And yet another honkin' big one. Limited direct Sherlolly, but the elements in play all matter. Meanwhile we get a chunk of plot rolled out, and some internal bits I hope you all find worthy of attention. Ciao, bellas!

.

.

What he remembered afterward was drawing a deep breath, preparing to deliver a blistering assessment of Nigel, Nigel's folly, and Molly's complete and utter idiocy in failing to tell him about that much, much earlier. Before he could speak, though, the world dimmed, took a lazy twirl or two—and disappeared, leaving only the sound of surf and the sensation of falling.

Later, Sherlock conceded to himself that fainting had probably been the best possible outcome. If he'd stayed upright he'd have said quite a few "horrible" things to Molly Hooper—and he'd been trying quite hard to cut back on his horrible-rate. That didn't make him any happier about it, though. Of all the stupid, humiliating things that could have happened, dropping like a sack of potatoes on the lino of the hospital floor was among the most stupid and most humiliating.

When he came to he was still on the floor, attended by an audience he would gladly have done without. He flailed, determined to sit—only to be pinned on his back by the firm hand of the woman squatting beside him, scowling. To add insult to injury, she was a tiny smidge of a thing, with no sign of regular work-outs. She should not have been able to pin him so easily.

"Lie still or I'll have you stapled to the floor." He felt her slip something over one finger. She waited a moment then slipped it off. "Pulse and blood pressure are better. Both still below normal, though."

"I'm fine," he snapped, trying to rise again. "I just fainted."

"Oh, right. 'Just fainted.' Let me guess: you're one of the ones who say, 'I'm fine, only a scratch, just lopped my arm off, it's nothing, right as rain in a minute.'"

Somewhere out of Sherlock's line of site he heard Molly murmur, "That's him!"

He twisted his neck, trying to bring her into view. "Traitor."

"Never hide the truth from your doctor," his attendant quipped. "Leads to mistakes. Tell me, before I start putting you through a battery of tests, have you been doing anything that might logically explain dropping like a pole-axed steer? Sick? Drugs? Diet?"

"Not sick, I'm clean, and I ate just last night," he snarled. "And you're not my doctor. Leave me alone."

"Dehydration?" she continued, ignoring his dismissal.

"Had a cuppa around midnight. Now sod-off."

She cocked her head like an intrigued street sparrow eying a crumb of pastry. "Midnight? Hmm. Sleep patterns?"

Before Sherlock could answer, Molly said, "Non-existent. I doubt he's had six hours the past three days, and his rest cycle will have been disturbed well before that. His brother's sick, and he's been overextending."

"Total traitor!" he squalled.

"It's silly prats like you who keep NHS employees like me over-worked and under-paid," the little doctor said, grimly. "Sleep-dep is nothing to play with. You're thin as a rail on top of it...enough to raise questions of anorexia. No wonder you went down."

"Do stop wittering on. I'm fine—and I'm getting up, now."

A heave served only to prove he was not, in fact, getting up. Truly, one tiny woman should not have been able to do that. Perhaps she had arcane martial arts training, passed on by occult masters on a high mountain in Nepal?

"If you're fine, how do you explain landing flat on your back on the lino?" she challenged him.

A quick race through his mind palace turned out a variety of plausible alternative explanations—all of them enough more alarming than sleep deprivation as to ensure the Tiny Doctor would never let him up until she'd drawn blood from every major vein. Even then she'd only have him wheeled off to get an MRI or a CAT-scan or something else nasty and unendingly boring. "I may be running a bit short, but—"

"When is the last time you had a full night's sleep?"

He had to think about that harder than was desirable. He'd had none last night. Barely two hours on John's sofa the day before. There was the long black night of despair. Before that the night of pondering the catastrophic aspects of caring for people, when he'd walked home from the Royal. He had gotten some sleep that night, hadn't he? In the armchair at 221B? There had been some uneasy nights in the hospital room set aside for him. But to firmly and clearly recognize a complete night's sleep, as defined by particulars like "lying in your own proper bed," "actually entering deep sleep and experiencing some REM sleep," and "not staying awake most of the night fretting and churning," he had to go back before the Halloween Party and Mycroft's illness.

