Two weeks later, in London, Sherlock was extremely upset over his latest case: the disappearance of Felicity Muller. She hadn't written, called, visited or emailed him in almost a month. Something was wrong- Sherlock knew that something was wrong. Felicity always contacted him at least twice a week and now there was nothing. Sherlock was determined to find out what was wrong, no matter what the cost. John picked up on his worries (he had some of his own) and suggested that they take a trip down to Sussex to investigate. Sherlock was more than willing to oblige and by the time they'd survived the car ride down, Sherlock was practically twitching with concealed emotions; curiosity, nervousness, and worry. When they pulled up at the house, Sherlock's heart sank. The blinds were drawn, the lawn was starting to become overgrown, and it was obvious to him that no one was living there. Regardless, he went up to the door, picked the lock, and went inside.

It was empty. It was all empty. Any furniture that was left was covered by old sheets. Dust was beginning to settle. Felicity and Charley Muller had vanished. Why? Possibilities ran through Sherlock's mind as he numbly watched John look in the empty kitchen cabinets, worry written all over the doctor's face. Sherlock's mind automatically created a timeline, regardless of his emotions. He'd last written to Felicity three weeks ago and there had been no response. Something must have happened around or directly after that time to make her and Charley disappear (if the layer of eloquent dust was anything to go by). If this was something as trivial as moving, Felicity would have contacted him and let him know of her change in address. Because the house was so neatly cleaned up they clearly weren't in any danger, so Sherlock could rule out kidnapping or murder. Why did Felicity and Charley Muller disappear? "Oh," Sherlock murmured to himself as an idea slammed into his mind palace. The neighbor. Mrs. Millan had to know something, anything about what had happened to the Mullers. With that thought in mind, Sherlock turned on his heel to go, John following behind him hastily.

"Sherlock? What's wrong; do you know where they went?" John asked, struggling to keep pace as Sherlock crossed the lawn in large, angry strides as he marched up to the neighbors' front door.

"I don't, but she will." Sherlock said, his voice oddly tight as he pounded on the door. After a moment, the door opened underneath Sherlock's fist. An extremely thin woman in her late fifties answered the door, a cigarette clasped in her bony fingers. A tiny, yippy little dog barked at them from around her ankles. Wasting no time, Sherlock leaned ridiculously close, unleashing one of his more vicious stares on Mrs. Millan. "Where are the Mullers?" Sherlock demanded, resisting the urge to inhale the second-hand smoke from her cigarette. The woman gaped at him like a fish, her eyes widening in terror for a moment. "Where did they go?" Sherlock very nearly yelled, voice terrible.

"Charley was deployed and he shipped his sister off to this school-" Mrs. Millan babbled frantically, terrified of the imposing man on her doorstep. Sherlock's eyes darkened. Deployed? If Charley truly had been deployed, Felicity was most likely in a year-round boarding school. The idea made him shudder. Sherlock was not unfamiliar with boarding schools; he'd been in plenty. They were the worst places for geniuses like himself and Felicity. They were stifling, resentful, and downright dangerous in the right conditions. The thought of Felicity being in a place like that made him even more furious than before.

"Deployed? Where?" John asked, seeing the almost murderous look on Sherlock's face. His own heart was contracting painfully with the news- Charley and Felicity were separated, most likely for an ungodly amount of time if John's own tour in Afghanistan was anything to go by; he'd been there for three years straight. For a family of two, that was a long, long time.

"Kuwait, I-I think. He kept talking about NATO troops and some weird camp named Doha." Mrs. Millan spit out frantically, eyeing Sherlock uneasily as if she was half considering flicking her hot cigarette ash in his eye. Sherlock retreated from her personal space to draw himself up to his full, intimidating height as his mind raced. The US Army base named Camp Doha was near the Kuwait-Iraq border. It didn't see too much action, but if Charley was being deployed under NATO he could be moved around at any time. Most NATO deployments came quickly and without much warning. Charley most likely received the letter and then had to scramble to make all of the necessary arrangements, leaving poor Felicity no time to do anything more than panic about her brother's departure. Sherlock's pulse increased as his mind flicked back to Mrs. Millan's previous statements about Felicity.

