AN:

Good morning everyone!

Before you read the chapter, I have to warn you: torture. Not a great deal of it and not really depictive, but there is.

You have been warned.

Nevertheless, thank you all for your constant support. I love you all!

They jumped into a police car and Lestrade started to drive as fast as he could. The ride to Sherlock's flat filled John with memories of the last time he had been there. Christmas evening. He could remember it perfectly: the desire of seeing Sherlock and the disappointment of not having found him at home. Oceans had passed under the bridge of his life since then. Oceans of pain, loss, suffering. Oceans of hope, joy, love. And there was another ocean made by desperation and fear. What could they do? What if it was already too late?

He was trying to keep a straight face in front of the DI, but metre by metre John found it harder and harder. His heart was hammering inside his chest and his echo resounded in John's ears that much that even if Lestrade was talking to him, he could barely catch some word amid the noise of his worry.

They arrived at 221B Baker Street fifteen minutes later, with Lestrade swearing against the goddamn traffic of Monday morning. At the sight of the blue door, John felt weak.

The DI knocked at the door and three seconds later the same old lady John had met on Christmas day appeared at the threshold.

"Lestrade! Any news?", she asked in an overly worried tone.

Lestrade shook his head sadly.

"Mrs. Hudson,", he then continued "this is John Watson, he's…"

"Sherlock's friend.", the old lady answered, stretching his arm to shake John's hand "We've already met. But nice to know your name."

John nodded and greeted the woman with a half-smile.

"Nice to meet you too, Mrs. Hudson."

Lestrade gave him a puzzled look while they started to climb upstairs.

"We'll be in Sherlock's flat to see if we can find some clues.", shouted the DI.

"I hope you will, dear.", Mrs. Hudson answered from below "I hope you will find Sherlock soon."

"We will.", John found himself answering, then lowered his voice, as he was speaking only to himself "I will find you for sure, Sherlock."

When John entered Sherlock's flat, he had a fit. He had already been inside once, but somehow the memory of the day when he had been dragged there by Sherlock because of his drunkenness had faded away. But now it hit him as if someone had just punched him right in his stomach. Obviously the night he had been drunk he hadn't had the chance to take a look at the flat around him. Yet bits of memories of the place started to fill his mind.

He remembered the windows on the opposite wall, dusky back then and extremely bright now. He remembered the corridor that led to the bathroom to his left, a blurry idea of a narrow passage back then and a comfortable place now. He remembered the sofa where Sherlock had been sitting, a dark shape in the darkness back then and a shining brown leather one now in the light of the day. It was all different and all the identical at the same time. There was John Watson walking in it in two different moments of his life, but those two moments intertwined as he took his first steps. The past and the present joined together by Sherlock Holmes.

Lost in his thoughts, he barely heard the DI speaking.

"You've already been there, then."

"W-what? Sorry, I wasn't following…"

"You've already been there. You know Mrs. Hudson."

"Yes. I told you about it, remember? The night when I've been drunk and Sherlock…", he sighed at the name "…sort of took care of me."

"Oh yes. Sorry, I had totally forgotten about that."

"Well, it wasn't very important. I came here a second time, though.", he smiled.

"When?", asked the DI while leaning on a table with piles of documents.

"On Christmas…I wanted to…", he cleared his throat "…wish him a merry Christmas. He wasn't in and that's when I met Mrs. Hudson."

Lestrade gave him a questioning look, but smiled.

John couldn't just tell Lestrade that he had come to Baker Street because Sherlock had given him a gun as a Christmas present and he had wanted to see the young man because he was in love with him. Mainly because it wasn't really the best moment to say that, but also because he didn't want Lestrade to die of heart failure right in front of his eyes. He held back a giggle at the thought. God, he didn't mean to think about such a silly thing in a such dark moment, but he eventually realised that it was his nervousness coming out. He was as tense as a violin string and he felt like he couldn't keep all his emotions inside anymore. He wanted to laugh, to cry, to scream, to stay silent, to run, to jump at the same time. He wanted the anguish he was feeling trapped inside his heart erupt in those gestures. Instead he stayed motionless looking around the room.

There was chaos. No, chaos wasn't the correct term for it. It was more than chaos. He suddenly found himself asking how such a great mind like Sherlock's could live in such a confusion. There were things everywhere: documents, files, papers, boxes, plastic bags, cushions. And he was sure that it had been tidier when he had been there the first time. Maybe it was so chaotic because he had been on a case and he had no time to clean it up.

"Here are the papers I gave him.", said Lestrade interrupting once again his thoughts.

John approached and noticed a great ensemble of lab equipment on the kitchen table.

"I think we'll have to reread them all,", went on the DI "since Sherlock probably got his name from these."

"We aren't him.", said John, slightly discouraged, suddenly aware that neither him nor Lestrade had the young man's brain.

"Yes, but we are two and we can't give up, right?"

"Obviously we can't give up.", and he smiled faintly to the DI.

It was so blatant to John that, despite everything they were doing in that moment, both of them were going through various states of mind. They were mostly desperately trying to persuade themselves that they would've been able to track down the man. They desired it with all their hearts. Yet at the same time they were well conscious that they probably had a very small chance. It was a game of nerves and it was like going on a rollercoaster. The more time passed, the less the chances. Lestrade handed him a bunch of files. John took them and sat on the armchair, starting to read the first page. It was the transcription of an interrogatory. He read through it.