"All right, I may be a little sleep deprived," he admitted.

"By which I am to understand you're running on vapour and would appreciate a litre jug of double-espresso and an injection of something chemically exciting?"

The thought of either was bliss. "If you'd be so kind?"

"Bah!" She exploded with annoyance. "No! Dolt. Moron. Idiot. You need sleep, not stimulants. Come on, we'll help you up and you can have a nice long lie-down on the bed, here."

"I can't," he growled, as the Tiny Doctor and what he could only think of as her henchmen started hauling him up from the floor. "I've got to see a geek about a brolly." Then he started giggling, imagining John blogging "The Adventure of the Brave Little Fanboy." He knew it was adding no credibility to his argument, but he couldn't hold back the sniggers. Still, he tried. "Our friend Nigel's got Mycroft's umbrella, and we've got to reach him before the assassins do."

"Uh-huh," the Tiny Doctor said. It was one of those sounds that exceeds mere incredulity and achieves complete, soul-destroying disbelief. "Yeah, sure. Whatever."

"Really," he said as they dumped him on the bed and pushed him backward. "Ask Molly."

"I'm calling John," Molly said, still beyond his line of sight. She sounded a bit frantic. "He'll know what to do."

"He's prepping for surgery," Sherlock grumbled.

"How do you know?" Molly said. He could hear the blap-blap of John's phone ringing across the room.

"I hacked his work calendar yesterday, now, didn't I?" It seemed a perfectly normal statement to him, but several of the hearty henchmen seemed to find it exceptionally humorous. "I kept asking him to come play when he was busy," he added, hoping an explanation would help. "It's easier if I know to schedule the corpses and murder sites in around the appendectomies and pubescent girls with no breasts."

Every time he tried to sit up the henchmen pushed him back down onto the mattress. Giving up he sighed and relaxed, crossing his feet and folding his hands beneath his chin, looking for all the world like a prayerful knight carved on the lid of a medieval tomb. The position was both soothing and entertaining, always ensuring amusing responses from those who witnessed it. He closed his eyes.

"John? It's me," he heard Molly say, as the henchmen continued to have a jolly chuckle at his expense."Yes, sorry, Sherlock said you had a surgery this morning, but we need your help. He pushed the whole sleep-free and proud thing a bit too far and took a header this morning—out cold on the lino, you know—and now he's trying to convince us he can keep on going like the bleeding Duracell Bunny* and the trouble is we could really stand it if he could, because we got shot at last night and Nigel's off hiding from assassins and he's got Mycroft's umbrella, and... What? Oh. Yes. No, you're right—I doubt you'd want to re-anesthetize her, no. What? Get Mycroft's not-Anthea? What? Ok, I'll give you to Sherlock." He opened his eyes and looked at her, and she shoved the phone toward him. "He wants to talk to you. Meanwhile, does anyone know who the other Mr. Holmes' senior aide is, and how to reach her? John says her name isn't Anthea, though I don't see how that helps..."

Sherlock took the mobile. "John, don't waste time lecturing—Nigel from the lab has Mycroft's umbrella, and I've got to reach him and figure out how to bring him in safely. Yes, Molly was telling the truth, someone tried to shoot us last night coming out of the Barbican. No. No idea—or, too many ideas. I need you to call Nigel and get him over to your place. I'll send guards around to pick him up. What? –Molly? What's Nigel's number?" he asked. When she'd given it, he returned to the call, reeling the numbers off easily. "Got that? Good. Call Nigel before your appendectomy, not after, please: the people hunting us are not pleasant at all."

He ended the call, and was handing the mobile back to Molly when Mycroft's aide arrived, Blackberry in hand and in use. Barely wasting a glance at Tiny Doctor, she said, "Thanks for seeing to him." She spared Sherlock a glance, adding. "He's our problem, now. More's the pity."

Tiny Doctor scowled. "And you are?"

"Me? I'm not Anthea."

"Pardon?"

"Oh, no need to apologize. I'm always not Anthea. Except when I am. But that's only for special assignments. Today I'm Emma."

Tiny Doctor frowned, suspicious. "Emma who?"

"Peel."

Tiny Doctor scoffed. "Oh, really?"