"What school was Felicity sent to?" He barked, and the neighbor cowered slightly at his tone.

"Ruth's Academy for Young Ladies; Charley signed a six year contract." She very nearly whispered. With a low growl, Sherlock whipped out his phone to find out more about the school. John stepped forward, more questions pouring out of him.

"Is that how long his deployment is- six years?" He asked, and Sherlock gave a distressed twitch at the question. He had only been in boarding schools for two years before he tested out, and that time alone had been pure hell. To make matters worse, Felicity would be barred from testing out because the boarding school would be her one and only home until Charley could return. Mrs. Millan looked back and forth from Sherlock to John before answering, still uneasy.

"His letter said three to six I think-" She cowered again as Sherlock made an angry noise as he read information on his phone about the boarding school. Ruth's had a reputation for stringent rules and a hard, forced education. They were a year-round boarding school that put an emphasis on educating. Located in Swindon, the school was purposefully isolated from most of society and was built like a prison. Most children that were sent there were automatically hired into mysterious jobs and positions within governments and corporations, never to be heard of again. John peeked around his arm to read the text on Sherlock's screen and swore under his breath, fists clenching. Sherlock whirled and stalked back towards the car, leaving John to utter a quick explanation to the neighbor before darting after him.

"Now what do we do?" John asked as Sherlock threw the car into drive. Sherlock took a calming breath, his hands tightening on the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white. Internally, he was deathly afraid of losing Felicity. This little misunderstanding had frightened him a lot more than he would admit. It was hard for him to think rationally and put together a plan.

"Obvious. We visit her and find out the whole story." Sherlock said through clenched teeth as he fought to control himself. He knew that the separation from her only family would make Felicity very unhappy in a place that would crush her spirit. Sherlock wanted to prevent the harm he knew would be coming her way so much that he would have run all the way there if that was what it took. Horrible memories of his own childhood and days in boarding school only pushed his urge to protect his friend.

"Right, yeah. I'll call the surgery to take off. Should I phone Mycroft too, ask him if he can send us any details about Charley's deployment? He could probably put a security detail on Charley for us." John brainstormed out loud as he pulled out his mobile. His comment lifted Sherlock out of his black mood slightly and he couldn't help but beam at him. John always knew just what to do- it was refreshing.

"Please," Sherlock requested, keeping his eyes fixed on the road. Panic was still making his heart sing and Sherlock knew that he wouldn't calm down until he was able to see Felicity again. The two men drove for the rest of the day as morning passed into afternoon. It was getting threateningly close to dusk as they finally pulled up the long, unforgiving driveway to Ruth's Academy for Young Ladies. The hedges along the road were high and meticulously trimmed, seemingly resembling a wall. At the end of the drive there was a roundabout. In the middle there was a large, black statue of the Ruth the academy was named for. The roundabout led up to a tall, cast-iron gate that was embedded into concrete walls. The walls seemed to be about five feet thick, with cast-iron fencing along the top to match the gate. The walls surrounded the entire property and were wide enough to allow guards to patrol along the top of the wall, ever watchful for people trying to come in or students trying to get out. Sherlock pulled the car around to a speaker panel by the gate, ever aware that cameras pivoted to follow them. He pushed the intercom button.

"Hello and welcome to Ruth's Academy for Young Ladies. How may I help you, sir?" A snappy, to business voice shot through the speaker immediately.

"Yes, I'm here to visit a student; Felicity Muller." Sherlock said calmly, and he could hear the sound of a keyboard clacking furiously.

"Your relation to the student?" The voice impugned through the speaker.

"Next of kin," Sherlock lied smoothly. He knew that it would be useless to pretend that he and John were related to Felicity, so he was going to try an older, sneakier trick. Next of kin privileges were dictated by will only, and no school that he had ever heard of kept a student's family's will on file. There was a pause.

