Summary: In which John Watson wakes up and is not impressed.

Someone had a headache. No, wait - scratch that. Someone had the mother, father and the grandfather of all headaches. It was as if an irritable and poorly trained percussion group had taken up residence nearby and were diligently practicing a particularly energetic piece on bits of his skull.

Groaning at the unrelenting onslaught John Watson slowly prised open an eye in the vague hope that this would, if not improve matters, perhaps explain the hangover from hell. Nope, John decided quickly, what was passing for vision at the moment had not improved the situation at all – he had definitely been kidnapped… again.

Well shit!

'The Holmes brothers should come with a health warning' John thought with irritation as he tried to find a comfortable position for his aching body without actually moving.

Caution: cohabitation may result in extreme frustration, accidental food poisoning and random abductions.

When moving into 221B Baker Street the world and its bloody wife seemed to have an opinion – predominantly about warning John against getting involved with Sherlock "the freak" Holmes. In comparison, however, John would take Sherlock's own particular brand of madness over that of his brother or whoever the fuck this lot were any day of the week.

Heaving an exasperated sigh born from repeated experience, the doctor, opened both eyes and examined his current prison. As prisons went it wasn't the worst place he had awoken in – there was a bed, well, sort of and a wash basin. It didn't look rodent infested or like there would be raw sewage leaking through the ceiling. So already it was a step up on the last place. The fact that it seemed to be gently swaying was a bit a alarming, but given the state of his head John couldn't be sure if the room was actually moving or if it was just his concussion making itself known.

This question was answered a short time later when his tired brain finally realised that the vibrations that had been making his head spin were not tinnitus but the rumble of engines. Jet engines.

Despite what Sherlock and Mycroft might – and frequently did - say about his intelligence, John was not actually a stupid man. He could, when the situation called for it, be perceptive and quite good at deductive logic. He knew engines – more specifically, he knew army issue engines, had had many hours of listening to them when being ferried to and from deployments, and these were definitely army engines. Which meant this was an army plane.

In a rush the events preceding his sudden and unexpected bout of unconsciousness came back to him.

The street. The men in black. The request…

John's day had started quite well. The sun had been shining, the birds singing, and Sherlock had not yet blown anything up. There had even been milk for his coffee and the fridge was, for once, devoid of pickled body parts and experiments. It was a good morning. His walk to work had been normal. He had had a nice normal day dealing with nice normal illnesses. There had been nothing at all to suggest that this life was about to take yet another unexpected turn.

Despite what people might thing, John did not keep tabs on what his irascible and mercurial flatmate was up to at all hours… that was Mycroft's job. If Sherlock needed him, or felt bored, he would text, but frequently he would go off and solve cases on his own only to tell John about it later that night over a cup of tea and a digestive biscuit.

So it came as no surprise to John that he wasn't told about the American visitors until lunchtime, when having popped back for a quite sandwich, Mrs Hudson informed him of their unexpected visit. It also hadn't surprised him to learn that Sherlock had been less than interested in talking to them and had been his usual rude and dismissive self. It was a common enough occurrence that the doctor had completely put the incidence out of his mind by the end of the day.

In hindsight this was clearly a mistake.

The Americans it seemed were not going to take 'No' for an answer.

They were waiting for him at the entrance of Regent's Park as he made his way home that evening. Black suits and dark glasses making them stand out against the lush foliage of the park and the brightly dressed tourists wondering around. In a calm long suffering voice, John had explained to the men that no he would not be helping them, no he would not 'convince' Sherlock to help them – as if such a thing was possible, no one 'convinced' Sherlock to do anything he didn't want to do – and no, he had far more sense (courtesy of Mycroft Holmes and his frequent abductions) than to get in an unmarked SUV with some unknown men in order to go to an undisclosed location to assist in a case he neither knew anything about or was interested in becoming involved in.

Whatever sympathy John might have had towards the beleaguered Americans quickly disappeared in the face of four guns being levelled at him in an attempt to get him into an unmarked car.

Now it should be said that John had nothing against guns, in principle at least. As a former soldier he was both familiar and comfortable with most firearms. If asked, he'd even say that guns were a necessary part of maintaining social order (especially when working with Sherlock) and that his life would probably be a bit easier if England had similar laws to America around firearms. Where he drew the line was when they were pointed at him or someone he cared about.

The resulting fight was going quite well, he'd downed two of the ubiquitous black uniformed men in short order, and had been enjoying an evenly matched three on one session of fisticuffs, when the driver of the aforementioned black car got out and clocked him over the head with something heavy and painful. Johns last thought before unconsciousness claimed him was to hope that his embarrassing abduction hadn't happened in the one and only CCTV blackspot in central London.

