Sherlock's grip tightened on the note.
"No..." John could hardly speak "no, Sherlock. Moriarty's dead. You were there, you watched him put a gun to his head. You watched him blow his brains out!"
"You watched me fall from a building that very same day." Sherlock's voice was no more than a whisper.
John fell silent, he didn't want to remember that day, the pain he went through those three years without his best friend. He was more than pissed when Sherlock returned, he was furious. He had felt betrayed by him, it took him months to get over it.
"Why now?"
"Hmm?"
"Why would he come back now? It's been five years since that day, you've been back home for two years, we adopted Hamish a year ago, why wait this long?"
Sherlock sighed. "I guess he was waiting for the right moment, he was waiting for everything to be perfect before he made his move."

John sat on the edge of the bed, rubbing his temple.
"What does it say we have to do?"
"It says we'll be given images and notes to prompt our search, clues if you will. I suppose it's a reenactment of the lead up to our first meeting at the pool."
"Well, when do we get the first clue?"
"I'm not sure."
"You're not sure? Sherlock, our son's life is at stake!"
"Don't act like this is my fault!"
"I don't see this kind of thing happening to normal families!"
John broke on the last word and burst into tears. It pained Sherlock to see him like this, he sat down beside him and put his hand on his back, softly moving is hand up and down to comfort him.
"We'll get him back. He won't touch a hair on his head, not if I have anything to do with it."

...

Both men were sat in the sitting room when Mrs Hudson entered. John was reading last week's newspaper with shaking hands. Sherlock was sat perched like a bird, staring, thinking.
"This arrived for you, Sherlock." She held an expensive looking envelope, sympathy appearing in her eyes and her voice.
Sherlock put his arm out without turning to look at her, gesturing for her to place it in his hand. When she didn't hand it over immediately, he quickly glanced at her and then down at the envelope.
"Mycroft's writing letters now, is he?" He chuckled a little at the thought. "It won't be long until he's sending birthday cards to those who manage to reach one hundred."
Sherlock took the envelope from Mrs Hudson himself, smiling a little at his own joke. Mrs Hudson left him to read it, seeming a little bit on edge.
"What does it say?" John asked, putting the paper he was pretending to read down.
Sherlock opened it, but it wasn't a letter that was inside, instead it was a photograph.

John was alarmed by the look on Sherlock's face and he pushed himself out of the chair to join him. He looked down at the photograph gripped in Sherlock's hand, it was a picture of Hamish, sleeping in a cradle. The cradle was right in front a window, it looked like something from a cheap hotel, and from the window there was a view of a tower.
John pointed to the image in front of him. "That's-"
"-Blackpool tower" Sherlock finished, not realising he had interrupted.
"Why the hell are they in Blackpool?! Is he deciding to just take our baby on holiday?!" John's voice was more than a yell now.
"Will you shut up for a second?" Sherlock flipped the photograph around, there was writing on the back.

Having a wonderful time here in Blackpool, Sherlock. Wish you and John could be here. Hamish misses you both very much. x

John grabbed his coat that was hanging on the door and put it on as he stormed out.
"Where are you going?" Sherlock asked, removing his eyes from the photograph.
"Blackpool."

"No, John, we need to think about this!" Sherlock grabbed John and turned him around to face him.
"Think about it?! Sherlock, our son is over two hundred miles away from us with a psychopath who has tried to kill both of us more than once, and you want to sit here and think about it?!"
"We haven't done any research, all we know is that they're in some cheap hotel in Blackpool that has a view of the tower, do you know how many hotels that could be?"
"We'll search them all if we have to."
"They could be gone by the time we do that."
"They could be gone right now!"
"John, I know you're upset-"
"Upset!"
"Yes, I know you're upset but you can't just work on impulse, you have to think things through."

John snapped away from Sherlock's hold, walking back towards the sitting room with his head down.
"Do you even want our son back?" He sobbed.
Sherlock was shocked that he would even think something like that. "What?"
"Do you really want Hamish back?" He brought his head up and looked Sherlock dead in the eye once more.
"Of course I do!"
"I don't think you do."
"Why?"
"You didn't even want a child in the first place, you just went along with it because you hurt me."
"That's not true."
"Isn't it?"
Sherlock had to pull away from John's piercing eyes.

"Okay I'll admit it. No, I didn't want to adopt, I didn't want to have a child at all." He heard John take a deep breath. "I went along with it because it was what you wanted. You said you could never be happy again, John. I watched you look at families in the street with sad eyes. You thought you would never have that. That's why I wasn't surprised the day you told me you wanted to adopt. I wanted you to be happy again and I knew that wouldn't happen until you had a family."
John felt sick, he sat down on the arm of the chair next to him.
"So Hamish only has one parent that loves him? Do you have any idea how wrong that sounds?"
"I didn't say that I didn't love him."
"You did it because it was what I wanted, not because it was what we wanted."
"John, I love Hamish more than anything in the world."
"How can you say you love him when you don't even want him?"
"I said I didn'twant him at first, but my feelings for him changed the longer we had him. I would die if it meant he could be safe."

Sherlock turned and walked towards the door, grabbing his scarf from the hook at the side.
"Where are you going?"
"We're going to Blackpool."