The aide looked at her compassionately, then shook her head. "No. Not really."

Tiny Doctor sputtered. "Why should I leave this man in the hands of a woman who claims to be a fictional character?"

"No, no," Not-Anthea said. "I told you, I'm really not Emma Peel." She slipped a hand into her pocket, and pulled out a governmental ID, flashing it quickly and tucking it back. "Special Services, doctor."

Tiny Doctor's hands landed on her hips, and she scowled at her opponent. "I'm not getting a straight answer, am I?"

Not-Anthea looked at her in almost cheerful sympathy, shaking her head. "No. Sorry." Sherlock almost expected her to offer the doctor a lolly to make up for the pain.

The other woman sighed, then glanced at her henchmen. "Ok. Show's over. The British government's taking over care of the sleep deprived."

"Not the British Government," Sherlock murmured. "He's across the hall. She's just a minion of the British Government."

"Chief minion," Not-Anthea murmured back. "Do your research."

"Does that mean you're not-Igor, too?"

"Oh, no. Definitely not not-Igor," she declared. "I leave collecting the brains and bodies to you."

Tiny Doctor sighed and left, her retreat marked by a backward look that made it clear she thought them all mad.

"You enjoyed that entirely too much," Sherlock assured his brother's aide.

"I know. Shameful to indulge myself. But it is one of the perks of the job."

"Really? Mycroft never told me that part," Sherlock said, putting on his best affronted manner.

"He says there's no point trying to tempt you with a privilege you already usurp in any case," she said. "Now, someday he may bother to explain the advantages of the Ernest Bunbury Directive. You'd like that, and it's much easier to pull off with the British Government helping you."

Molly, who'd come to stand at the head of Sherlock's bed, said sternly, "Focus, people. Nigel? Umbrella? Assassins?"

"Oh, bloody hell. Right." Sherlock sat up, swung his legs over the edge of the bed—and then struggled to keep the room from spinning again. Struggled harder to keep Molly and Not-Anthea from realizing...

...Failed. The two women clucked and tsked and tried to get him to lie down again. He barely managed to resist. Molly said to Not-Anthea, "That's the problem. He's pushed too hard. But we've got to find Nigel."

"The young man from the morgue?" Not-Anthea asked.

"You know him?"

Not-Anthea shrugged. "He's not a primary subject of observation, but he sees several of our code-reds on a regular basis. We consider him a subject of collateral interest— interesting by virtue of his associates."

"That's not fair," Sherlock said, "Nigel's interesting in his own right." Then he wondered, a bit muzzily, when Nigel had come to be someone he considered interesting, rather than just "no Molly Hooper." "He's in danger."

Not-Anthea frowned. "I know the two of you were attacked last night, but how is Molly's lab tech in danger?"

Molly and Sherlock between them managed to bring her up to date on the umbrella, the dinner at the Barbican, the shooting, and Molly telling Nigel to run. Sherlock, to his embarrassment, kept losing track of bits of the story, and Molly had to fill in for him.

He was not entirely polite about it...perhaps less polite because his muddled mind reminded him far too much of Mycroft's terror and disorientation. If it felt this bad to be running on too little sleep, how bad did it feel to be Mycroft right now? How bad would it feel if the worst possible case proved true, and Mycroft never fully recovered? He shivered, trying not to think about it. Mycroft permanently disabled? Having to make a choice for him about whether he was still capable enough to enjoy life, or whether he'd want to suffer a convenient "accident"?

He didn't want that kind of responsibility.

Being sleep deprived had the added disadvantage of reducing his control over his memory. Random mental shrapnel from the past decades rocketed around his mind, freeing shards of broken relationships, gushing gouts of words he'd once said—and ever since wished he could take back. He kept coming back to a memory of Mycroft leaning wearily against a wall in the nursery of the old family home, back pressed into glossy, white-painted wainscoting, hands covering his face. He knew there were tears behind Mycroft's hands—knew because he'd been the one to drive him to them.

"For God's sake , Mycroft, just kill me. It would be easier than this. You've killed for Queen and Country. Why not just once for me?"

"No."

