Chapter Twelve

Three Months Later

Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid. The word swirled around and around in Sherlock's head like a verbal tornado. Why had he been so stupid? He should have seen it coming, should have realised sooner. It was too late now, there was nothing Sherlock could do but break his cover and go after John. Why had he let John go first? John was still recovering; his seizures were down to one or two a week now, so long as John always took his medication, but still, Sherlock shouldn't have let him go first.

Sherlock was crouched behind a load of wooden storage crates, cowering in their shadow. What was in them, he didn't really know, but that didn't really matter; Sherlock observed that they seemed to be old, probably unused for several years. He was conscious that as soon as he ran, the laser pointers would be on him. Maybe if he ran in a zig-zag, the snipers would miss him… Sherlock shook his head; it was unlikely. This was no time for logic. Mycroft had always taught Sherlock not to forget about logic when sentiment came into a matter, but it was much harder than his brother had made out; maybe Mycroft had never properly experienced friendship, never had a chance at sentiment. Sherlock felt a pang of guilt – if he knew one thing, it was that Mycroft was definitely sentimental when it came to him.

John had been jumped from behind and pushed to the floor by two masked men, his gun was tossed aside, and he grunted as he fought. All of Sherlock's thoughts flooded him in less than a second, and then he was up and running. He would have made it half way across the open floor before the snipers trained on him, but Will grabbed Sherlock's arm as he lunged out from behind the crates that had been his cover, his nimble fingers hooking around Sherlock's thin wrist.

"Sherlock!"

Will's exclamation was like a stage whisper, and within a moment, floodlights came on across the warehouse, to an extent where Sherlock was forced to squint while his eyes adjusted. Angrily, he tore his arm free from Will's grip, and then Sherlock was up again and running for John, who had gone disturbingly still under his two attackers. Vaguely, Sherlock was aware of Will's hurried footsteps behind him. Despite the risks and Will's obvious reservations, he wouldn't abandon Sherlock - and John - now.

This had all gone terribly wrong.

A click, and something whizzed past Sherlock's ear. He kept going, running towards John; Sherlock was only about thirty metres away now. His feet were pounding the concrete, and his heart thudded in his chest.

Another click, and then an impact. Sherlock was hit. He waited for the burst of pain, the spurt of blood and the tremors of shock. They didn't come.

"Sherlock!"

Will called again, desperately. Sherlock didn't respond, he was too busy thinking, too busy calculating. He'd definitely been hit, but it wasn't a bullet. It was smaller, lighter; a tiny pinch of pain, rather than an atomic explosion.

A sudden wave of dizziness, and then Sherlock was on his knees. He didn't remember losing his footing, but suddenly his hands were supporting him, palms face down on the floor, and he was blinking desperately to clear his vision.

Dart Gun. Not a bullet, a needle, shot through the air and straight into his thigh. Sherlock knew he only had seconds of consciousness left, mere seconds to do something. He turned desperately, trying to locate Will.

Will presented himself; he crashed to the floor only a few feet to Sherlock's right, gasping for breath and grappling with the plastic and metal protruding menacingly from his leg. He looked up, and they locked eyes. Blue met green, and in that moment, they became one body. Like a mirror of emotions, Sherlock saw the desperation, panic, despair and raw fear in Will's eyes. He knew Will saw the same in his eyes. Entranced, both men held their breath, unable to look away, unable to move, unable to speak. Time stood still, it was a look, a shared feeling of two men who knew that they had nothing left to lose, and nothing to gain either.

The moment was broken as another wave of dizziness drove Sherlock to the floor. He crashed into the concrete ungracefully and inelegantly. Somewhere, in a distant part of Sherlock's mind, he registered the chuckle that could only belong to one man. In his last seconds of consciousness, Sherlock stretched his neck, craning it to see John. He was clearly unconscious – Sherlock hoped it was just unconscious, not anything more…permanent – and his two attackers were picking up his limp body. John's head lolled and his arms dangled freely, brushing absently against his attackers in what looked like a crude, perverse, caress. "Joh…" Sherlock's tongue was too thick to finish the word.

Sherlock's eyelids fell closed, just as a well-tailored lower trouser leg and foot appeared in his line of sight. The last thing he registered was Will beside him, who choked out half of his name, then there was the sound of a blow, skin hitting skin, bone reverberating within two skeletons – Will would have to learn to be quieter, and fast. With a final sigh, Sherlock lost consciousness and entered a world of darkness, in which he would remain for an indeterminable amount of time.

Swirling darkness, spirals of light, spinning slowly behind his eyelids. He hadn't felt this dizzy and disorientated since he'd got an infection after being shot in Afghanistan. Was he still in Afghanistan, was he still recovering, burning up with a raging fever? Or was he back in London, in the Royal Infirmary, recovering from the secondary infection? He tried to fight his way back into the light, but the surface was too far to reach.

Thrashing, he pushed and pulled his way up. Black turned to grey; he was getting closer. It felt like coming up from deep underwater, when the pressure in your ears eases; a feeling of relief as the chance at breath gets nearer.

Finally, John was able to open his eyes. Instantly, he knew something was seriously wrong. The room was dull, so he didn't have to squint into the light – definitely not a hospital then. Slowly, John sat up. His head span, and the room he was in seemed to tilt for a few moments. John blinked hard, and everything became horizontal once again.

Quickly, John took a personal inventory. He had no physical injuries more serious than a bit of bruising. An image flashed to the forefront of his mind, an image of two men, appearing from nowhere and pushing him to the floor gracelessly. Punches were tossed, and kicks, and then the unmissable pinch of a needle going into his flesh. That was it: John had been drugged.

