Disclaimer: Characters belong to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; this particular version belongs to Steven Moffat & Mark Gatiss.

The Good Doctor
Chapter 16

I Remember You

John sat up on the couch as rain relentlessly attacked the windows. It was extremely early in the morning and the sun hadn't begun to rise yet, although John supposed it could easily be simply due to the overcast sky and rain. Sleeping pills. Knew it wouldn't work for long, he thought. He stared at a nick in the floor, his eyes heavy with the desire to rest. He couldn't return to slumber no matter how much he wanted to sleep. His memories-no, his nightmares returned to plague his dreams once again. With prominent bags and dark circles hugging John's eyes, he sat still as he feebly attempted to knock out the memories, but it was impossible.

A loud thunder cracked and boomed across the sky and John suddenly winced as he remembered what he and the general had gone through.

Sebastian.

He remembered now. It was what he and Sebastian had gone through.

John absentmindedly rubbed his shoulder.

John twisted and wriggled his hands as the Afghani soldier turned his back to pick up a weapon. He was ravenous and exhausted. How many days had been since he'd last seen daylight? How long had they been captured? Their captor hummed to what sounded like Beethoven's Fur Elise. After sifting through various options, he finally chose one and turned back around.

"Now, now, I'll only hurt you if don't cooperate."

The doctor stopped struggling and glared at the soldier who began rolling up the sleeves of his arms. John clenched his jaw which only prompted the man to laugh heartily.

"Silly doctor. What's that phrase again? Oh, 'if looks could kill'?" he chuckled, "Now, tell me. Where was your camp heading?" He paused for a moment waiting for an answer but was only met with silence. "Very well. I suppose you're pretty useless to me. It's your general I want, but unfortunately, he's currently incapacitated, but that doesn't mean I can't have a little fun. You're just here to make sure he doesn't die before I get what I want," he said and placed the weapon on the dirt-ridden floor. The muscular man walked over to the side of the 'room' and untied the rope that chains on the blond's shackles were connected to, dropping John to the floor as the soldier continued humming his rendition of the piano melody. Since the the doctor's arms had been up for hours, John had no strength to move them, a fact to which his captor took advantage of. His feet were still bound so it was no use trying to do anything with his lower appendages. His captor removed the bullet proof vest, John's shirt, and his jacket by using a sharp knife and ripping them off until all that was left was his dog tags, resting on his bare flesh. The man yanked the rope and John felt his legs being yanked up into the air. The blood quickly rushed to his head as his dangled upside down. His eyes and head were beginning to throb as the pressure increased and his arms ached from being pulled taut. The man then tossed the discarded, torn fabric of John's uniform off to the side of the room and picked up his weapon and unfurled it. He unceremoniously raised a black whip and with a loud crack, struck it against John's bare flesh. Feeling satisfied, he proceeded to do more.

Crack!

Crack!

Crack!

The whipping went on for several minutes until the skin on the doctor's back was raw and bloody, patches ripped off and others barely hanging on by a thread.

"Had enough?" he asked breathily as he turned John around, still dangling in the air.

"Go to hell, traitor," John seethed after several gasps of breath. This angered the man. He grabbed a pistol from his holster and struck it against the blond's head. Dark red blood trickled down John's pale flesh into his bloody, blond, matted hair. His temple throbbed and his vision blurred for a moment.

"British soldiers. Think you're all superior. You make me sick," the man spat out as he continued to mercilessly whip his victim's back. John hadn't let out a single utterance at that point, gritting his teeth to keep himself from giving the man the satisfaction of him crying out in pain. The soldier gave a sadistic smile and walked over and dragged a tub of water.

Another crack of thunder shot across the sky, jolting his thoughts and John jumped up as his heart raced. It was thudding so hard, he thought it might actually pound out of his chest. He tried to slowly breathe in and out, but it was of no use. He attempted to calm his shaky breath but leapt to the corner of the couch when another crack of thunder shot across the sky. He yelped and grabbed his ears, curling up in the back corner of the furniture.

"Sh-Sherlock?" he called out. He peeked over to the kitchen and saw that his flatmate wasn't there. The lights were off, but it was quiet. He could see the faint outlines of a microscope and various beakers, but the silhouette of the unruly-haired man was missing. It was evident the detective had retired to his room. The wind howled, shaking the windows. John shivered as he realized how low the temperature had gotten. He wrapped the blanket he had around himself and buried his head, trying to block out the cracks of thunder that sounded eerily like the whipping he had gone through in Afghanistan.

