Jo was still stunned and seething as she climbed into the cab and explained that Mister Holmes would not be needing their services any longer, and could he please take her home instead? She felt positively sick with anger and betrayal as it sank in that she had been about to move in and have a child with a drugs addict. It was one thing if he had been honest with her and told her he was going to meetings or something like that, but he'd flat-out pretended it had never happened and that there was nothing to worry about. She'd just been so taken with him so quickly that it hadn't even occurred to her to ask whether or not his being high at the club was a frequent occurrence, so relieved had she been that she wasn't having a baby with a rapist.

Sighing despairingly to herself and leaning against the window, Jo closed her eyes and started thinking over her options, back to square one. Obviously she was going to have to take some sort of measures about the pregnancy if Sherlock wasn't going to clean up his act, though whether she was going to terminate or adopt was now more prevalent than simply termination. She'd been thinking too positively all day - well, night - and considering the baby a definitive outcome, and now that things were getting tough she didn't want to consider aborting any longer, now that it was real in her mind rather than an inconvenient blip. Maybe she could find a family who was willing to pay for her medical care in exchange for a healthy baby.

Only when she opened her eyes and realized they were going in the exact opposite direction of the bedsit did Jo start to worry. "Excuse me," she called to the driver. "Excuse me, but where are we going? This isn't the right way."

The cab driver chuckled to himself. "No, it ain't," he said, "imagine that." Then he took a right and started whistling.

Jo's heart started pounding in her ears, because oh, God, it all made sense suddenly why they had been chasing a cab with a Californian in it. Jennifer Wilson and the other victims had all been from out of town or in unfamiliar areas. And they all had last been seen or heard from while getting into a cab. Christ, kidnapped twice in one night. It was like she was going for a new record or something.

Forgetting her anger for the time being, Jo slowly reached into her pocket and closed her hand around her mobile, staring determinedly at the photograph of the cabbie's kids so he wouldn't suspect her of doing anything fishy, then used the texts Sherlock had sent her to call his mobile. She dialed down the volume so if Sherlock started shouting it wouldn't be heard. "So, this is how you got your victims," she said firmly once she guessed that Sherlock had answered. "You just...pick them up. How clever."

The cabbie's eyes flashed at her in the rearview mirror. "Worked on you, didn't it?" he sneered.

"And how did you get them to stay in one place when you finally stopped somewhere?"

"You'll have to wait and see, now."

Apprehension warred with irritation as Jo was rendered virtually helpless but for the mobile in her pocket. She rolled her eyes, just for the hell of it.

With a barely-constrained sigh of relief, Sherlock pulled his ringing mobile out of his pocket and saw that Joanna was calling him. Good. Perhaps he would get a chance to...well, he didn't know. He answered with a flick of his wrist. "Hello?"

So, this is how you get your victims. You just...pick them up. How clever.

Worked on you, didn't it?

Sherlock felt his stomach drop to a region somewhere between his ankles, even as the flat continued in chaos all around him. "Lestrade," he said, keeping the phone pressed to his ear as the cabbie said You'll have to wait and see, now, but the DI wasn't listening at the moment. "Lestrade."

"What?" he asked, finally turning away from whatever Donovan was muttering about.

"Tap my phone."

"Oh, is it Christmas already?"

"Shut up!" he shouted over the scattered laughter around the flat. "Shut up, all of you! The serial killer, the one who got Jennifer Wilson and three others to commit suicide, has Joanna!" Yes, that shut them up nicely. "She's called me on her mobile, but I don't know how long she can go undetected. I need you to trace the call to wherever they're going."

Gaping openly, Lestrade took a moment to process the information. "Joanna, the woman I met earlier this evening?"

"Yes! I'm assuming the cab was a trap meant for me, but Joanna was angry and probably took it out of spite. Now can we get a move on, please? I have some equipment in the bedroom if you're lacking."

Jo continued to make truly asinine observations of her surroundings aloud as the cab wound its way through the city, saying street names when she could, spouting landmarks such as "Oh god, the Princeton bakery, I know the owner's son," with the feigned hysteria of a desperate woman in what she believed were her last minutes. The cabbie largely ignored her continuing to whistle to himself. "How did you find me?"