"There are no next of kin listed for Felicity Georgiana Muller. Please leave at once." The voice ordered, suddenly gaining steel. Sherlock scowled at the speaker, furious that his plan had fallen through.

"Listen- Felicity's brother was recently deployed overseas and my colleague and I are the only friends of the family. The deployment was very sudden and we came to reassure Felicity- we only just heard the news today and came as soon as we could." Sherlock tried the truth next, even letting some sentiment into his tone. There was another pause, and then a sigh.

"Sir, I'm sorry, but this academy's policy clearly states that only family members may contact or visit students. You are not family so you will not be admitted. Please leave." The speaker turned off before Sherlock could threaten and yell at the woman. Frustrated, Sherlock slammed the heel of his hand against the steering wheel, hissing through his teeth. For all of his great charm and power and skill, he couldn't get into a boarding school to see one of his best friends.

"Perhaps Mycroft could do something?" John suggested, glaring at the school off in distance through the gate. It was an unforgiving, multi-story castle of a place. It looked very cold, not at all like a school for young girls.

"Text him, see if he can do anything." Sherlock acquiesced after a moment, too furious to speak at first. Felicity was probably very upset and he could do nothing to help her. John sent off the message, leaving them to wait for a few anxious minutes. Sherlock spent the time staring down the camera with a particularly vicious look until John's phone buzzed. "Well?" Sherlock snapped before John had even opened his phone to check the message.

Despite all of my efforts, there is nothing I can do. –MH

John read off the message and Sherlock snarled under his breath, throwing the car into gear and peeling out. He drove angrily for a long time, John not daring to say anything until Sherlock slowed down to at least ten kilometers within the speed limit. "So what now? We're just going to give up?" John asked, and Sherlock growled under his breath.

"Of course not, John. As soon as we get home I will start finding a way to forge letters from Camp Doha, Kuwait. If the school thinks that the mail coming in is from Charley, we can write to Felicity as often as we need to." Sherlock lay out his plan, his hands flexing and releasing around the steering wheel. He was angry that he was reduced to only letters for communication with Felicity, especially during this rough period of her life. She would need more than a few words on paper to give her the strength to handle the terrors of a boarding school, but that was all he could hopefully give her.

Turns out, he couldn't even do that. Sherlock did days of research, stole, flirted and threatened his way into military ranks, hunted down specific pieces of paper, specific stamps, and specific addresses. He interviewed soldiers and broke back into the Muller's house to find a writing sample of Charley's. He practiced his writing, and created several false letters that seemed to be dead on convincing. The only response he got were letters from the school, telling him that his attempts at contacting a student that wasn't a family member was against the school's policies and that if he continued to try and contact Felicity they would call the police. Sherlock didn't have long to dwell on his loss, however. His next case with a serial bomber brought him face to face with his one enemy, Moriarty, and sufficiently distracted him. Without Felicity's cheerfulness and with the sudden onslaught of Moriarty, Sherlock sank back into the darkest of his moods, his contemplative depression only lifted briefly when he was on cases. In the back of his mind, the moment with John in the taxi lingered, but Sherlock's heart was gone, leaving him to retreat back into his anti-social walls for his own protection. Seeing this disappointed John, but he tried not to give up hope. He could still love his flatmate and, hopefully, his flatmate could still love him even if they weren't pursuing the emotions they'd discovered before.

Two other cases followed, cases that John decided to call A Scandal in Belgravia and The Hounds of Baskerville. He updated his blog frequently and with incredible detail in hopes that Felicity could somehow find a way to find the website. He never mentioned her on the site by name, for her own protection (especially with Moriarty about), and none of the comments that his blog received seemed to suggest that they were from Felicity. After those two cases, Moriarty launched his attack on Sherlock. He stole the crown jewels, broke into the Bank of England, and then organized a prison break at Pentonville. To finish his game, he executed a perfect smear campaign against Sherlock, destroying his reputation. With no other options, Sherlock had to take the fall. Literally.