CRACK!

Thunder boomed as lightning struck across the sky, illuminating the fear in John's eyes. It was highly irrational for him to be acting this way, but in his sleep deprived state, he couldn't tell what was real and what was fake. All he could see and feel were the sadistic Afghan soldier striking him and the raw bloody mess he was. His back felt as it were on fire. John scrambled out of the couch and hurriedly shuffled as quickly as he could to Sherlock's door. Of course, he wouldn't enter it (that would be weird), but he knew that just beyond the door, was another living soul, a breathing person who would be there when John woke up later. He laid down on the floor in front of the door and curled into a ball, his blanket covering his form as his post-traumatic stress took over his body. His muscles, tired from being rigid due to fear began to relax as he listened to a light snoring drifting through the crack under the door, lulling him to sleep as the sound reassured him that he wasn't alone and wasn't, in fact, back in Afghanistan.

Sherlock's eyes slowly opened as his body began waking. His mind was already up and alert the moment he ended his REM cycle, but his body was a bit slow in the mornings. It was quite annoying, really, but there was nothing he could do. His brain was like an entity of its own, possessing Sherlock's body and demanding it to keep up. He hated mornings; he preferred the nights where he was alert and free to do as he wished. Mornings meant hours attempting to muster nonexistent energy. He yawned and scratched his head, grabbing his night gown as he shivered from the chilly air. He pulled it on and went to wash up. It was still cold and he wasn't hungry yet, but he could do with a fire so he opened his door to step out into the living room when he suddenly tripped over something. He fell face first into the floor with a thud and lifted his head, turning it around to see what his feet had caught on.

"What...John?" Sherlock asked. The blanket-covered lump on the ground didn't move. The detective hoisted himself up and squatted next to the body, nearly slipping on the fabric of his night gown. He pulled the blanket and slid it off the figure, revealing his flatmate's face. He slept so quietly and rigidly, much unlike the night before when he was thrashing about. Sherlock leaned in, trying to see if he was breathing. He checked John's pulse and was the tiniest bit relieved to find out that the man wasn't dead. Without a second thought, he stood up and threw the blanket back onto him and left the man to his own device. Something must had disturbed the mercenary for him to purposefully choose to sleep on the floor, or perhaps he slept-walked. Either way, he didn't care. The detective drank a glass of water, put the kettle on, and doubled back to get a fire starting. He was cold and clearly remembered John turning the heat up; the only logical explanation for the sudden drop in temperature was that it had broken sometime during the night or the mercenary turned it off.

Sherlock sat down on an armchair in front of the fire and watched as the flames danced around the logs. Precipitation hit the windows behind him as the wind howled against the windows, angry at its failure to enter the flat.

"Dunno..." John muttered in his sleep as he rolled over. Sherlock paid no concern whatsoever and ignored him as he grabbed his laptop to check his email for cases.

Dull.

Dull.

No.

The school teacher did it.

It was the neighbor.

No.

Hm...no.

A few hours later, John bolted upright and reached around for his gun out of instinct. He patted the floor a few times until he realized where he was and relaxed.

"Morning, Sherlock," he called over to his flat mate who was reading a book. He was ignored as usual, so he stood up and went to take a shower. Already stripped of his clothing, John stood before the shower and stared at the water pouring down from above. His back tingled as an aftereffect of his nightmare, but the sight of the water made his throat tighten. He swallowed thickly and stepped under the water that was much too hot for his skin, but he grit his teeth and stood still under the burning water. He wanted to feel something, anything, to take his mind off of his traumatic memories. He had done a great job keeping them at bay, but the memories began flooding in once he realized the immensity of the trouble he was in. The doctor squeezed his eyes shut in a futile effort to shut the memories out, but it was no use.

The water.

All it took was the water to trigger his fear.

"Are you thirsty?" the Afghani man asked John in a thick accent. Of course he was; he had been deprived of food and water ever since they got here, but he refused to dignify his torturer with an answer. Instead, John glared at the muscled soldier who laughed and loosened the rope off to the side. John fell onto his back on the ground with a hard thud. He groaned and hissed as the components in the dirt underneath them stung his raw and bloodied skin, but before he could register what was happening, his limbs were being stretched as the chains increased its tension. His arms felt like they were about to be popped out of their sockets; he was trapped on his back, John realized, as he wildly thrashed his neck around to get a look at what was happening. The dark-skinned captor rubbed the thin mustache above his lip in a mockingly thoughtful manner.