His tiny eyes flickered at her again. "Well, to be honest, I wasn't looking for you. But you'll do just as well, anyway. I could use the practice."

"What, before you go after Sherlock?" she countered, and he laughed.

"You really think you're clever, don't you?" he asked, turning them down a side street she had never seen before. Though Jo noticed that no matter how many odd turns he took, they were continuously heading in the same direction. "Well, that's alright. I may not look it, but I'm cleverer."

She swallowed, though wasn't allowing herself to panic quite yet. Instead she looked around the cab, trying to find some information that Sherlock would find useful if he could hear her. "Are those your kids?"

"Is it your business?"

"I'll take that as a yes, then." Briefly wetting her lips, Jo continued her prying. "You seem pretty defensive when it comes to your kids. And it looks like their mother's been torn out of the photograph of them. You don't get to see them often, do you? Why is that?" She paused, hoping perhaps he would answer, but when he didn't ploughed on in a firmer voice. "Was Mum your first victim?"

The cabbie swerved violently into the oncoming lane until they were within seconds of an obviously-fatal crash, only moving back when Jo screamed. "Now you shut up!" he shouted at her, sounding for all the world like a father reprimanding his daughter. "I mean it; I'm not afraid to drive right off a bridge or into a lorry, cut our little chat short, you hear me?"

Satisfied, Jo leaned back against the seat and crossed her arms. "Perfectly," she replied, gears beginning to turn.

Sherlock had managed to tap his phone and open up the speakers for Lestrade and Donovan - the only remaining officers in the flat - to listen while his worked on tracking Joanna's location only moments before she let out a scream of "NO!" and tires squealed on pavement. He grimaced to himself before looking up at the officers' alarmed faces.

Now you shut up! I mean it; I'm not afraid to drive right off a bridge of into a lorry, cut our little chat short, you hear me?

Joanna's voice didn't shake as she replied, Perfectly.

The signal sent from Joanna's phone finally stopped nearly halfway across the city; the only way Sherlock knew Joanna's mobile hadn't been discovered and flung out the window was that he could hear her clothes rustling around it. The traffic noises faded and died. Where are we? asked Joanna, her voice grainy and muffled. Sherlock and his unlikely company tensed.

You can read, can't you? retorted the cabbie.

The sound of shifting clothes, then: Roland-Kerr Further Education College?

As the cabbie made a sound of confirmation Sherlock, Lestrade, and Donovan leapt up, disconnecting his mobile from the tap but keeping the speakers open to keep aware of what was happening. They didn't dare speak as they ran to Lestrade's car.

You seem a bit old to be the bash-them-on-the-head-and-drag-them-in type, observed Joanna. How do you get the people to leave the cab? Drug them into complacency and just walk them in like a dog on a leash?

"Keep the siren off," Sherlock warned from the back seat, holding the mobile between the three of them just before Lestrade started the car. The DI nodded but kept the lights flashing.

The cabbie's voice was clearer now that they'd stopped driving. I don't need to drug them, Miss Watson, he said, though they all take their medicine in the end.

You know, if you want to really scare me, by all means, keep it up with the one-liners. Joanna gave a small gasp, then paused for a long moment while Sherlock felt his pulse pick up speed. Alright, I'll give the gun a nine for effectiveness, but a two for creativity, she sighed.

Donovan was on her radio before either man could say a word. "Armed kidnapping and possible assault at Roland Kerr Further Ed., one car en route requesting backup and a cautionary ambulance; please refrain from using sirens and turn off all lights prior to arrival on scene."

How do you know my name?

You know Sherlock Holmes; it's my business to know your name.

Sherlock hold himself very still as Donovan looked back at him.

Alright...why is it your business?

Well it certainly ain't yours.

Give a dying girl a break; who am I going to tell? Joanna goaded.

The cabbie laughed quietly. Sherlock Holmes has got himself a fan, he explained. Holmes has been on my radar for weeks now; I've been watching and waiting.

So why kill me if I only just met him yesterday? asked Joanna, her voice showing the first small sign of strain.

A door swung open and two chairs scraped along a linoleum floor. Now we both know that's not true.

Sherlock swallowed as Donovan's eyes flickered to him again.

"Now we both know that's not true," sneered the cabbie, leaning toward her across the table. They'd taken refuge in an empty classroom. "I saw you that night at the club. I saw you both. Know how?"