OoOoOoO

"Oh my god, how stupid," a loud voice sneered, breaking Felicity's concentration. Almost a year had passed since she first arrived at Ruth's Academy for young ladies, and things weren't going well. None of the girls in school liked her. In their first few meetings, they'd thought that she was nice; they had even pitied Felicity for being separated from her brother. However, Felicity couldn't keep her unique brain a secret for very long. She'd answer questions in class, accidently comment on something that she shouldn't have known about, and aced classes that all of her other classmates had problems with. Accusations of cheating flew her way, but when it was obvious that she wasn't a cheater, just brilliant, incredible hate, scorn and jealousy rained down on Felicity.

Her roommates wouldn't live with her. Girls picked fights with her. Things slid downhill so fast that Felicity was given a single room and was advised not to talk to anyone. She was quickly shut out from everyone else, treated as a pariah. The isolation, for someone as bright and cheerful as Felicity, was torture. She found herself retreating into herself, putting on a hard, cold exterior. The happiness left. Felicity focused on her studies instead of having fun or talking with people, so when the loud sneer disrupted the library, her jaw clenched and her head shot up, ready to shoot a vitriolic comment someone's way. She pulled up short, however, when she saw a crowd of girls swarming around Christina Wellembry, her arch enemy. She was sneering down at a trash tabloid as girls peered around her, trying to see. Tabloids were forbidden at Ruth's unless family members brought them to students. If your family sent you any news from the outside world in the mail, you were instantly popular. Felicity's curiosity piqued. She hadn't heard any news from the real world since she started at the school last year. Any news was good news, right?

"Hey, wait a minute…I've seen this headline before…"Wellembry said with mock thoughtfulness, picking up the tabloid and crossing aggressively across the room to where Felicity was sitting, girls scattering out of her way. Wellembry shot her a vicious grin as she stopped in front of her, the other girls crowding around, starting to giggle and snigger. This was their entertainment, and Wellembry never disappointed them. Felicity cocked an eyebrow, sending Wellembry a stare that could freeze a lake. She was ready with a sharp comment to deal with her bully, but after that she never knew what Wellembry would do, and that scared her. She kept her cool glare on as Wellembry launched her attack. "This edition is all about you, Muller! It says 'FAKE GENIUS' right there!" Wellembry said with mock admiration, slamming an edition of The Sun down in front of Felicity. Felicity took one look and froze.

Sherlock was on the front cover.

She snatched up the paper, eyes blowing wide as she absorbed the headline; 'SUICIDE OF FAKE GENIUS'. Her eyes raced over the pictures, the sub-headlines that hinted to a trial, a theft, and an actor, Richard Brook, but none of that mattered. Sherlock was dead. Dead . Why did he kill himself? Where was John- why didn't he stop him? Why didn't Mycroft stop him? Finally, why was the paper calling him a fake? Felicity knew deep in her heart that Sherlock was no fake, so why would he commit suicide? The question why, why, why thrummed in her head as she abruptly stood up, her ice cold façade falling away, emotion roaring up to take its place. Her best friend in the world, Sherlock Holmes, was dead. She wanted to deny it, she wanted to rush to London to find out the truth, but Felicity knew that she was stuck and knew that Sherlock was gone and she couldn't handle that. Before Felicity could stop it, tears sprung from her eyes. She had been hoping that after she got out of Ruth's she could visit Sherlock, possibly train under him to become a detective too, and now she'd never see him again. Without that to look forward to, her stay at Ruth's seemed all the more unbearable. "Aww, did you know that roof-jumping freak? Did you love him?" Wellembry saw the tears, the weakness, and instantly pounced. She had encouraged the nickname 'Robot' for Felicity because normally she could never get a rise out of her. Seeing her victim completely breaking down with very little effort on Wellembry's part brought her immense satisfaction. Giggles erupted all around as more tears boiled over. Felicity left her books in the library and ran unthinkingly, pushing through the crowd and sprinting to her room, tears streaking down her face as she leaved a crowd of girls howling with laughter behind her.