"My guest is thirsty, so I must make sure he gets water." He smirked and grabbed the tub of water so heavy, he dragged it over and then struggled to lift it, but the man finally got it in place above John's face. "Here, have some water," he said, and mercilessly tipped it over.

As the water poured into all of the orifices on the doctor's face, he gagged as water flooded into his mouth, nose, throat, and lungs. He felt like he was drowning. He gagged and tried to prevent it from entering his mouth but it was of no use. It filled his nostrils to the brim and he choked. Somewhere above him, he knew the general had stirred awake by his utterance of "John!"

The mercenary hastily shut off the water when he was done as he didn't want to spend any more time than he needed to under the liquid that almost killed him many times over in the desert. His hands were shaking as he wiped himself off with a soft towel and softly grazed the scarred skin on his back. Breathing in to calm his racing pulse, he pulled his robe around his body and eventually tied it after failing to do so the first couple times due to his trembling hands. He stared at his fogged reflection in the mirror which he could barely make out and took in a deep breath. He opened the door and went out to the living room, ruffling his wet hair with a towel but jumped when something dangling in the air gave him a fright.

"What the hell?" he nearly shouted as a mannequin's body hung from a noose. "Sher-," he began, but John shook his head and let it go. The man must have had his reasons. If he had learned anything these past few weeks, it was that it was much easier to just...let it go.

Said detective was squatting on the couch, bouncing on the balls of his feet. His hands were pressed together and his fingers were fidgeting against one another. "John, get me a case. I'm bored."

John sat down, a towel hanging around his neck to catch the dripping water from his wet locks of slicked back hair. He picked up the morning paper and began reading. "Didn't you say you were supposed to meet with Lestrade?" John asked casually.

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "Yes. Yes. Well, Scotland Yard is useless at this point if they can't find you. I suppose he wants me to check in on my progress, but I daresay he won't be finding out anytime soon. Unless of course he wants to speak to me about the new murder."

The doctor was in the middle of reading the headline of the murder Sherlock was talking about. "Huh. That's funny..." John muttered as he read the article.

"We could go searching for evidence for your case. But I suppose you can't prance around London with your face all over the news."

At the mention of his framing, the doctor hesitated. He didn't wholly trust this man even though he considered him as a friend; should he divulge the information he had? Sherlock was his only shot...but then there was Mycroft. John knew they weren't close, or at least as close as what Mycroft thought they were, so if he asked the older Holmes sibling, the information would most likely not trickle down to Sherlock if John asked to be discreet. No, he would wait, wait until he completed the task for Mycroft and force him to get information on "Moriarty". For now, Sherlock was his invisibility cloak.

A few days later, a black car pulled up in front of the flat and Mycroft stepped out into the continuous rain. He entered their home and thumped up the stairs, met with the sight of his little brother and his new friend sitting at the table and eating. Well, John was eating but his sibling was not. He frowned.

"Sherlock, do try to eat more. You've gotten slimmer since the last time I saw you."

Said brother who was reading the newspaper raised an eyebrow in response. John chewed the bite of eggs he had in his mouth and swallowed it.

"John, do make sure Sherlock eats properly," Mycroft said as he turned to the mercenary.

Said mercenary gulped down some water. "Sherlock is a big boy. He can handle himself," he retorted immediately without a care.

"How's the diet?" Sherlock asked behind the paper as he ignored their exchange.

Mycroft leaned his umbrella on the side of the table they were eating at and sat down. "Going well, Sherlock. Nevermind that. John, I believe we have some business to settle?"

The mercenary nodded towards the seat in front of the table. Mycroft raised an eyebrow but sat down anyway. He thought the man would've preferred to have the conversation in private, but apparently John wasn't fussy enough to keep his work away from his brother. Who was this man, waltzing into his brother's life as if he were always there?

"As you know, my job is to keep the security of this nation uncompromised," he began.

Sherlock scoffed.

Mycroft pointedly ignored his younger brother. "It has come to my attention that a certain...individual has been growing increasingly restless and has managed to garner my attention."

John chewed on his toast thoughtfully. "And you need me to take him out?"

The older Holmes pursed his lips. "I would like you to, outside of the British government, of course, track him down and keep an eye on him."

That wasn't as hard as the mercenary thought it would be. "And why are you asking me, a contractor, and not a government agent?" he asked.