"Why? It's no good going on, now is it? I've well and truly buggered myself. Hell, what good's having an assassin in the family if you can't call in a favour when you need one?"

"I'm not an assassin, Sherlock."

"What's the distinction? Or is that another state secret you can't tell me?"

"You idiot."

"That's right, rub it in. I can't go on this way."

"It will get better. I promise."

"And if it doesn't? I can't live like this. I can't think straight. Do you hear me? I. Can't. Think. It's killing me already."

"It's withdrawal."

"It's hell. What if I never get better than this, Mycroft? What's next? Kill me, damn it. Or let me go. I'd have reached there soon enough if you hadn't interfered."

Mycroft had broken, then. Leaned against the wall. Covered his face. "Please, Sherlock, just stop making the choice necessary in the first place. Please? I don't want to make that choice."

"Then you should have just left me where you found me, you bastard."

"No." Mycroft had straightened, wiping his face with the sleeve of his clean, crisp white shirt. "I'm not giving up on you, you idiot."

"I wish to hell you would," Sherlock responded. He'd rolled over on the bed, turning his back to Mycroft, curling around himself, refusing to look anymore. "Just leave me to go to hell my own way, brother-dearest. I don't need help to manage that. I can find the way on my own."

Behind him, Mycroft had said, "No."

It was the first time Sherlock ever heard the voice of the Ice Man. It wasn't the last.

Mycroft had been younger then; so had Sherlock. Over time Mycroft had built defences; so had his brother. But Mycroft had never broken the faith—not by intent, anyway. By miscalculation, yes, but never by intent.

In Sherlock's memory, though, Mycroft stood there forever, leaning against the wainscoting, sun from the far window turning his white shirt to a silver blaze, trying to hide his tears.

Sherlock was falling.

"Damn it," Not-Anthea snapped, her unflappable facade shattered as she caught him.

His eyes snapped open. "What?"

"You fell asleep," she snarled. "Right there in the middle of the discussion. You fell asleep."

He frowned and tried to pull himself together. "I'll work past it. Just get me a cup of coffee."

"No," Molly said. "It doesn't work that way. You can only push so far, Sherlock. After that your mind just shuts down. You start dreaming in real-time, and then you stop tracking at all. You have to sleep."

"I have to find Nigel and that umbrella. Has John called?"

"He called ten minutes ago," Not-Anthea said, grimly. "Nigel's not picking up his phone. John keeps ending up routed to voice mail."

"I have to look for him, then," Sherlock said, trying to stand again. "Where would I hide if I were a fanboy?" He sniggered. "Any conventions in London this week? Gaming tournaments? Book signings?"

Molly growled—literally growled—and shouldered Not-Anthea aside. She shoved him, hard. "Cut it out, Sherlock."

"Or what? You'll tell me how horrible I am? I'm not a nice person, Molly. I'm not nice, and I'm not reasonable, and I honestly care bugger-all what you or anyone else thinks of me. But I am a good detective, and I intend to detect Nigel."

"No." Not-Anthea was fierce. "You're going to give me and my team time to review the CCTV footage from last night around the Barbican. You're going to let us investigate to determine who's likely to have been behind that attack. You're going to let us investigate your friend Nigel—he may be somewhere easy and obvious. Most of all, you're going to go to sleep and you're going to stay asleep until your brains come back from the far galaxy, because once we've done the review we're going to need you...because we don't have your brother. Do you understand, Mr. Holmes?"

"Listen to her, Sherlock," Molly said, still growling. "She's right."

He blinked at her. His eyes burned. He frowned.

Not-Anthea sighed and covered her face with her hands. "Sherlock, you're supposed to be smart. Could you please, please, be smart enough to lie down and go to sleep? Please?"

"I want to go home," he said. He could hear that he sounded like a toddler, and he found it impossible to care. "Take me home. Please?"

"Take him home," Molly murmured. Her hands gathered his and held them softly. "Send someone to keep an eye on him. I wouldn't trust him to stay in bed otherwise. But let him go home."

Not-Anthea sighed, and dropped her hands. She looked almost as exhausted as Sherlock felt, but she hadn't been crying...no tears. She sighed heavily. "Home, then. Baker Street?"