Despair threatened to take over her as she slammed the door to her room shut, locking it. Only when Felicity was alone did she take a few shuddering breaths to force back her tears. Her display of emotion in the library would cost her for possibly the rest of her days at Ruth's- no one would ever let her forget it. She wanted to grieve for Sherlock, she wanted to scream and cry and completely disappear, but she couldn't allow herself that kind of release. Felicity had kept so many things bottled up inside her for this long that adding Sherlock's death would hurt her, but it wouldn't be difficult.

Taking deep breaths, she slid down the back of the door, flipping through the trashy tabloid to get to the story about Sherlock. She had to know what was going on so that she could take every little bit of Sherlock that would cause her sadness and lock it away for as long as she could. There was no question of holding it all inside or not; it was a matter of survival.

OoOoOoO

Sherlock stared out the window mindlessly, looking at the dark clouds that concealed the earth far below him. It had taken an incredible disguise and a bit of forgery to create an entirely new identity, but Sherlock had taken bitter inspiration from how Moriarty seamlessly created Richard Brook to help the detective come up with his new name, new life. His change into a different person was the only reason he was on a flight from London to Bogotá, Colombia.

Moriarty was dead, but his empire of crime remained, stretching across the globe, and it was up to Sherlock to destroy it. The burden seemed ridiculous for one man, and Sherlock would take no joy in mindlessly revealing crime and/or killing criminals when there was no puzzle, no game, and no chase. To make matters worse, there was also no army doctor at his side to help him. Sherlock longed for the long nights spent on cases when the two men would nearly pass out on each other with exhaustion; he missed the frantic chases and sprints through London. The sense of a partnership, the idea that he was not alone had helped Sherlock to become as successful as he had been before Moriarty tore him down. The fact that Moriarty had ruined him so easily and with such willing participation on Sherlock's part made the detective feel sick and fiercely angry. If Sherlock was sure of one thing, it was that he was not going to remain disgraced in the pages of history like Moriarty had planned. Sherlock had worked incredibly hard, through addiction and bad memories to build his name and to move on through life and he was not about to let Moriarty rip his life out of his hands and smash it to pieces.

Sherlock was going to fight.

He was going to destroy every crime syndicate on the planet; he would imprison or kill every single agent that Moriarty had in his web until the lingering threat was gone. Only then would he return home, home to John. The thought of his army doctor made Sherlock's already tender heart burn with pain and sorrow. He didn't want to leave his friend; he didn't want to let him think that he was gone, never to return. Sherlock wanted John; he wanted the life he had with him so much that it hurt. Above all, he wanted to grasp the lingering promise of a relationship with John and tug their emotions and affections out of the shadows once and for all. This separation made it very clear to Sherlock that he had a large amount of sentiment for the doctor, to a point where he had to declare it to be love.

Lurking in the back of his mind, giving him as much inspiration and happiness as it did sadness was his worry for Felicity Muller. His extensive research on Ruth's Academy for Young Ladies revealed that virtually no information about the outside world made it into the Academy; newspapers were forbidden and their internet connections were meticulously censored and monitored. Sherlock wanted to believe that Felicity would never find out about his death because of her isolation, but at the same time he knew better than to sell Felicity that short on her intelligence. He was certain that she would learn of his passing, whether that would be through spoken word when her brother came to visit or in a way that was infinitely more devious. Sherlock missed her mischievous nature, her happiness, her desire to learn and expand her intelligence. He missed how she always seemed to reflect his own ways back to himself and how, through it all, she was reminder to remain inquisitive, to remain happy and safe. She was his sun, his reminder that emotion and sentiment could exist alongside logic and reason.