Sherlock, who had been eavesdropping with mild curiosity, simply stated, "Because they don't know where he is. And there's no viable evidence to his criminal activities. There are no legal grounds but it doesn't matter anyway if they end up chasing a ghost."

"Right as always, Sherlock. I'm afraid my men have a bit of a problem with this..individual. It has come to my attention that your services have proven to be successful in most of your endeavors. Well, except the current 'predicament' you have come to find yourself faced with."

The blond swallowed the masticated food in his mouth. "I accept, but on one condition."

"And what, may I ask, is that?" Mycroft asked.

"I need information."

The older gentleman frowned again. "Hm, I suppose it depends on what you need. Very well then. I shall do my best to accommodate your demands."

Sherlock, tired of the banal conversation, stood up and walked up to the window behind them and stretched. He bent down to pick up his violin, his eyes roaming the window in front of his, but something wasn't quite right. The detective straightened himself back up and stared out into the smoggy grayness of the London sky and caught sight of a glinting speck atop a roof that most definitely should not have been there. He squinted to get a better look, but before he could react when he realized what it was, something crashed through the window and tore through his shoulder.

"Sherlock!" the two men yelled simultaneously. John dove towards the lithe man and kneeled next to the detective. Bits of broken glass stabbed his knees through his trousers. John grimaced, but worked through the pain. Sherlock was conscious, but in shock. He gasped and blinked several times as he stared up at the ceiling.

"Sniper," he wheezed out. John took in the damage and saw that his flatmate had been shot atop his left shoulder muscle, prompting his instincts as a doctor to immediately took over.

"Brace yourself for a moment," he told the detective as he quickly rolled his shoulder. He saw a clean exit and set him back down. Sherlock hissed through his teeth.

"Good, good. Just a flesh wound. Clean shot, in and out. Didn't hit any bones," he assessed as he pulled off his jumper and put it on the wound, pressing both hands on it in an effort to stop the bleeding.

"Mycroft, call an ambulance!" He snapped his head up and saw that he really didn't have to ask because the older Holmes was already in the process. He nodded at whatever the operator was telling him and hung up, immediately diving down to his brother's side.

"Here, put your hands here," John ordered. Mycroft replaced the doctor's hands with his own. Sherlock tried to sit up but his brother pushed him back down.

"He's getting away!" the detective spat out.

John looked around for a gun but couldn't find one, so he grabbed Mycroft's umbrella and hurriedly half limped, half ran the stairs and out the back door. He looked up and calculated the angle of the shot from the window and trailed his eyes straight across. There was only one building which a sniper could have taken that shot, so he ran past the dashing, honking cars on the road and towards the building which was pretty far. In the duration of his time spent in the military, he had made friends with a general, Sebastian, who had retired from a special forces group as very skilled sniper before climbing the ranks. It was from that man John had learned a great deal about sniping, an artform brushed off simply as 'good shooting' by many.

The blond scaled the architecture by lifting himself onto the fire escape. By this time, he knew the man who had shot at him was long gone, but that didn't mean the gunman might not have left clues behind. He reached the top floor and noticed plastic fluttering in the wind. The window was open and the tattered plastic looked as if it had been cut recently. The doctor held Mycroft's umbrella and gripped the handle, carefully moving the flaps from the opening just in case. He cocked the hidden trigger on the weapon he knew was inside of Mycroft's "umbrella" and peered in and saw there was no one. There was, however, a small glass corked bottle with something odd in it, but the object was too far away from him. A still-lit cigarette was resting on the lid, wafting the smell of nicotine and burning chemicals toward the mercenary. John slipped inside and jumped down the sill, noticing a small black mark on the peeling, faded white paint on the frame. That must have been where the sniper was resting his gun, he thought.

Cautiously, the doctor made his way slowly towards the object just in case it was rigged, but the closer he got, the more he realized it was nothing more than a small bottle. He squatted down and carefully picked it up, holding it level to his eyes as he snuffed out the cigarette with the heel of his shoe. In the clear container was a broken piece of shrapnel. Puzzled, he stared at it for a moment and squinted his eyes and looked at it closer.