Asserting that he wasn't in serious medical danger, John took in his surroundings. He was in a small room without a window. The walls were bare, a grey cobble, and there were cracks in places. John noticed a definite feeling of damp, and he shivered as he registered just how cold it was. Without a window, he had no idea what time it was, or how long he'd been unconscious; it could have been an hour, it could have been a day, or longer…

Turning, John saw that one wall wasn't a wall at all; there were simply metal bars. A prison cell. Despite the dilapidated state of the walls of his cell, the metal appeared almost new, and, when John pushed against it with his hand, he found no sign of weakness. Outside the cell, there was some sort of a corridor; it was deserted: no guards, no patrol, but thankfully no Moriarty either. John had half expected to see him standing there, smiling down at him, but, to his relief, he was nowhere in sight. However, as John knew, that didn't mean he wasn't listening, wasn't watching.

Tired, and mind still muddled from the drug he'd been given, John leaned back against the wall. Instantly, he felt the cold stones suck the heat from his body, but he didn't have the energy to move again. Sighing, he closed his eyes. John had no idea where Sherlock and Will were. He hoped that they hadn't broken cover, hadn't been spotted by Moriarty. If this was true, maybe they would have escaped, got word to Mycroft, and started a hunt to get him back. Although John hoped this was true, deep down, he knew it was only a fantasy. For all of Sherlock's seemingly apathetic words and actions, he did care about John; he wouldn't have stayed in the shadows, watching him being taken, he would have lunged out, in a vain attempt to save him.

So, logically, Sherlock and Will would have both been captured with John. That meant they had to be somewhere here, but John couldn't hear or see them, and he didn't have the energy to call out. He decided to get some more rest, and then maybe he'd be able to formulate a better plan of action.

Swirling darkness, spirals of light, spinning slowly behind his eyelids. He hadn't felt this dizzy and disorientated since he'd been knocked out during combat training while qualifying for MI6. But he knew he wasn't at GCHQ now. If he was, there'd be medical professionals rushing about around him, and people trying to get him to open his eyes, to say something, to tell them he was alright.

He shifted on the floor, and a sharp stab of pain flew through his head. It felt as if a long, thin knife was being forced into his brain repeatedly. He stilled and tried to steady his breathing. Slowly, the pain abated to a dull throb. That was good, that was manageable.

Carefully, Will opened his eyes. To his relief, there was no blinding light to greet him. He raised his right hand to his head, and gently felt along his temple, it didn't take long to locate the large lump just inside his hairline. Will calculated that he must have been hit two to three hours previously. He had a vague recollection of trying to call Sherlock's name, and then of being kicked harshly, after he'd tried to pull the needle from his thigh muscle. Ah, yes, the needle; he'd been drugged, although he wasn't sure what with.

After waiting several minutes, Will slowly pushed himself up into a sitting position. He used his hands to steady himself, and the pain in his head increased for several seconds to an almost unbearable level. Will decided he'd try to move as little as possible; he wished he had a few paracetamol, but, sadly, he had no such luxuries offered to him, not even a drink of water.

Moving incredibly slowly, Will settled himself against the cobbled walls of his cell. He faced outwards, looking through the metal bars of the far wall, looking and listening for anything that might add more clarity to the situation. He didn't realise that, at the other end of the corridor, John was mirroring his posture and thoughts almost exactly.

Swirling darkness, spirals of light, spinning slowly behind his eyelids. He hadn't felt this dizzy and disorientated since he'd been rescued from the Serbian prison during his time away defeating Moriarty's web. Except he hadn't defeated it, not fully. Moriarty had, like him, faked his suicide. How had he missed it? How had they both faked their suicides at each other? It was more ridiculous than the stories the press had formulated.

"Come on, Sherlock. It's time to wake up, I'm booreed." That voice. It was so familiar. It haunted a room deep within the dungeons of Sherlock's Mind Palace. But he wasn't in his Mind Palace now, which meant the voice had to be real.

Somewhat groggily, Sherlock forced his eyes open.

"Finally! You know, Sherlock, I was beginning to wonder if I'd got the dose wrong." Moriarty smirked down at him, stepping from one foot from the other in a controlled form of glee.

Sherlock brought a hand up to rub his face, and then slowly sat up, fighting off the waves of dizziness as they hit him. He took a few deep breaths to clear his head, and then glared up at Moriarty.

"I was under the impression…that you were dead."

Moriarty smirked. "Well, that was rather the idea. But you made a terrible mess of my 'Web', as you so lovingly called it, so I decided I needed to come back and sort it out."

Sherlock hummed in response, and then an image flashed up in his mind of a limp, unresponsive John being carried away by two of Moriarty's men. "Where's John?" The question flew out of his mouth before Sherlock could weigh up the risks of asking after his friend's health.

Moriarty appeared to be a little annoyed with the sentiment – Sherlock wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not… probably not. "John's fine, for now. No need to worry yourself, Sherlock dear."

"And Will?"

"Will? Oh, is that the name of the other guy tagging along with you these days? Yes, he's fine too. They're both perfectly fine, wonderful, in fact."

Sherlock wasn't entirely convinced, but decided to drop the matter for the time being.

Moriarty circled Sherlock once, twice, and then spoke again. "Well, I really must go now. I've got lots to do, thanks to your meddling." Mock anger filtered into his voice, and it sent a chill down Sherlock's spine.

Just as he reached the bars, unlocked the heavy-duty padlock and made to leave, Moriarty turned, as if suddenly remembering something. Sherlock wasn't fooled – every word of this operation was probably planned out in advance. "It was silly of John to leave his medication in his pocket; it's far too easy for something like that to just…slip out. Oh well, sleep well, and we'll catch up again later."

Sherlock's heart dropped; his worst fears had just been confirmed. Without his meds, it was only a matter of time before things would go downhill for John.