Swallowing past the sudden sandpaper texture of her throat, she shook her head. The cabbie smiled. "We took your cab," she rasped.

"Nope, try again."

She very suddenly wasn't acting anymore as she felt a deep wave of revulsion creeping up her throat like bile. It was like seeing a film and thinking you understood it until weeks later someone told you an entirely different story. "You were following him."

"Good, Miss Watson," he praised like a primary school head teacher. "He's cleverer that I thought, our Sherlock Holmes. And his tolerance levels are frankly spectacular, I'll give him that, but the short-term memory side-effect worked in my favor." As Jo's mouth fell open in naked shock he laughed. "Oh, you should see your face right now. Finally putting it together, you are, and that's my favorite part. The 'Epiphany Moment,' I call it. The moment someone realizes 'this is it. No matter what I do or say, I'm not going to win.' That's when they stop fighting, you see. They try, and try, but never get it, and realize they won't, and so just give up. You're all such idiots, so ordinary, which makes me wonder: What is it he saw in you?" His eyes narrowed as though she had personally wronged him.

"I don't know," she admitted.

"Because Sherlock Holmes doesn't just sleep around with random women," continued the cabbie as if she had never spoken. "He just doesn't. What's so special about you?"

"I already said I don't know," Jo repeated, feeling her face heat and clenching her hands into fists under the table.

The cabbie sat upright again, regarding her with strong distaste. In return, Jo tried to look at him the way Sherlock would, finding things out, but couldn't do anything past her medical eye. She had learned a lot about empathy in her years in med school and the army. Even as she watched his shoulders tried to slump but he held them back; the photo of his kids in the cab was wrinkled and faded with age and care; he'd cut his own hair and his clothes were old; he'd driven into oncoming traffic with abandon and had erratic mood swings.

"When did you get your prognosis?" she asked softly. He shifted in his seat and she knew she'd hit the nail on the head. "I'm a doctor. I know people who can get you into medical trials, maybe even make it easier to see your kids more often. I can help you, if you just don't kill me."

Slowly, agonizingly so, he smiled and pulled a small bottle - containing a nondescript white pill - from each pocket of his jumper. "I'm not gonna kill you, Miss Watson," he said. "You're going to kill yourself."

One good pill, one bad pill, it's as simple as that, the cabbie continued to say even as Sherlock released a litany of swear words worthy of making a sailor blush. Lestrade had just taken the completely wrong turn down a one-way street and added at least another five minutes to their travel time. While Donovan cussed out the DI from the passenger seat Sherlock pressed the phone closer to his ear, feeling his pulse elevate even further. At least while they'd been talking he'd been able to calm down, but now things were escalating.

"It's chance," he murmured to himself. "It's a fifty percent chance."

It's just a fifty percent chance, Joanna said, and Sherlock released the breath he'd been holding.

No, this is much cleverer than that.

"No it isn't."

No, it isn't.

It's chess. It's chess with only one move. Now...did I just give you the good pill or the bad pill?

It doesn't matter, you can't make me take it.

Can't I?

"No, you can't," he breathed.

No, you can't.

What about now?

Sherlock was more than certain that the cabbie had pulled out his gun again, if only due to the long silence.

Make your pick. Take a pill, or take the gun.

Being right had never been so unpleasant before.

I'll take the gun.

"What?" the three of them in the car all shouted at once. Were it any other situation, it might have been comical. Lestrade took a hard left and they all held on tight as the tires squealed on pavement. "Nearly there," said the DI.

Are you sure?

Positive. The gun, please.

There's no going back, you know.

I said the gun.

This is your last-

Oh, get on with it!

There was a click, Sherlock slammed his eyes shut as a wave of nausea rolled over him, and then silence. No gunshot.

When Joanna next spoke, her voice was hard. Don't you dare

treat me like an idiot. I was a soldier, and I know what a real gun looks like. Now tell me about Sherlock's little fan, the one who hired you. Why? For your kids? Let me guess, there's a little savings account set up for them after you die, and every time someone commits suicide by poison the amount bumps up by a few dozen thousand pounds. Is that it?

You think you're so clever.

