rapid blinking to get rid of the black spots that blurred his vision. He stopped blinking however when he got no reply, not even a moan, groan, or sigh. It was eerily quiet.

He slowly turned around. His eyes widened and his lips parted in horrified shock.

The machine was quiet and no longer functioning as an overblown club light. And Kyrie was nowhere to be seen.

"Daddy? Where did Mummy go?"

Sherlock could feel the blood drain from his face and he swallowed hard before he was able to look down at his young son who was looking up at him expectantly. Of course, St John was so used to his father having an answer for everything, why wouldn't he expect his father to provide him with an answer now?

He dropped to one knee and held the boy close to him. "I- I don't know." His voice was gruff, as if his throat had been stuffed with sanding paper. "But I will find out, I promise."

Some time later – could be minutes, could be hours... whoever knew… Sherlock stood rooted to the floor, still staring at the exact same spot he had last seen Kyrie. All around him an entire police force was hard at work failing terribly at performing their jobs.

"We've checked the entire perimeter. I'm sorry, Sherlock, but there's no trace of her."

He gave Lestrade a slight nod.

Natural disasters... two universes… bringing them into synchronization.

It all seemed so far-fetched. "Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth." His own words. So what did that mean then? Was his wife now in some alternate universe?

"Don't worry, Sherlock..." The look on John's face practically telegraphed he was about to say something mushy and over-emotional.

"Worry?" he scoffed, before John could continue. "I don't worry, John."

John pursed his lips and the way he knit his brows together told Sherlock his friend was disappointed in him. "She's your wife. I know you are worried, so I'm going to let that slide. And don't give me that 'I don't do sentiment' bullshit. I know you love her."

"Yes." He breathed harshly. "Of course I do. But that won't help me get her back. She is now my case, John. My only case until she's back. Emotions obstruct the ability to reason logically, that is why – right now – I can't be a husband or a father. Right now, I have to be a Consulting Detective. THE Consulting Detective."

"Okay," John said, even though it was clear he had no idea where Sherlock was going with this.

"That is why I must ask... For the time being, can St John stay with you and Mary?"

There was only a moment's pause before John erupted at him. "You fucking bastard! That little boy lost his mother today! Will you really now deprive him of a father as well?"

"Exactly, John! His mother is gone! And I don't have an answer for him, not yet."

"What do you mean? What answer?" John's voice was just a bit less filled with anger. Of course, he would find it difficult to keep track of multiple emotions and right now curiosity was winning over anger.

Sherlock found it difficult to give voice to his thoughts. Though his mind was terribly fast, it was at the moment pre-occupied with one question. The question St John had asked him. The question to which he had absolutely nothing to offer as a suitable answer.

"The answer to my son's question," he finally said. "Where did Mummy go? Besides that… he won't go asleep. Not at home anyway, not with her gone. He's too used to Kyrie reading him his bedtime story. Perhaps… Perhaps in different surroundings, he'll accept being tucked in by Mary."

Sentiment is a chemical defect found in the losing side and caring is not an advantage. Words he and his brother had always lived their lives by. A weak smile tried to tug the corner of his lips upwards, but it failed pitifully.

Over the years, so much had been written about him; so many theories, so many hypotheses... so much had been written in fact, that people thought they knew him, when in truth, only a handful of people could make that claim and there was only one who fully understood him...

"You do experience emotions, Sherlock. You just experience them a bit different than the rest of us."

"Explain." He furrowed his brows at her when he demanded clarification, not in the mood to be more elaborate. The audacity of that woman – that nurse – to whisper behind his back that she'd never encountered a man so little invested in the pregnancy of his wife. So what if he had missed the appointment of the first ultrasound? He had more than made up for that!

"Because you need to have a strong understanding of emotions, to be able to put them aside the way you do."

He stared at the ceiling in silence, mulling over her words while absent-mindedly stroking the bare arm she had draped over his chest while she lay curled into his side.

"So, you think I do understand emotions then?" He tutted in annoyance when he could feel her lips curve into a smile against his skin.

"I think you understand better than most. You just don't like to show that you do."

"I don't always, you know... understand them I mean. Emotions."

"Well, there's plenty of time to learn."

And he had learned. At the moment, that was part of the problem. When it came to her, he wasn't so adept at all at putting aside emotions. For her, he had opened himself up to actually experiencing them, something he had always said he'd never do. In effect, he had proven his own statement about exceptions invalid. "I never make exceptions. An exception disproves the rule."

Now he was at a crossroads... He needed his intellectual acuity the most and so he had to reinforce those words. No exceptions. His wife had been right after all; he did understand emotions, but right now he had to turn to clear-headed objective thinking.

He closed his eyes, barely succeeding in keeping despair at bay. It was time to visit a room in his Mind Palace; a room he had not visited in a long time, a room where he had stored a version of himself that had not yet learned how to feel, not fully anyway. He needed that man.

The door creaked open and Sherlock found himself staring at the most uncaring and unforgiving face he'd ever seen. His own. "I need to find her," he said solemnly.

His other self merely nodded his head and stepped forward...

Sherlock's eyes flashed open. "John, time to go. We have a case to solve," he said, pivoting on his heel and turning his back to his friend.

"Wait, what?"

Rapid footsteps quickly fell behind him, indicating John tried his best to keep up with him.

"Sherlock, I still need a full statement!" Lestrade's voice echoed behind him.

"Stop wasting time, Gavin! Kyrie is not here. In fact, she is no longer even in this reality. Stop wasting resources and put all your men on finding this man..." He whipped out his phone, quickly pulled up a search and shared the page with Lestrade.

"Oh, so it's back to Gavin now, is it?"

Even from that distance, Sherlock could hear the indignation. He merely smirked.

"Sherlock, who are we looking for? And... just what is going on?"

"Raymond Cassidy..." Sherlock started his explanation, his voice even while he summed up the facts. "The associate of Jason Hawthorne. They've been dabbling with fringe science for years. Alternate time lines. I know, it sounds preposterous and I would never have believed it had I not seen it with my own eyes. It was supposed to be the golden ticket for Cassidy, his boost to fame and riches, but Hawthorne grew a conscience. Apparently, aligning two different universes can be dangerous."

"Universes? Are you serious right now?" John asked him as he finally came up walking next to him.

"Deadly serious, John. Keep up, will you? Now, according to Cassidy's theory the danger should be minimal as long as the other universe is... an echo... of this one. Small differences... the path taken or not taken. Aligning a universe outside of that echo... well, that could be disastrous. But Hawthorne wasn't having any of that theory. He believed the dangers outweighed the possible wealth of knowledge that could be obtained and he wanted to shut the entire project down, right at the moment they were ready for live testing. So, Cassidy killed him."

They soon reached the large, glass doors of the main entrance. Right as they walked up to them, Sherlock planted both palms of his hands firmly against the cold smooth glass and pushed both doors wide open. He took in a deep breath of air and he looked up at the stormy sky. Even nature felt the same way he did.

"We need Raymond Cassidy to put his machine back into working condition again because that's how I get her back."

"Where do we start?" John shivered and gave him a questioning look. Rain just started to pour down and had them both soaked in an instant.

"Mycroft and my homeless network. I want that man found sooner rather than later."