As realization dawned on him, the blood drained from his face. No, this sniper was definitely not aiming for him. He had shot Sherlock on purpose because the man who had taken the shot was more than capable of getting a perfect shot. Why he didn't kill him but instead, chose to injure him he wasn't sure, but from this calling card, John knew exactly who it was: General Sebastian Moran.

xxx

Sherlock struggled to get out of the hospital bed as his feet tangled in the thin, flimsy cotton poor excuse of a blanket. At Mycroft's insistance, they had put him in a bed to rest when all he needed was an arm brace and painkillers. They were pumping him with antibiotics through an IV in a vein on his right hand. He had tried to take it out, but Mycroft had swatted his hand.

"Stop it. You're not a child, Sherlock. You've been shot."

"Exactly, Mycroft. I've been shot. I'm not dying. I need to get out and catch the madman who shot at me," he retorted angrily. He was absolutely irritated at the entire situation. The older Holmes refused to let him budge.

"Stay here, Sherlock. I'll be right back," he orded his younger brother. Sherlock rolled his eyes and searched the room for his phone. The paramedics who had answered the call had rolled him in on a stretcher, strapping him down due to his resistance and reluctance to go to the hospital. He had put his cellphone into his pocket, but he wasn't sure if it had fallen out during the chaos. Lestrade had come in after they fixed him up, bombarding him with questions. The detective gave the inspector as much information as he could, but there was only so much he knew. When the police left, his brother had refused to leave his side and had been watching his every move like a hawk.

Mycroft stood up and left, ordering a nearby nurse to go in and watch his brother. "Do not let him leave your sight, understand?" The older Holmes then went on his way to fetch coffee. Sighing, Mycroft paid for the drink, hesitated, and got tea for his brother-chamomille to make him sleepy. It wasn't beneath him to put in a sleeping pill, but he didn't quite have legal access to a bottle so he settled for tea for his annoying brother and coffee for himself. Without caffiene, he wouldn't have enough energy to deal with the annoying mass of genius that his brother was. He made his way back down the hall, two cups in hand and started his way inside the room as he made a mental note to get his umbrella back from John (afterall, it was custom made) when he stopped in his tracks, frozen in the doorframe.

The bed before him was empty and the window was open and its former occupant as well as the nurse was nowhere to be seen. He immediately set the cups down on the side table and strode towards the window. He stuck his head out and failed to see a single hair of the detective.

"Sherlock!' he yelled out fruitlessly.

xxx

The sky was getting darker as the sun began preparing for slumber. The blond doctor had steered clear of the flat he shared with the detective as it was now a crime scene. He was glad he had hidden his things away, scattering them throughout the flat; the police would surely fail to find his things. He needed a few supplies, however, and a wave of gratefulness washed over him as he thought of the things he had stashed in Harry's shed a long time ago unbeknownst to her. He used to think his hyper paranoia and habit of being very suspicious of people was more of a hindrance, but the more he became knee-deep in conspiracies and murder, John was glad he was paranoid.

The doctor walked down the street and successfully swiped a tucked pair of sunglasses from a passerby with his deft fingers and hailed down a cab, making his way towards his sister's empty house. When he left the vehicle and watched it leave, the mercenary made his way to the shed in the backyard and opened the weathered door. The rusted hinges squeaked as he did so and the doctor was greeted with the sight of normal gardening tools: shears, a spade, a shovel, and gloves, amongst other things. He stepped inside, taking off his sunglasses and grabbed the small spade. He pried a few boards up and off the floor, opening the inside to the dirt from below the slightly elevated shed. He began digging with the tool until a black bag began showing through the brown dirt. Wiping the sweat from his brow, he grunted as he pulled on the material and eventually pulled it completely out from its hiding place. He filled the hole with the dirt and put the boards back. John exited the shed and dusted the remaining dirt off of the duffle bag, shaking the big pieces loose and patting the rest down.

The mercenary walked up to Harry's back door and squatted as he unzipped the length of the bag and then felt around until his fingers caught onto a small, rectangular, thin box. He pulled it out and opened it, taking his pick-locking tools. He had a key, of course, but said key was somewhere in the flat back at Baker Street along with the keys to the flat itself. Because he had no choice, he went to work quickly, glancing around him as he did so just in case he was in sight of prying eyes. John heard a satisfying click and quickly stood up, opening the door and shutting it as soon as he entered the home. He turned on the light (his neighbors didn't know Harry hadn't been home, nevermind the fact that she wasn't even in the same country) and began unbuttoning his shirt. He had stuffed an extra shirt of kevlar (a sleeveless turtleneck, not his usual mask-like shirt), pants, combat boots, and a copy of his hooded cape as well as rope, extra ammunition and a Glock 17 in preparation of an emergency a long time ago. He changed quickly and realized he didn't have his night vision sunglasses. He needed something to cover his eyes, but allow him to see. John began rummaging through his sister's things, looking for nothing in particular, but also for anything. He found himself rifling through a storage closet when he found art supplies, and among that, black paint. That will do, he thought as he began smearing it across his skin where his eyes were. He ended up painting a large. rough horizontal stripe that extended from temple to temple, covering every inch of his eyelids and even the bridge of his nose. He tossed the tube of paint into his bag and turned off the light as he left.

