A/N: Sorry about the gap in new chapters guys, this is my exam week and I have had A TON of homework :/ But the good news is that the last exam is tomorrow so that means more chapters for you! ^-^

I had a really hard time writing this chapter and I rewrote it five different times before I was somewhat pleased with it. I'm still not sure how much I like it but, tell me what you think. At least you get to see Sherlock get into his detective mode ;)

Enjoy!

**Italics indicate flashbacks**

Sherlock tore his gaze away from the computer screen, his hands were clenched in white fists and his whole body was shaking. He took a deep breath, he needed to calm down, John was alive and he was going to save him, no matter what the cost. Once he had composed himself he chanced a glance up at his older brother to find that Mycroft was already looking down at him with a warning in his eyes.

"Don't even consider it Sherlock. If you hand yourself over to those maniacs then they will certainly kill you, and John." The elder man said sadly.

"We can't know that for sure," Sherlock responded quickly. "We have to try."

"I won't allow it." Mycroft said as he straightened up and closed the laptop, hiding the ominous message from sight. "I'm not about to let you just walk in there, hand yourself over, and hope for the best!"

Sherlock rolled his eyes at him. "Do you really think I'm that stupid Mycroft? I'm not going to walk in there and just 'hope for the best', I have a plan."

"Do tell," Mycroft said expectantly. So Sherlock did. His eyebrows slowly inching farther and farther up on his creased forehead as Sherlock told him his idea.

"That seems a bit risky don't you think? There is an awful lot that could go wrong." Mycroft stated when Sherlock had finished.

"If you have any better ideas I would be delighted to hear them." Sherlock said sarcastically. "Now can you please remove these handcuffs? If this is going to work I'm going to need my hands to be fully operational."

~.~.~.~

"SHERLOCK!"

Sherlock jumped at the noise and glanced around, looking for the source.

"Sherlock have you been listening to a word I've said?" Greg Lestrade asked him with annoyance.

"I'm not really in the mood for meaningless conversation right now Lestrade." Sherlock sighed at the detective inspector as he continued to stare out the tinted window of one of his brothers many luxury cars. He watched as slowly the amount of buildings began to decrease as they drove farther and farther away from the heart of London. Finally after three long days his plan was finally being put into action.

Greg shot him an annoyed glance from the corner of his eye, "Look Sherlock-"

Sherlock interrupted him with a noise of exasperation. "Ugh not now Lestrade I'm trying to think." The lanky detective slumped down in the plush seat and tried to re-enter his mind palace.

"I was only going to ask where the hell we are going!" Greg nearly shouted at the obnoxious man sitting next to him.

"We are headed to an old abandoned machine factory were John is being held captive. That's all you need to know." Sherlock responded without even glancing at him. It had not been easy tracking down where John's captors had hidden him; they were extremely good at covering their tracks.

"Humph," Greg grunted to his right.

Sherlock entered his mind palace and looked back on the events that led him to this point, double checking that no crucial points had been missed.

~.~.~.~

There were footsteps coming up the old wooden stairs of 221B and Sherlock could hear them creaking as someone worked their way up to his doorway. The footsteps were light, but slow, on the creaky steps and the length of time between each step was short. He could also hear a soft feminine sounding grunt as one of their feet slipped and they were sent stumbling back a little just as they were about to reach the top.

"What is it that you need Mrs. Hudson?" Sherlock asked calmly just as his landlady knocked on the door to his flat. She opened it a crack and slipped inside, closing it behind her.

"There's a message for you dear. Someone just dropped it off. I asked for his name but he wouldn't give it to me." She said with concern as she handed him a small white envelope.

"Good to see you too Mycroft," she said in greeting as she noticed the older Holmes standing off to the side a bit. He nodded his head in her direction in acknowledgement. "And you as well Mrs. Hudson."

The elderly woman gave the flat one last glance and finally seemed to realize that something, or rather someone, was missing.

"Where's John?" She directed the question at Sherlock, worry lines appearing on her face in place of her ever-present smile.

"He's upstairs, just a bit tired." Sherlock responded dismissively, the lie rolling easily off his tongue. It gave him no pleasure to lie to Mrs. Hudson but it was necessary sometimes, it was for her own good.

"Ah bless him," she said lovingly as she started to head for the door. "When he wakes up, tell him that he needs to go to bed earlier or he's going to get sick from the lack of sleep."

"Will do Mrs. Hudson," Mycroft responded for Sherlock as the younger began to analyze the envelope. He heard her slip out the door and trot down the steps. Good, one less distraction.

The envelope was small, no bigger than 4in x 3in, and the back was taped shut with clear tape. No seal to help him out this time then. The lower right corner was bent slightly backwards suggesting that it had been in a pocket and there was a small smudge if oil on the back where a glove or finger must have brushed it. Taking a closer look at the smudge under the microscope revealed that the oil was actually grease, the type used for making and lubricating machine parts. The person who delivered it must have come from some kind of a factory. But the room that he had seen in the video had looked abandoned. Perhaps an abandoned factory then. Finally, after he had discovered all that he could from the envelope itself he opened it. At first he thought there was nothing in it, but as he looked closer he found a small slip of paper with the message: 'Are you clever enough to figure it out?' Somehow it seemed familiar…

"What did you find?" Mycroft asked nonchalantly as he strolled into the flat with a cup of coffee in his hand.