"Please?" he said. He wanted the familiar walls with the atrocious wall paper and the worn furniture and all the hallmarks of home.

"All right," Not-Anthea said, and made it so.

XXX

He woke slowly. His mind, usually given to instantaneous clarity, rose up into consciousness a layer at a time. He was aware first of the sheets—clean and crisp, smelling of laundry soap. Someone had changed them, then. The pillow—so cool. He rolled and sighed, stretching. Dreams lingered for a moment, trailing memories of tears and daffodils in the park around the family home, then disappeared completely, dispelled by his awareness of the fading light from his window. It was evening, then... his sleep schedule would be weeks working back around to daylight hours. The room was chill. He should go in the living room and light the fireplace. Make tea—if whoever was moving around in the kitchen hadn't already.

Who was in the kitchen, then?

Memory stirred. Not-Anthea was supposed to leave someone with him, wasn't she? No doubt one of Mycroft's lesser minions.

Sherlock sat up. He stretched. Shower? God, yes, shower. His sheets might smell of laundry soap, but he was quite sure he didn't, and hadn't for days. He ambled to the little lav. A half an hour later, scrubbed, shaven, tooth-brushed, and shining, he shucked on his blue robe and padded out into the living room.

"Evening, sunshine," Lestrade said. He was lying on the floor in front of the fireplace with a large mug of tea, working a crossword. "Kettle's still hot in the kitchen, and there's Chinese delivery on the way. Pork lo mein, General Tso's, broccoli and mushrooms in oyster sauce."

"I love you. I think I'll see if Mrs. Hudson will let me keep you," Sherlock said, and headed toward the kitchen to collect a mug of tea. He returned and eased himself into the comfort of his armchair, sucking down tea hot and strong enough to scour away the last traces of exhaustion. "Mycroft once argued that hot black tea constituted sufficient proof of God. There are times I agree with him."

"Somehow I don't see your bother as the pious type."

"He's not. He's the rigorous type. Puritan agnostic to the bone. God can't be proven, but can't be disproven. As such, I think he regards the Church of England as a rather elegant form of whistling in the dark. He's particularly fond of it when it's whistling 'God Save the Queen," or 'I Vow to Thee My Country.' Or 'Jerusalem.' He quite likes 'Jerusalem.' But, then, he would. Any word on how he's doing today?"

"Still missing a fair number of marbles. They've been able to determine he's got limited amnesia—can't recall much of the past month, so near as they can tell. Doctors say it's not uncommon to lose a chunk. The big question is whether it will come back, and no one knows for sure. Meanwhile he's calmer. That aide of his is keeping someone he knows with him at all times. It appears to help."

Sherlock nodded. "Yes." He thought he'd feel Mycroft's hands in his forevermore—feel them hang on as though he was his brother's anchor. "And she's arranged the same for me, I see."

"Yeah, well. It's not like you were at your radiant best by the end there, were you, sunshine? She's supposed to come on over later this evening with the CCTV analysis and whatever else they've come up with. John's coming over later, too."

"So John's the night shift?"

"Eh. Mary's out of town, and it's not like he's not at home here, yeah?"

"Yeah. I'm not sick, you know. Or using. I just—pushed too hard. You don't need to provide a keeper."

"Sherlock, I know you prefer to act like the sun shines out your arse, but be real, please? There's not a one of us who doesn't know just coming home's been a lot for you to deal with. Then Mycroft, and now people taking shots at you? Give yourself a break...and let us treat you like you're a lowly mortal for a change. Even if it does make your eyes red, your palms itch, and your fangs grow."

He laughed, then sang badly, "Awooooo-werewolf in London!" He wavered for a moment, then, staring into his mug, he said. "I hugged Molly this morning. She was crying. I think she was still a bit shaky from being shot at. I kind of cried, too. I just—I thought I ought to tell you." Saying it felt a dozen different kinds of horrible, but he felt obliged.

He couldn't bring himself to look up, but he could hear Lestrade take a deep sip from his own mug. After a second, the older man said, calmly, "'Ought to tell me' why?"

Sherlock shrugged. "This tea's really a very nice shade of rust. I wonder if there's a way to gauge the exact blend of tea-to-milk to get particular shades. A sort of Pantone chart for tea."