He was on a mission.

John entered the dim underground tunnel with the handles of the dufflebag looped around one shoulder and walked past the black market dealers all yelling out prices and deals as criminals wandered around and aruged to get the best deals. He approached the man from whom he had bought his night-vision shades. Only William Belham had the best technology available to the criminals of the underground world and many of them were of his own design. His services were open to everyone ranging from contract killers to governments around the world, but the governments didn't know that.

"William," he greeted as he walked closer.

"Ah, Doctor. Good to see you. Heard you're in a bit of a tiff," he commented.

John nodded, but all the tech dealer could see was a black hood bobbing up and down as the man's face was completely obscured by the hood, however, today the kevlar that extended up past his nose was absent. This was the first time he ever caught a glimpse of the man's face, albeit a partial visual. The mercenary reached over and picked up a USB as well as a small circular device. The dealer watched closely; even though the man was short, he was fit and built. He watched as the mercenary's muscles bulged with the movement from his sleeveless outfit. The Doctor turned it over in his gloved hands and held it up as if to ask an unspoken question. The less said, the better.

"Need a small explosion?" the scraggly-haired dealer asked.

John nodded.

William scratched his cheek and crossed his arms. "Yeah, that's a good one then. Small explosion, but not too big. Enough to blow people back, but not enough to blow them up. Real beaut."

"I'll take it."

John wired the money from the laptop William had and then handed over the items.

"Thank you for your business. I wish you luck on your endeavor," he called to John's retreating mercenary merely raised his hand to acknowledge the man as he continued to walk, disappearing into the crowd.

John made his way towards Scotland Yard, but stopped a block before he did so and hid in the shadows of a building, waiting patiently. An hour must have gone by until a policeman came sauntering down the sidewalk. The young man was by himself, whistling a tune as he twirled his hat on a single finger, clearly disregarding the uniform regulation. John watched as the man walked closer and closer, each step towards him amplifying in his ears. This was it; it was time to pounce on his prey. He stood up from his squatting position and waited until the young officer was literally in front of him. John reached out and covered the man's mouth with one hand while wrapping his other arm around the officer's throat, pulling him into the shadows. Not a single head walking down the street noticed, even though the officer's hat fell and landed on the concrete.

"Mmmph! Mmmpphh!" the struggling man's muffled screams sounded out against John's hand. The blond pulled his arm tighter against the young policeman's throat, holding him in a sleeper hold. The offier's eyelids became heavy and eventually fluttered shut as he passed into an unconscious state. John went to work quickly, stripping the policeman of his uniform and stuffing his own clothes into his duffle bag. He took out the rope and tied the officer's limbs together in a complicated knot he had learned from Moran. He picked the man's body up and set it in a corner. "Be good and stay here while I go run some errands," he whispered and patted the unconscious man's cheek. John realized that his eyes were still painted, so he slipped into a restaurant after picking up the hat and slipping it on, adjusting it with his white-gloved hands. He held his head down and went into the loo to wash his face. When he got it all off, he dried the water off and exited the restroom as he put the hat back on his head.
"Evening, officer," a waitress greeted. John smiled and tipped his hat. He quickly walked down a block and reached Scotland Yard at last. He walked straight in, his head still held low as the brim of the hat covered his eyes.

"Evening," a few men and women greeted. John nodded at each of them and hastily made his way up to the second floor and down the hall. He needed to use a detective's computer in order to gain access to the national database. It was kind of insulting how easy it was to sneak into the police head quarters without so much as a second glance pointed towards him, but he was mostly glad for it. John's hand hovered above the doorknob to an office of one Detective Inspector Gregory Lestrade as he reached out to open it when a voice stopped him.

"Halt!"

A/N:

Time really slipped away from me & every time I tried to upload this, something would happen, like the internet would stop working. Lol
I had a ton more to write for this chap, but it was getting long so I cut it short.
I hope everyone had a wonderful break! Missed you all.