Author's Note: Here, have some feels!
But really, hope it's not too boring already!
Chapter 2
John walked around London for three hours, stopping for the occasional coffee in small coffee shops. He liked the friendly atmosphere and the calm air every once in a while.
Usually, he would go to a specific destination, but not today. He didn't have a certain place in mind. All he cared about was his close call with Sherlock this morning. There was no way that Sherlock actually believed that rubbish about dating a patient. John knew that the detective was much cleverer than that. Though, it really did seem like he believed it.
John sighed heavily and leaned himself against the rail of the small bridge. What he hadn't noticed however, was the casually dressed man that seemed to be everywhere at the same time as him. In the coffee shops, the mall, the park that John was now standing in. Somehow, he hadn't noticed.
At least not until the man wrapped his arm stealthily around the doctor's head and covered his mouth with a damp cloth. John only had enough time to register that he was being chloroformed before blacking out.
…
Sherlock groaned loudly, flopping back down on the couch in frustration. He'd just solved four cases in a row, each just as dull as the last. He sighed and sat back up, looking for his violin. Picking it up, he realised he had no real desire to play, but began to anyway. It suddenly crossed his mind that John had been out for a long time. He didn't think much of it, and went back to playing his violin.
After some mindless improvising, he began to think about the morning's events. John was dating a patient. Good for him, he thought, hopefully not as dull as the last lot.
It was with that that he got a small twinge in his chest. He wasn't sure what it meant, and kept playing. The more he thought about John and his new girlfriend, the stronger the twinge. He placed his violin down and brought his fingers together to form a pyramid.
Anger? No. Boredom? Hardly, boredom feels very different. Hmm, let's see… Is it? No, impossible. It can't be jealousy. There's no reason to be jealous of anything. Of course not.
Sherlock looked up at the clock, and realised that John had been gone for six hours. He furrowed his brows. This was not like John at all. He thought maybe that John was with his new girlfriend.
There it is again. Why does John insist on spending so much time with such tedious people?
The twinge hit him again. He brushed it off as concern and picked up his phone.
'It's getting late. – SH'
No reply.
'John, come home – SH'
Again, no reply.
'Are you with someone? It's quite rude of you not to let me know – SH'
Still no reply. This concerned Sherlock. He wondered if John had his phone off. Impossible, he thought. John had his phone on constantly. It crossed his mind for a moment that John might be ignoring him. Flicking through his short list of contacts, he called up Lestrade.
"Sherlock? Are you finished those cases?" Lestrade asked almost instantaneously.
"Yes, they were dreadfully easy, but that's not why I'm calling. Is John with you?" Sherlock replied.
"John? No, Sherlock I'm at home. Of course John's not with me. He's not at the Yard either, or Molly would have said so. Why? What's going on Sherlock?" Lestrade answered, obviously very confused.
"John's been out for six hours. No replies on his phone and no sign of him," Sherlock said, concern creeping up quite quickly.
"Jesus! Do you think something's happened to him?" Lestrade exclaimed.
"I don't know, I'm going to look for him," with that, Sherlock hung up on the D.I. and opened his computer. A tone went off to show that he'd received a new email. He didn't care all that much until he saw that there was no traceable sender. He clicked into the message and was completely disturbed by what he saw.
A photograph, quite large. However, it was what was in the photograph that made his stomach flip and his mouth run dry. There was Doctor John Watson, tied to a chair with a bloodstained cloth in his mouth. He was badly bruised and bleeding from the mouth, nose and several horrifying lacerations on his arms, neck and face. He looked barely conscious, and barely alive.
Sherlock stood up and breathed shallowly. After taking a moment to regain his thoughts, he sat back down and clicked 'Reply' with trembling fingers. He tried his best not to look at the picture, but it was there.
'Who are you?
What have you done to John?
What do you want?'
He sent three simple questions. It was inevitable; he needed to study the photograph.
Clicking on the photo, the image filled the screen. He scanned the picture for twenty minutes before realising that there was nothing he could gain from it. No possible way to narrow down a location, or possibly a suspect. It was just a nearly dead John Watson staring Sherlock in the face with blank eyes.
No reply for another hour. He wasn't about to wait for one either. In one swift movement, Sherlock snatched up the laptop and stuffed it into John's carry bag. Grabbing his coat, he glided down the stairs and out the door. It took a few tries to finally hail a cab, and in no time he was out the front of Scotland Yard.
"Sir, there's been a break in," the voice over the phone said.
Greg Lestrade sighed and rolled his eyes. "Not our division," he said, brushing off the report.
"He's actually in your office, Sir," the younger Officer said. Greg raised an eyebrow. Why there would be anybody in his office had him buggered, and he wanted to find out why.
"I'll be there soon, keep any officers outside," He said, hanging up on the officer. Without even thinking of grabbing his coat, the D.I. jogged out to his car, and made his way to the Yard. Upon arrival, he saw several officers waiting out the front for instructions. Greg made his way up to the front door and observed the locks. "How did he get in?" he asked, frustrated.
"Uhh, it looks like he just broke the lock. It's snapped on the inside," a young officer with short hair replied.
"What? So you mean he just broke the lock and waltzed on in? Right, stay outside, I'll go in and investigate. Keep an ear out for any instructions over the radio. Got it?" Lestrade pushed the door open and made his way up to his office. There was a light on, and he drew his weapon, sneaking over to the door to catch his intruder by surprise.
Bursting through the door, he found the world's only Consulting Detective using both his desktop computer and another two laptop computers, deep in thought.
"Christ, I should have known!" the Detective Inspector sighed sarcastically. He pulled the two-way to his mouth and pressed the button. "It's fine. No need for backup," he demanded.
"Thank you. It was getting hard to think with those fools down there," Sherlock said without looking up.
Greg looked at him, honestly shocked at Holmes's lack of care. "Dammit Sherlock, you've just broken into a government agency! If you're that desperate for cases, you can wait until we've actually got one for you! You can't just go looking for them when you're bored!" Lestrade roared.
Sherlock just furrowed his brows and slammed his hands down onto the desk with force enough to knock over various objects. Finally he looked up at the D.I. with a glare that could cut glass. Greg had never seen Sherlock so angry. He thought it best to approach the situation a little more calmly, lest he have to deal with an angry sociopath.
Sherlock unplugged his laptop from the external monitor and turned it around so Greg could catch the full brunt of the image.
"Oh, god… Shit…. Sherlock… What… What IS that?" he stammered. Sherlock just looked at him.
"I don't know. It came to me through an email. I... I've been trying to track the sender, but there doesn't seem to be a sender at all. I tried calling John's phone again, but there was no answer. So I traced it. The phone has been completely destroyed. It's impossible to determine where he is, as well," Sherlock said, a trace of fear present in his voice.
Greg was stunned. He sat down in one of the spare chairs in front of his desk. "There's… nothing? Sherlock, I'll make sure the Yard is searching for him," he said.
"No. Don't bring any of them into this. I only need your help. I need access to everything. And I mean EVERYTHING. I don't care about top secret," Sherlock replied.
Greg was, for the first time, feeling extremely sympathetic towards Sherlock. He leaned forward a little. "You don't think…"
"NO!" Sherlock bellowed threateningly, "John is not dead. Not yet. Not ever". He softened to a near whisper on the last two words. Greg immediately regretted his comment. Never in his life had he seen Sherlock like this. And it wasn't like he didn't know what Sherlock was going through. He'd been in a similar situation. Seeing a friend on the verge of death and wanting to do everything in your power to bring them back. Nothing would stop Sherlock Holmes from finding his friend, and Greg was damn certain he wouldn't let anything stop him.