Lestrade snorted, then started clucking, softly. "Buck-buck-buck-buck..."

Sherlock's eyes shot up. Lestrade was grinning. Sherlock scowled back at him. "I'm not a coward, Lestrade."

"Mmmm-hmmm. So why 'ought to'? Friends hug friends. They cry together. It happens—and the world's a better place for it."

"You're dating her."

"Yeah? And? Sherlock, I'm not ten and in the middle of my first crush. At this stage in the game she could be dating a dozen other guys, including you, and I wouldn't feel betrayed. I don't own her—and I'm really happy to see her finally start to bloom. She has it coming to her. I'm just glad to be part of it."

"Oh." Sherlock wasn't sure what to say. Somehow he'd expected—what? More angst? Yes—more angst. A lot more angst.

Lestrade sighed. "Look, thanks for the thought. Maybe even keep me up to date if things change. But you don't have to treat me like I'm made of glass. I mean I know you're trying to improve, but—damn, Holmes, after knowing you for going on a decade, I'm not going to know what to do if you start treating me like my feelings matter. It's downright eerie." He gave a campy shudder. "I keep wondering if you've been possessed and we need to call the exorcist."

"I didn't think 'being nice' was a sign of demonic possession."

"Sunshine, if Beelzebub possessed you it would be a character upgrade."

"Moron." He would never admit he said it fondly—but the truth was, he did.

"Hey, Sherlock?" Lestrade said, "What's an eight-letter word that goes with 'heart of oak'?"

Sherlock smiled into his tea, and did not say, "Lestrade."

XXX

Sherlock changed into proper clothes. The Chinese food arrived. John arrived wearing one of his cable jumpers and carrying a bag of Thai take-out. Not-Anthea arrived with a briefcase full of files and a box of pizza. Then Molly knocked at the door wearing a worried expression and bringing fish and chips

"Well," Lestrade said as he and John put out plates and balanced cartons of food on available surfaces. "We're not going to starve, are we?"

"Yoo-hoo! Sherlock, dear, I saw you were having a party, and I thought I'd bring some goodies," Mrs. Hudson said, craning her neck around the edge of the door. She was carrying a vast bowl of onion dip and an even vaster bowl of potato crisps.

"All we need now is beer," John said.

"Scotch," Sherlock muttered. "Straight up."

"Tea," Lestrade said, firmly. "Or coffee. We'll all think better with caffeine instead of booze."

"Think?" Mrs. Hudson asked. "Oooh, Sherlock, a new case?"

"Not exactly," he said. "A friend's disappeared. We're trying to find him." He grabbed a slice of pizza and slipped back into his chair like an emperor occupying his throne. He looked at Not-Anthea. "What did you get off the CCTV?"

She slipped a huge pile of screen captures out and handed them to Sherlock. "So far, nothing. We can find the three of you going into the Barbican, but haven't even managed to spot him going out—though that's not necessarily a surprise. There was a bit of a stampede for the back door after the shooting. But you'd think we'd spot someone with an umbrella."

Sherlock flipped through the shots, a page at a time. He went through the pile once. Twice. A third time. "There," he said. "He appears to have spotted the cameras and kept his face away. And he nicked someone's coat and hat, too, but he's still wearing hospital clogs. Looks like he wore the coat over his own, to change his shape, too. Goodness—our Nige is a clever little boy, isn't he? But no brolly. What did he do with the brolly? Did you find it on the premises?"

"No," said Not-Anthea, "and we've been through twice since this morning. First time was a bit sketchy: the owners had in half the builders in London to evaluate the place and secure it. We ended up having to kick the whole lot out. Second time, though, we pretty much got down to the bug on the wing on the bird in the nest on the branch on the tree in the hole in the ground, and the green grass grew all around, all around. No umbrella, not even one of those folding ones you can fit in a tote."

"So. Two problems," said John, frowning as he collected the photos from Sherlock. "One's to find Nigel, and the other's to figure out what he did with the umbrella."

"How far from the Barbican have you collected CCTV images?" Lestrade asked. "Now that Sherlock's managed to ID your boy, you can try to trace where he went."