"Not much," the detective sighed. "They are keeping him in an old machine factory that much is certain, the grease smudge was a dead giveaway. Other than that I couldn't get much useful information off of the envelope itself but I opened it to find this note," he handed the slip of paper to Mycroft. "It was written on a torn corner of standard computer paper. Where did you get that coffee?" Sherlock asked his brother, looking away from the microscope and up at him for the first time.

"I went out a while ago and got it," Mycroft answered as he set the cup down and looked at the note thoroughly. "Didn't notice my absence then?"

"The question mark is smeared at the tip," Sherlock continued without answering his question, "and some of the other letters have also been smudged so it was obviously written with water-based ink, from a rollerball pen I suspect, so they were in a hurry or were pressured and didn't let the ink dry properly before sealing it in the envelope, hence the smears." Sherlock rambled off his deductions as he snatched the note back out if Mycroft's hands. He couldn't shake the feeling that he had seen it somewhere before. "Rollerball pens are much more expensive than your average disposable ballpoint pen so the writer must have a bit of extra cash or they wouldn't waste money on a pen like this. The writing is also slightly slanted to the left so they must have been left-handed. This narrows down the field quite a bit." Sherlock snatched the envelope off the table and scrutinized it further, looking for any minuscule detail that he might have overlooked. Mycroft moved from his earlier position to stand directly behind the young detective and studied the slip of paper over his shoulder, his own deductions whirling through his head at a mile a minute.

"Ahhh, think!" Sherlock shouted at no one in particular. Who would have been in a hurry, was left handed, and had familiar-

"John!" Both Sherlock and Mycroft said out loud simultaneously.

"John must have been forced to write this, THAT'S why I thought it looked familiar! I recognized his handwriting!" Sherlock exclaimed in excitement. If it had been anyone other than John that had been kidnapped he might have even been enjoying himself.

"Now, knowing John," Sherlock continued as he picked up the note again, "he would have tried to leave us some kind of message for us." He took out his pocket magnifying glass and took a closer look at the writing. As the magnifier passed over the large smear at the tip of the question mark a series of dots and dashes could be faintly made out: '−••• −•−− − •••• • •••• −−− − • •−••' He smiled to himself, good old John Watson.

"Morse code," Sherlock explained as he started to decode the message.

"By… the… hotel… What is that supposed to mean?" Sherlock exclaimed as he ran a hand through his dark curly hair in frustration.

"I do believe that he means the building is by the hotel you called me from that night you had your nightmare." Mycroft said with a smile. "Oh he is rather good, I see why you like him."

Sherlock's gaze snapped up at that but he made no attempt to correct him otherwise. Instead he said, "Let's go," as he grabbed his coat and scarf off the table and rushed out the door.

~.~.~.~

A particularly large bump in the road brought his thoughts swiftly back to the present. As he nervously looked out the window he saw that the paved road had turned into gravel and the sun was just about to vanish behind the startlingly barren horizon. In a few more moments the night had laid its gloomy blanket over the entire landscape and Sherlock could no longer distinguish one tree from another. With a sigh he looked over to his right and saw that Greg had fallen asleep next to him. He would let him sleep for a little longer; he was going to need all the strength he could get later.

After Mycroft and he had figured out where it was that they were supposed to rescue John from they had spent a seemingly endless amount of time prepping for Sherlock's plan. Now, it seemed, that the waiting was finally coming to an end.

After about fifteen more minutes he gripped the detective inspector's shoulder and shook it. "Come on wake up Lestrade, we are almost there."

"Alright, alright," Greg responded through a yawn, "I'm up."

Sherlock leaned back in his chair and bounced his leg in excitement; something was finally going to happen. The car slowed to a stop and was put into park just off the worn gravel road.

"We are about mile away boys," the driver said to them over his shoulder. "You know what to do."

Sherlock and Greg nodded and slipped out of the car. As soon as the doors shut behind them the jet black car rushed out of sight and drove back the way they came, blending into the curtain of black until it was no longer visible.

The pair of men studied their surroundings; there was a dense forest behind them that was shrouded in darkness, which was not where they were heading. Instead, their attention was drawn across the street where there was a large hilly field with only a small cluster of bushes and one or two lonesome trees providing any cover. It was about a mile into that field that the factory was hidden. They dashed across the gravel, attempting to make as little noise as possible, and ran from cover to cover.

In less than twenty minutes they were crouched behind some large shrubbery and were peering around the edge to get a glimpse of the building. The structure was unimpressive; it was approximately 30,000 square feet (according to Sherlock's research) with thick concrete walls that were buried in a large assortment of foliage. There were no visible windows from this angle but a large metal door could be seen peeking out from behind the vines, which was where he needed to go. Unfortunately there was also an armed guard standing on either side of it.

"There's the door," Greg whispered in Sherlock's ear. "You ready?"

Sherlock turned and gave him an amused look, "Always."

And with that, Sherlock swiftly stood up and calmly strolled directly towards the door.

A/N: So yeah, that was the crappy chapter :/ Sorry about that. Hope the whole flashback thing made sense. Thanks for reading anyway! :D All reviews (good or bad) are most appreciated! I'm still trying to get the hang of this "writing" thing ;)