With John and Felicity in mind, Sherlock went to Bogotá; he traveled all over the world. He lost weight, gained it back and lost it again. He dyed his hair, cut it short and added extensions to blend into his ever changing landscape. His body, his shell, may have morphed to fit his needs, but he remained true on the inside through fights and cold lonely nights and danger. A year passed as Sherlock kept fighting on. He busted drug rings, smuggling rings, and sex traffickers. He ousted spies, killed operatives, and went about the world ripping down Moriarty's web. Thanks to his self-sacrificing work, he got closer and closer to the center, where Moriarty himself used to sit. His second in command, a colonel by the name of Sebastian Moran had taken over for him, but with Sherlock's ruthless need to return home and to destroy what had destroyed him, the inexperienced sniper had no chance in holding up Moriarty's legacy. The only thing the colonel seemed to be good at was hiding. Sherlock came close to ending him over five times, and each time Moran managed to escape.

After taking out the very last syndicate in Moriarty's web, all Sherlock had left to do was to hunt down Sebastian Moran. To his surprise, fear and great joy, his last enemy had decided to return to London. Sherlock had been dying to go back, to rejoin his family and to reclaim his title as the world's only consulting detective, but part of him was afraid that Moran was only going back to London as a preemptive strike against Sherlock. The detective feared that Moran's reason for returning to England was to kill everyone Sherlock had ever loved. To ensure that their deaths would NEVER happen on Moran's account, Sherlock had no choice: he would have to return to London and he would have to reveal himself to his friends and family, to warn them of the danger they might be in. If he was honest with himself, he could use their help, especially John's…if his old flatmate would ever accept him again. That lingering fear, that everyone he had ever deceived wouldn't take him back, frightened Sherlock to a point where he had to force himself to think of something else to preserve his sanity. This fight, this mission- it had all been for them, his sacrifice was to ensure their safety. The idea of Sherlock being rejected for protecting his loved ones threatened to make him almost physically sick with worry.

Sherlock plotted with that fear in mind, determined to break the news that he was alive slowly and easily, to ease the idea back into the minds of his loved ones. To do this, Sherlock knew just the person that everyone would trust, that everyone had always loved and accepted without question; Felicity Muller. If Felicity arrived at Baker Street and told John and Mrs. Hudson of his survival, he hoped that he could keep as much pain out their lives as possible. Sherlock wasn't just going to Felicity to use her, either. Sherlock needed human contact; he needed someone he could trust at his side as he made his return because he didn't think that he could handle it alone. If there was one person who could help him through that emotion, it was his sun.

So Sherlock returned to England under a fake name, under a disguise, and traveled in secret to Ruth's Academy for Young Ladies, determined to break in with the sole purpose of seeing Felicity Muller after almost four years apart.

After parking his car far away from the west side of the property, Sherlock snuck through the forest surrounding the school until he reached the high, unforgiving cement wall that separated him from Ruth's Academy. It didn't take him long to find a few niches that he could use to climb up. The security at the school was still ridiculously tight, but once the guard patrolling the west side of the fence moved on, Sherlock could cut across the pathway on top of the wall and drop down to the other side. Once in, he skirted across the grounds, staying low and in cover before reaching the actual castle-like structure that was the school. Sherlock was more than aware of the fact that he was working at a disadvantage by breaking in during the day, but once he found a spot to hide until night fell, he'd be fine. He stealthily circled the building, looking for the best spot to enter and settled on the janitorial offices as his best chance of remaining hidden.

He picked the lock on the window with ease and folded his long body almost completely in half to get through the opening. Once inside, he shut and locked the window exactly the way it had been before surveying his options on places to hide.

OoOoOoO

A/N: I'm back! I'm sorry that this update is so short and moves so fast but I wanted to give you an update while moving the story along to more exciting things. I'm also sorry about dumping more angsty whumpage on you, but things will get better in the next chapter, ok? I have a lot of things to be sorry about- ESPECIALLY the fact that in some of your reviews you said that I made you cry! I feel awful yet giddy about that at the same time- so sorry for that too. There's plenty more to come, so stay tuned!

All of the love in the universe to my beta, louisuperwholocked on Tumblr! Thanks for putting up with my bullshit formatting!