Not-Anthea nodded, already typing into her Blackberry. "Sherlock, can they send it to your email address so we can print out images?"

He nodded. "Yes. Can they do an image trace on Nigel's shoes? I doubt he'll find a replacement for those too quickly."

"Don't know if the analysis is that good, but we'll find out," she responded. A second later she said, "They think they can. They've managed to follow him as far as St. Barts. He goes in—and then we lose him again. No sign of him coming out."

"Spare clothes in his desk drawer," Molly said, quickly. "Sometimes work is messy. Best to have extras. Sometimes he goes on a date, too—I know he's got things so he won't have to go home if he's in a rush."

"Shoes, too?" Sherlock said, expecting the answer.

"Oh, yeah. I know he's got a pair for when he's going clubbing," she responded.

"He really is a clever, clever boy," Sherlock said, unexpectedly impressed at Nigel's improvisational abilities. "He'll have put some thought into ways to change his appearance more. Do we have images from St. Bart's, yet?"

The printer was soon churning out pictures by the dozen. The group went through them steadily.

"Here," John said after a moment. "Cut his hair, from the looks of it. Dyed it, too. Dyed it? How...?"

Sherlock snatched the grainy image, and frowned at it. "Iodine, maybe? Brown, now, anyway. But you're right. It's Nige. And he's changed his shape again. Put on two stone, from the looks of it. Padded belly? Cotton in his cheeks? Taller, too—heeled boots. Where did he get those?"

"Staff locker room, maybe?"

"Maybe. Under the circumstances he might have felt entitled to break a lock or two. And he's carrying a full tote—who knows what supplies he's added to his set?"

"I'm going to have to recommend this one to Mr. Holmes," Not-Anthea said, contemplating Nigel's abilities. "He's always looking for fresh talent."

No one commented that it would have to wait until Mr. Holmes was able to return to action.

They were able to track Nigel for blocks—but lost him in Farringdon Station, where he took advantage of a missing CCTV camera to disappear.

"Probably nipped into the gents and changed again, too," Lestrade muttered. "Sherlock, if this man ever goes bad I want to know. He's a menace."

"He does seem to love his cosplay," Sherlock conceded. "Good at it, too."

"You really should see him as Tom Baker's Doctor," Molly said. "He'd convince The Master himself. Give him a working sonic screwdriver and a Tardis and he'd challenge the known universe. And that's in spite of being inches too short."

"Yeah, but how do we find him now?" John grumbled. "He's disappeared like a ghost. He could be anywhere in London. He could even have gone back to his place and gotten more supplies and we'd never know it."

"Mmm. Have we traced his credit card use? Or banking?"

Not-Anthea typed quickly into her Blackberry, and in seconds answered, "Takes out five hundred quid at the ATM in Farringdon Station, and not a peep since."

"Plans fast. He's got cash to see him through and he can run for a long time without drawing attention to himself." Sherlock sighed. "He's not going to be found unless he wants to be. I think we need to go at this from the other direction. Mycroft's umbrella can't have left the premises without being spotted. What do we have on the Barbican?"

Not-Anthea pulled out another pile of images from her briefcase. "I warn you, it's a nightmare. Again, half the builders in London there, bringing things in and out."

Sherlock swore when he saw the activity the CCTV had recorded. "What were you thinking? There's boxes in and boxes out—anyone could have found it and walked off with it and we'd never spot it."

"We didn't exactly have a choice," Not-Anthea said, bitterly. "First it was the police, and then it was the workmen. We were apparently third in line to get on the property."

"Lestrade, did your people have anything?"

"No, sunshine, bugger-all."

Sherlock grumbled and sulked and ate cold General Tso's while the rest of the group went over the images fruitlessly. Nigel was gone, and too keen to be spotted by anyone until he chose to be. The umbrella appeared to be gone without a trace. All in all it was a serious setback. He pouted, collected a new cup of tea and his laptop, and settled down to watch his unexpected flat full of helpers over the top of the screen, while lazily clearing out dead files and junk emails.