It would have relieved John to know that the whole scene had indeed been caught in glorious high definition on the CCTV network and as an added bonus on the camera phones of a bunch of Japanese tourists who had happened to be passing. Unfortunately, the minion meant to be keeping track of Sherlock's flatmate had at that moment been reading a book and so had missed the entire debacle. Likewise, the well-meaning tourists did go to the police with their footage, but because of their itinerary handed it in to Greenwich police station where it was misfiled as an abduction from Blackheath Common not Regents Park.

As such, the strange disappearance of John Watson was totally unremarked and unnoticed, except by one Consulting Detective, until Mycroft found himself knee deep in the consequences the next day.

Sherlock had first become aware that something was wrong when shortly after 20:00 he realised his flatmate was late for dinner. Two hours later, Sherlock had hacked into the CCTV feed, seen what had happened, and declared war on the United States of America.

Lying on his back on the bunk, John dozed. His head still hurt, but at least his thick skull was good for something, as he was feeling much better than he had when he first woke up. It must have been several hours later and just as his stomach was making itself known that there was a click of a lock snapping back and the door to his cell opened to admit a tall man in fatigues and the insignia of the US Air Force.

"Right, so which one are you?" John enquired in his politest voice. "The United Activists? The Moriarty fan club? The Federation of who gives a fuck?

"Colonel Masterson, United States Airforce."

The doctor signed, "Wow, I must be going up in the world," he commented dryly, "abducted by a Colonel in the USAF. I'm honoured."

The Colonel looked at the war veteran appraisingly. "I must say, you're taking this unusually well."

"Have a lot of experience with abducting unsuspecting members of the public do you?" was the withering response from the captive before he flopped back onto the bed. It pulled at his army soul to show such flagrant disrespect to a senior officer, but his head hurt, he was hungry and nauseas and he was incredibly pissed off. He'd missed curry night. These clowns had made him miss curry night. A night so sacred that Sherlock would refuse cases to ensure he was home for it.

The Colonel at least had the good sense to look embarrassed at John's comment. "I apologise for the inconvenience," he said at last, his gaze fixed somewhere over John's left shoulder. "It will hopefully be of a short duration."

John snorted. Not blood likely knowing Sherlock.

"I have my orders. As soon as Mr Holmes has located the missing item you will be released,"

So it was the same lot as before. Wonderful, he'd be waiting a while then. John raised an eyebrow, "so I'm here in a motivational capacity, then?" he asked, his tone pleasant enough if not for the wintery smile.

"Yes!" Colonel Masterson replied.

"You do know that the extraordinary rendition of a British citizen is illegal?"

"Yes,"

"And in this case immoral?"

Masterson heaved a put-upon sigh. "I have my orders."

"Orders which are both illegal and immoral…"

"Yes."

John considered this for a moment. "Ahh, orders from on high," he concluded, eyeing Masterson carefully, "very high, I would guess."

The Colonel looked pale and had a pinched expression around his eyes. "The highest," he ground out, looking like he would rather be anywhere than where he was.

John nodded. He'd thought at the time that the goons had the unpleasant whiff of secret service about them.

"It won't work, you know," the doctor said as he settled himself back against the pillow.

The Colonel turned as he reached the door, "Sir?"

"This plan your bosses have cooked up to corral Sherlock," he elucidated with a dismissive wave. "He doesn't respond well to threats. He particularly doesn't respond well when you threaten the people he cares about. Do you remember James Moriarty? If I was you, I'd want to get out of the fallout zone. Just a friendly warning," he added darkly, then closed his eyes.

John listened to the bang of the door shutting and the click as it was relocked. Now he just had to wait. He hadn't been joking or over exaggerating in his warning to the beleaguered Colonel, a bored Sherlock was bad enough and one quite capable of getting into all sorts of trouble (see the Buckingham Palace incident, multiple minor explosions in the flat and the body parts that often took prime place in the fridge). A worried and protective Sherlock though was a recipe for disaster. As Moriarty could attest, and apart from the first memorable occasion, he hadn't tried to target Sherlock's family directly. These nutters had, and on top of everything else they would now be dealing with a mercurial genius suffering from acute separation anxiety. Well, if the world collapsed around them, they only had themselves to blame, he had tried to warn them, and with that thought he decided a short nap would probably be a good idea in preparation for the inevitable fireworks.