Chapter 5

The four men remained motionless for several minutes, before Arthur yelled out an animalistic roar and punched the wall. He then sank to the floor, clutching his wounded wrist, but all the while his eyes remained fixed on the blank screen, as though he could somehow will it to show Merlin again.

"I shouldn't have let him leave with you, if I had only fought harder we wouldn't be in this situation," Arthur said softly, his face expressionless but his eyes were pools of sorrow and guilt.

"It wasn't your fault Arthur," John reassured him, rubbing the young man's back comfortingly. "The past is the past, what's done is done, no matter how much we wish we could change it." John fixed a very sharp gaze on Sherlock as he spoke, who was still staring blankly at the screen. "What we can do is get Merlin back, safe."

Arthur continued to look lost for a few more minutes, a few frustrated and fearful tears collecting in his eyes, before he took a deep breath and composed himself. He turned towards Mycroft and Sherlock.

"So where are they? You heard what Moriarty said, we haven't got much time."

"I haven't the foggiest," Mycroft replied coolly. As Arthur went to yell at him, Mycroft continued. "We are trapped here until someone releases us, all my cameras are down and Moriarty could be anywhere in the world, in areas that are far out of my jurisdiction. I have nothing," he spat, a rare display of emotion radiating from the older man, one of frustration and anguish.

Seeing that Mycroft couldn't help them, John walked over to where Sherlock was. "Do you have any ideas Sherlock? ... Sherlock? Sherlock?!"

"Sherlock?" asked the tiny boy with large ears and large kaleidoscope eyes. "Are you still mad at me?"

"Why would I be mad at you Merlin," the teenager replied emotionlessly, staring through a microscope at a water sample taken by police thirteen years earlier, from the pool Carl Powers drowned in. Was murdered in, Sherlock corrected himself, as he stared at the stolen sample. Other cases had come and gone over the years, but this case still intrigued him, it was clearly murder but the imbecilic morons that enforced the law refused to believe it was anything more than an accident.

"You sound kind of mad Sherlock," Merlin muttered, looking down at his shoes. Shoes.

"Of course, the police never found Carl's shoes, which would suggest that whatever Carl had come into contact with to cause his death was probably hidden in the shoes! How could I have been so stupid?' He got up, ignoring his seven year old brother in favour of picking up a newspaper, flicking through it to see if there was anything of interest in there.

"Sherlock, I just wanted them to think I was normal so they'd stop hitting me," the younger boy burst, unconsciously rubbing his arm where Sherlock had already deduced were hand shaped bruises. "Didn't you ever want to be normal?"

Sherlock's temper snapped. "No, Merlin, why would I want to be normal? Normal is boring. Normal will not solve crimes or interest me. You want to be normal, fine. But don't expect me to pay attention, I don't make friends with boring people, because no one wants to be around people like that. No one will ever want to be friends with you!"

And with that the older boy pushed his younger brother out the room and locked the door, ignoring the thuds of fist knocking on wood and pitiful sobs mingled between cries of his name.

"Sherlock! Sherlock, please! Sherlock I won't be boring anymore! Please! Sherlock..."

"Please! Sherlock! Snap out of it you moron! Sherlock!"

A heavy slap to Sherlock's face brought him back into reality. "What?" Sherlock asked irritably.

"Finally, you've been zoned out for nearly 5 minutes! I was just about to throw water over you!" John exclaimed

"I was busy in-"

"Yes, yes, in your mind palace, I've been through this before," Mycroft said, much to the amusement of Arthur.

"A mind palace, seriously?"

"Not the time," said John, reminding them all of the situation they were in. "Do you have any ideas as to where Moriarty might be holding Merlin?"

Yes, Moriarty, Sherlock thought, still shaken by the memory and glad to take his mind off it, if only temporarily.

"Moriarty will have left us a clue as to where he has taken Merlin, he hates keeping secrets, he likes people to know what his latest escapade is. He enjoys the show. Now we know that he took Merlin precisely nine and a half hours ago-"

"Wait, no we don't," said Arthur, "The security went down before we knew where Merlin was-"

"The clock in the corner of the screen before Moriarty's screen came up indicated ten am, suggesting Moriarty arrived then. We then waited exactly nine hours for Moriarty to reply, which was ten minutes long, and then we remained still for a further five minutes. I started talking five minutes ago. Do the maths Pendragon."

Arthur looked as though he'd been slapped in the face, until John pointed out," You do realise that only adds up to nine hours and twenty minutes."

"Irrelevant," Sherlock huffed.

"Irrelevant you can't do elementary maths, or irrelevant that you were proved wrong?"

"That we are continuing this conversation at all."

"Anyway-" Arthur interrupted what was about to turn into a full blown argument. "How does the time help us find Merlin?"

"Isn't it simple?"

"To be quite honest, not really," said an aggravated Arthur.

"Dear Lord, how small your normal little mind must be. Moriarty had a fixed time window in which he could change location, meaning he only had nine and a half-"

"Nine hours and twenty minutes-"

"To kidnap Merlin and get him to the location of his choice, and send the video message."

"So! There are thousands of places where Merlin could be within those time zones!" Arthur yelled impatiently.

"No there aren't," was Sherlock's reply. "Merlin was clearly at a shipyard, one containing water judging by the rhyme he sent us. And there was one other clue he gave us earlier today."

"What?" exclaimed the three other men.

"This," Sherlock replied, revealing in his hands a slip of paper, the same piece John realized, that had been sent to them by Moriarty earlier.

"What about Moriarty's note? How can that tell us where Merlin is?" John asked, but something was niggling at the back of his mind.

Wait.

"This is cotton paper, the type of cotton used to make this appears to be Gossypium arboretum, a plant native to India. However the ink, which has been written in calligraphy, is Quink which comes from the brand Parker, which is originally from the UK, now only in Cornwall. It is therefore clear that Moriarty moved from a safe house in India to the UK long enough to collect the ink and send the message before moving on, most likely to pick up some more paper from India, although judging by the cracks running along the ink this was written over 72 hours ago and so it is more than likely he has moved on from India to an alternative safe house."

"You mean-"

"Yes John," said Sherlock, his eyes displaying pride at John's realization. "Merlin is either in Cornwall, England; or Mumbai, India."

So I'm back! And I come bearing Chapter 5! I wonder if anyone deduced where this story was heading- and perhaps where it will be heading next! I'm currently writing Chapter 8 so you never know- your idea might make it into the story! In regards to my AN last chapter and the poll that came with it- the results are in and so Merlin will be getting magic, although it will not be in the same way as the show, and it will be featured more in the sequel! Finally, thank you to my 3 guest reviewers, Tolleren, feathered moon wings, Fai's smile, Alligates, Sahba and for their lovely reviews, and thanks to Morgana-Le-Fai for betaing.

So in conclusion, read and review with what you want to happen next, your opinions on the poll results; and I'll see you all next week! :)