John had set himself up on the sofa, lacking the old arm chair—which was back at his new place, looking lost and pitiful among the IKEA shelves and tables. It was wonderful to see him, blond head bent over a pile of printouts, sipping tea and frowning. Not-Anthea had taken over Sherlock's desk, between the two windows, and bounced back and forth between her files, her Blackberry, and more printouts. Mrs. Hudson was at the far end of the sofa with John, peering through reading glasses at still more photos, clearly not finding much, but just as clearly reveling in having "her boys" both back, and with company into the bargain: as far as she was concerned this was a party, and one she was delighted to attend.

Lestrade, still lying belly-down on the floor, had exerted some kind of charismatic gravity: Molly had found a place to sit near him, perched on the hearth, and she'd tucked her toes under his side. Every so often he reached back and traced the line of her ankle, before returning to his own perusal of the printed material. One corner of Molly's mouth turned up each time Lestrade did it, though she kept her eyes on her own work.

Sherlock frowned and blasted away an entire block of emails he'd barely even checked the subject lines on. Really, that was considerably more touchy-feely than he expected to see in his living room between his friends. Didn't they know better? He blitzed another block of junk.

"Sherlock, dear? Could you come look at this?" Mrs Hudson was studying one of her printouts intently, moving her reading glasses up and down her nose as she tried to find the perfect resolution. "I'm not sure, but... Oh, dear. It's so hard to tell. But noses don't change much, do they? Well, not like coloring your hair or stuffing your parka up your shirt to look fatter, I mean."

Sherlock practically launched himself out of the armchair, not even bothering to put down the laptop. He slipped down to kneel beside Mrs. Hudson. "No. Noses do not change. What have you got?"

She tipped the picture toward him. "It's one of that nice young woman's pictures of the restaurant, lovie. The workmen. See? There? That one fellow in the uniform with the carton? Look at his profile, dear..."

"Oh, Mrs. Hudson, you are a gem, a jewel, a queen among housekeepers—"

"I'm not your housekeeper, Sherlock—"

"An empress among landladies. Everyone, come see!" He pointed to the photo as they all gathered around.

A bulky, heavy-looking man dressed in a one-piece workman's coverall was walking away from the Barbican, a long carton under his arm of the type often used for fluorescent lights. He was angled such that the CCTV camera would not normally have caught his face—but another worker was gesturing and calling to the man, and he'd turned his head just a few degrees to respond.

"Nigel," breathed Molly.

"Nigel and the umbrella," Sherlock confirmed, grinning like the Cheshire cat. "He hid it on the premises, and then came back for it later, when he had a disguise and a hope no one was watching."

Not-Anthea hummed approvingly. "Oh, he's slick."

Lestrade agree. "Yeah. If you don't want him, I could find a spot for that much clever on the hoof."

"Yes," John said, "but we still don't know how to find him."

"He'll find a way to tell us," Sherlock said, confidently. "He's sharp. Very, very sharp."

Just then the laptop chimed, announcing a new load of incoming email. Sherlock glanced—and smiled.

From: FHerbert

To: SHolmes
Sent: Fri, Nov 8, 2013 9:37pm
Subject: Ashwaghandha Herb: Think Like the Mentat Mystics!

Chuckling, Sherlock said, "Unless I've missed my guess, that's the message now." He clicked it open.

The body of the email said only one thing: HPPS:6

"Well that's not much help," John grumbled.

"On the contrary, John. It's quite explicit..."

John's look was baleful. "Oh, really? And?"

Sherlock grinned. "We can rendezvous with him at King's Cross station at 11:00—presumably tomorrow, as it's a bit of a wait for September 1st to come around again."

John looked at him with resignation. "And you know this how?"

Sherlock was beaming with delight by then. "Because, my dear friend—Nigel knows my fandoms."

.

Thanks to a rather fiddly issue of expiring trademarks and non-expiring trademarks and market competition, Duracell gets the pink hyperactive bunny in the UK and Energizer gets the pink hyperactive bunny in the US. Look it up if you like. The important thing, though, is to think large, pink, and unstoppable.

For those who want to know how Nigel communicated with Sherlock, I'll try to be good and give the answer at the bottom of the next instalment...but I'm going to let those of you who like solving puzzles play with it for now. It's not that hard with the hint Sherlock has provided.