"A child? You're telling me our culprit is a child?" John asked incredulously as they sat at the only cafe open on Christmas, warming up with a hot cuppa and planning their next move.

"I said our culprit is a small human, possibly a child," Sherlock corrected while nonchalantly sipping his tea, then continued.

"It's the only possible explanation for how they could get in and out through the air duct without opening the safe. The ducts were specially made to be too small for an adult to fit through, but they didn't take into account anyone smaller than that. Children are so often overlooked by adults."

Ironic, coming from a man who was currently overlooking his own, John thought.

"It would also explain the tracks I found in the vault. Small, too small to belong to an adult. At first I thought perhaps a trained monkey, but there was no evidence of hair or droppings at the scene. The weight dispersion in the marks ruled that out ultimately, leaving lighter patterns in the middle, where the arch of the foot would be, rather than monkeys, whose podiatry is entirely different… " Sherlock explained, no longer to John, but to himself as he became engrossed in his deductions.

Confused by his statement, John leaned forward, interrupting his partner's train of thought.

"Tracks? The detective inspector told me they didn't find any tracks in the room besides normal foot traffik throughout the day."

"And if we left crimes up to the police, how many criminals would walk free today? They missed something, they always miss something," Sherlock scoffed, his breath fogging in the cold winter air. "The clues are not where residue was left, but rather, where residue was not left," he continued, as if what he was saying made perfect sense.

"Sherlock, I know you think you're being obvious, but you're not. I have no patience to play along today, so why don't you explain that again in a way that I can understand," John said, rubbing his temples.

Sherlock looked aggrieved, but never the less, obliged his only friend, and began again.

"This thief was clever. Clever enough to break into a bank vault. You really think he would be sloppy enough to leave tracks?" Sherlock said sharply, annoyed at having to explain while on his crime solving high.

"So they used socks, or those overshoes that they give us at crime scenes. But those don't leave tracks, do they?" John queried, beginning to get curious about their case himself, sternly reminding himself that he was here to bring Sherlock in, not relive the past. His days of running around the town, solving crimes were behind him, as they should be. As they should be.

"Precisely, Watson. They don't, not when they are used on clean surfaces in any case. But that vault has dozens of people through it every day, and is only cleaned weekly. There was dirt and residue all over that floor, which the cloth from the booties then picked up as they were walking across the floor," he finished excitedly, with a dramatic flourish to emphasize his point.

"So, you're saying that rather than looking for where there are tracks, we should be looking for where there aren't tracks," John said slowly, as he started to piece the complex situation together in his head. Sherlock smiled excitedly at his friend, and with a snap of his fingers, pointed at John,

"Precisely, my good Watson. Now you've got it! So, by measuring the clean spaces between the dirt, I was able to reverse engineer a shoe size for our culprit, which lead me to my current conclusion," Sherlock summarized, a bit too smugly for John's taste, as they paid for their drinks, Sherlock's drink still untouched, and got up to leave.

"Yeah, but how exactly does knowing the bank robber's shoe size help us to catch him?" John volleyed back, annoyed at his friend's boasting. Obviously prickled by this, Sherlock shrugged his shoulders and shot him a dirty look.

"The small details always factor in, John… I just don't have the whole picture together yet."

"More like too busy showing off in front of the new detective to actually find anything useful," John shot back, with a smirk and a chuckle.

"I do not 'show off,'" he uttered, making a face that made him look far too much like Mycroft when he found something particularly distasteful.

"Yeah, you do," John said simply, laughing to himself. Same old Sherlock, childish, ornery, and brilliant as ever. Even when the whole world around him changed, he stayed the same. It was a thought that simultaneously comforted and worried John.

Taking a breath, John prepared to make another attempt at persuading Sherlock to visit the hospital, since they wouldn't be able to accomplish anything today on the case anyways. Before he could though, he felt something sharp jab him in the back, and breath on his neck. Looking over at Sherlock, he saw his friend in the same predicament, a man in dark glasses and a black wool coat standing behind him with a gun in the small of his back.

Taking a breath, John steeled himself for whatever was coming next, and tried to calm himself as best he could.

"There's no need for the guns, we can all be gentlemen about this. Irene sent you, right? I doubt she'd want us back with holes in us (or Sherlock at least), why don't you just let us go and we can all go to the hospital together without anyone getting hurt?" he said, a bit nervously.

They were fine. They could get out of this. They'd gotten out of worse. As long as they weren't Russian, they would be fine.

"We are thinking you should be coming with us now, почемучка."

Oh, bugger.

Russian, they had to be bloody Russian.

Of all the criminals they had taken down, all the brutal murders they had caught, the Russian ones were always the hardest to crack, and almost impossible to beat.

As they walked down the city streets, now beginning to fill with people just out of church or on their way to family parties, John soothed himself by recalling every awful name he could think of to describe Irene Adler in order to take his mind off the hulking Russian bloke with a gun in his back.

That bloody woman. Why had he ever agreed to help either one of them? He should be at home playing with his children, not being threatened by ruthless killers. The only assassin he should be in fear of is his wife. Yet, here he was, trudging through the snow with Sherlock and a pair of Terminator knockoffs.

They stopped in front of a dark SUV, and the men behind them gestured for them to get inside. John looked at them incredulously.

"Really? A black SUV? Why don't you just get a white van with boarded windows and ice cream stickers, maybe that will be a little more subtle about the whole kidnapping thing," he said, rolling his eyes as they pushed him into the car forcefully.

Sherlock was quiet and pensive as they drove, the streets now lined with people, a stark difference from only 15 minutes earlier, when he had been a chatterbox. Maybe this was for the better, John supposed. Very soon they would be at the hospital, and he would be free to go back to his family. That is, if Sherlock could manage to stay quiet long enough to keep the Russians from killing them both out of sheer irritation.

As they took a sharp turn around a corner, he felt Sherlock bump into him. "In approximately 15 seconds, pull the door handle, and kick the bottom left frame of the door," he whispered, so softly John could barely hear him.

In a second, Sherlock was upright, and it was if it had never happened at all. John got into position, looking doubtfully over at his closest friend, wondering if this was the frantic design of a desperate man or the carefully calculated plan of an architect. Knowing Sherlock, it could be both. The doors were locked, he had heard the click as soon as they were thrown into the vehicle. These men were hardened professionals, not amateur kidnappers, and for both their sakes, John was hoping Sherlock wasn't underestimating them. Finally, the time came. Sherlock looked over and nodded somberly, and in the next moment, everything went to hell.

With a scream of metal and a rush of cold winter wind, the door flew off its hinges into the traffic behind, no doubt giving the family behind them, out for a nice holiday drive, a traumatic Christmas memory. He heard the Russians' surprised yells, and felt them reaching back trying to grab them. They didn't have much time. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sherlock roll himself out of the car in one fluid motion. John took a deep breath and leapt out of the car into the winter chill after his friend.

Translation Note: почемучка (počemúčka) is a person who asks a lot of questions.

(A big thanks to ShadowFox94 for editing and providing the translation notes!)

Author's Note: Sorry it took so long to get this out, summer has been crazy busy so far, and my co-writer and I are both completely snowed under (no pun intended).I'll try to get the next chapter out before September, but no promises. Until then, enjoy, and please don't be afraid to comment and tell us what you think! xoxoxox BonnySunshine

Author's Note 2:

I didn't do much at all for this chapter; that was the Bonniness. Isn't she wonderful? Working two jobs and writing this amazing story. Hope you enjoy!

-Izzybizzy333