I'm cleverer than you thought, aren't I? She was openly mocking him now. People are surprising like that. They're clever even when they don't know it, and kind when they don't want to be, and willing to kill innocent people for their own selfishness. I am really going to look forward to your court case.

With another scrape, Sherlock could practically see Joanna sliding her chair back from the table and getting up with her head held high. He almost smiled to himself until he saw Donovan watching. But it seemed the cabbie wasn't done making his case.

You are cleverer than I thought. But I know you, Jo. My employer's given me plenty of information on you. You'll play the game; the temptation's too great. And you know why?

Wha-...why?

Because even if you lose, you'll win, won't you? No more nightmares, no more fear, no more bullies...it'd be nice just to lie down and sleep awhile, wouldn't it?

Lestrade took another hard turn, speeding up as he sensed the sudden urgency in the situation, and Joanna's voice shook slightly. I don't want to kill myself anymore.

That so? Why?

I have someone to live for now.

The cabbie outright laughed. Who, Sherlock Holmes? Special as you might think you are-

No, not Sherlock Holmes, though I think I understand him a bit better now, Joanna replied, voice growing stronger. I'm pregnant. And I don't want to die.

"What?" Donovan shrieked, twisting round in her seat to look at Sherlock, who was staring hard at his mobile. Lestrade had his mouth knitted tightly shut and was staring at the road only because he was on a busy street and didn't want to get into an accident.

Sherlock snapped back, "Never you mind! Check on the backup!" before turning his attention back to his phone.

Who knows?

Just a few people. A friend, and Sherlock.

Well, then it'll be easy to understand why you'd kill yourself. You haven't been close to your friends for years, and Holmes doesn't know you at all.

They would know I was trapped into it.

Are you sure? Think about it.

I have.

No, really think about it. You don't want a kid, Jo. You'll just screw it up. Look at yourself: been small all your life, stocky, unattractive, unwanted, unnecessary, the only thing that ever made you feel right in your own skin was the army, and now that's gone too. No one wants you.

Shut up.

Look at your family. Look at your sister. Even as a drunk she's happier than you, more successful, more money, more friends, more love while you work and work and do you ever get thanked? Doctors are expected to do their jobs and soldiers are scorned, more often than not. Why would anyone love you while your sister's around?

That isn't - that isn't true.

What about your mum?

Shut up.

What happened to your mum, Jo? Why doesn't she love you anymore?

I said shut up!

And let's not start on what Daddy did, eh Jo?

The three of them in the car jumped at the boom that shot out of the phone, accompanied by two screams, and Lestrade only just kept the car under control. On the other line, Jo's breathing was shaky and her clothes rustled violently as she pulled her mobile out of her pocket.

Someone shot the cabbie, she said calmly before the phone clattered against the floor. The cabbie was moaning and crying in pain; he let out a scream and Joanna hushed him. Stop struggling, I have to put pressure on it, she said soothingly. Listen to me, listen to me. Someone shot you. If I had to wager a guess, I'd say it was your employer getting sick of you screwing up. Letting Sherlock get away twice? Now, I don't claim to know anything about your business, but I have a feeling that if you live and we don't find this guy, your kids are going to be in a lot of trouble. You need to tell me his name so we can find him and keep your kids safe, do you hear me? It's okay, I swear, it's going to be alright.

The cabbie moaned something incoherent and fell silent, far too silent to still be alive. Joanna sighed and picked up the phone. Sherlock?

"Are you all right?" he replied instantly, turning off his phone's speakers and pressing it against his ear. "Are you hurt?"

No, I'm fine, she replied, sounding about twenty years older. The cabbie died. I tried to save him.

To Lestrade's inquiring look he nodded, assuring him that Joanna was unhurt. He could see flashing lights in the distance; they were getting close. Donovan called off the armed reinforcements but confirmed the need for an ambulance. "I know you did. We're nearly there; what room are you in?"

Um...third floor, I...I don't know, I think I'm going to be sick, I need to- The phone hit the floor again and Joanna's footsteps faded out just as they pulled into the lot of Roland-Kerr. The only vehicle in the lot was an empty cab, until the back-up officers and ambulance started pulling in. Sherlock leapt out of the car and sprinted to the building with Lestrade calling after him to wait until they'd cordoned off the crime scene, but of course he wasn't listening.