Apologies for the long hiatus. This chapter comes with thanks to sevenpercent, whose description of Sherlock's teenage encounters with Lestrade might have inspired me just a little!

Sherlock was gone.

John's string of expletives had brought Mycroft's security men who had been stationed outside into the room quicker than any alarm bell could have. The dummy that John had rolled over in the bed, and the curly black wig now at a rakish angle on it's head told them everything that they needed to know.

John recognised the dummy - Henry Fishguard, the same dummy that Sherlock had used just before he'd faked his own death, the dummy that he had hanged from the ceiling of 221b to try to give John a massive clue about what he was about to do. A clue that John had missed. Was Sherlock trying to give him another clue now or was it just a convenient recycling of an old prop?

'Well, no prizes for guessing how he got out,' Lestrade said, indicating the open window, and the broken cctv camera pointing to it.

'It's on the first floor!' John protested. 'He's not Spiderman, Greg. And he's not exactly in a fit state to climb down the drainpipe. Besides isn't it a little too obvious? It's not like Sherlock to leave clues.'

'Unless he wanted to,' a little voice in the back of the head told him. 'Unless he's trying to tell you something.'

Greg stuck his head out the window, looked down, looked up, and then chuckled. 'He didn't have to be Spiderman,' he said, pointing at the window cleaning platform parked high up on the building.'There's your answer.'

John groaned. 'Well at least we know how he did it this time. Where do you reckon he's gone?'

'221B? Maybe he just got fed up with being stuck in this place?'

John shook his head. 'Too obvious. He must know that's the first place that we'd look. Besides, the last time I saw him he couldn't move in bed without morphine. How the fuck did he think that he was going to manage without that?'

Lestrade coughed awkwardly and raised an eyebrow at John.

'You think he's gone to shoot up? Don't be ridiculous Greg.'

'Did I ever tell you about the first time I met Sherlock?'

John considered, frowned and finally admitted 'No.'

'The first time that I met Sherlock Holmes he was a grubby teenager, off his head on heroin and speed and goodness knows what else. He wasn't fussy in those days. I wasn't there for him. I was after a bloke who'd stabbed his dealer, but I ended up taking Sherlock to hospital all the same.'

'Why?' John asked.

Greg chuckled. 'He told me who I was, despite the fact that I was under cover. He also told me, what I'd had for breakfast, the state of my marriage and how old the kids were. All of it. Then he passed out and damned near stopped breathing. Later he did me a deal - he told me where I could find my target in return for a chance to help out with other investigations.'

'You let him work with you in that state?'

'He was an informant, John. Nothing more. I had no idea who he was, of course. He had no identification on him, and gave a false name when he did wake up. He swore blind that he was eighteen, but I was fairly sure that he was younger.'

'Didn't you check the missing persons database?'

'Of course, but he wasn't on that, not the current one anyway. Seems he disappeared so often that Mycroft had given up reporting it every time. This time it had only been a few days, Mycroft was still hoping that he'd come back of his own accord.'

'Did Mycroft know about the drugs?'

'He suspected, yes.'

'So how long was it before you worked out who he was?'

'Six months. Six months of very interesting information and deductions. Then Sherlock simply disappeared. Turned out he'd gone up to Cambridge to do his degree. He turned up again a couple of weeks before Christmas and that was the pattern for a while. Some detective I was - never realised that his appearances and disappearances matched the University terms. Then that summer he turned up on the missing persons database - I barely recognised him from his photo, but I contacted Mycroft anyway to tell him about the drugs. He wangled me getting allocated to trying to find him.'

'And did you?'

'Half dead on a Paris side-street after he'd pissed off one drug dealer too many, yes. Thought he was going to die - but before he passed out he have us enough information to nail a major cross-channel smuggling ring. He was in hospital for weeks, and then Mycroft whipped him off to a rehab place. He was in pretty deep by then. Didn't see him again for a couple of years, but after he'd finished his degree he turned up in my office cool as cucumber asking for a job. Didn't recognise him to start with in his snappy suit, nothing like the scruffy street urchin I'd known. Told him to go off and get himself some useful skills- like forensics. Even put him in touch with the bloke from our lab. Told him I didn't want him back on the street and in temptation's way.'

'And he ignored you?'

'Of course. He kept turning up at crime scenes like a bad smell, but he was keeping himself straight, and he started to become useful. It made more sense to make use of him than to keep trying to keep him away.'

'So you think...'

'That he's using again? Yeah, I'm sorry to say that I do. It fits the pattern, John. It's not the first time that he's slipped and it won't be the last. Why do you think he reacted so badly when I turned up to search his flat during that taxi driver case?'

It all seemed too convenient somehow, but John didn't have a lot else to go on. Trying to think like Sherlock Holmes scrambled his brain at the best of times. All he cared about for now was finding Sherlock and making sure that he was safe.

'Magnussen?' he asked reluctantly.

Lestrade shook his head. 'Too obvious,' he said. 'Even Sherlock wouldn't be that stupid.'

'So where would he go?'

'I've got a few ideas. Let me make a few phone-calls, call in some back-up to help us search the obvious places. Meanwhile why don't you go and talk to Molly, see if she knows where he goes when he wants to disappear?'