The questioned man had stated that he didn't know the real name of the drug dealer called the Viper. He had stated he had never seen him directly. He had stated that he didn't know he was that dangerous. John had never seen a sequence of lies that clear. How could one be a pusher and have never seen the person who supplied him? He was sure that he would've talked soon if the police had interrogated him one more time. But he had been killed the following day. How that could have happened, no one seemed to know. John turned to Lestrade, who was reading another file.

"How is this possible?"

The DI furrowed.

"I mean: a prisoner gets killed in jail and nobody saw anything. And he was alone in his cell the whole night! And the CCTV didn't register anything either…how can something like this happen?"

Lestrade heavily sighed.

"I suspect there's a mole in Scotland Yard. And probably one of the guards of the prison, if not more than one, is on Viper's pay roll."

John gawked.

"It's not that rare. Especially with someone like him.", the DI explained, shrugging his shoulders "That's why I preferred staying here instead that at Scotland Yard. One can never know."

"Don't you trust your own squad?", asked John.

"I do and I don't. Most of them are over-qualified people I trust with my life, but I do wonder sometimes…"

And he glanced down at the files, resuming his reading. John understood and took the second document.

This time it was the description of one of the four killings of the policemen. Just the report of it made John shiver. He was found with his throat cut from side to side and his stomach sliced open. Christ. And Sherlock was in the hands of such a bloody psychopath, ready to do everything to keep his drug dealing business safe. He felt like he was going to vomit his soul. Abruptly he got up and went to the bathroom. He took a handful of water from the sink and splashed it on his face. Sherlock in the hands of a criminal, Sherlock in pain, Sherlock dead. That was what all his mind was able to process.

Stop it. Damn, STOP IT. Shut up!

He yelled at his thoughts to silence them. Sherlock was in the hands of a criminal, yes. But he was Sherlock and surely he wasn't dead. No, he wasn't dead. He was alive. He was sure of that. Despite his whole body shaking, he managed to calm himself down once more. He returned to the living room white as a sheet. Lestrade gave him a look, but said nothing. John knew he understood.

He took the file back in his hands and continued to read.

By midday he had read dozens of files and everything didn't seem to have any sense at all. If Sherlock had guessed the name from them, John couldn't really realise how. To him they were just a bunch of useless information around nothing.

"Got anything?", he asked Lestrade at some point.

"Not really. The more I read these, the more I think we have got nothing."

"Maybe Sherlock knew something and he didn't tell you."

"Could be. But he was very meticulous this time. He had always been in contact with me and called me every time he needed some more information or had questions. So everything he had is here."

John took another file. Later there was a knock at the door.

"Can I come in?", Mrs. Hudson asked.

"Of course.", answered John.

The old lady entered the flat with a tray with two sandwiches and two glasses of water.

"I thought you two might be hungry.", she said as she put down the food on the coffee table next to John.

John wasn't really hungry, but he thanked the woman nevertheless. She smiled happily and bolted off. Lestrade took a sandwich in his hand and began to eat it voraciously. Yet he didn't stop looking at the paper he was reading.

"Hungry?", John asked to Lestrade, putting down another file and taking up the next one.

"Starving. I haven't eaten for...some fifteen hours."

The DI ended up eating John's lunch too. John couldn't care. His stomach wouldn't have accepted anything.

The afternoon passed slowly. John read all the possible files, discussed with Greg about all the possibilities, but neither of them came up with something even slightly useful. Everything seemed to bring to a dead end. Around three o'clock it had seemed they had had something concrete. Some homeless people had been questioned about the killing of a policeman that had happened in a dark alley one year before. One of them had described a suspicious person that had often come there, but he couldn't give an accurate description of him. The only thing he remembered was that he had very long hands with a ring in the shape of a snake. They had guessed that, probably, his nickname came from there. They tried to think how they could find someone with that ring, but it was impossible. Millions of Londoners and non could have a similar ring. They felt discouraged one more time.

In the evening Mrs. Hudson came up with some turkey and salad and placed it on the coffee table. John looked at it in silence. Neither him nor the DI ate this time. They just kept reading and reading and reading. Nothing. They had nothing. John could quote half of the files by heart and there was nothing useful in them. Not a single word that could have helped them.

And time passed. And Sherlock was still in the hands of that criminal. And John was at a loss with himself.

At ten o'clock, after having read the same file for the third time, he raised his head to speak to Lestrade.

"This is… madness. There's nothing on this. Whatever Sherlock got, I don't know…"

The DI didn't answer and it took John some seconds to notice that the other man had fallen asleep on the chair he was sitting on. He was softly snoring. John couldn't blame him. He had probably been awake for four days and the tension had been killing him. He, himself, was more than exhausted. Nevertheless he didn't want to fall asleep and thus decided to go for a walk.

Outside, the weather was still nice. A fresh breeze welcomed him and drove away some of his drowsiness. He started to roam around Baker Street, not wanting to go too far away from it, in case Lestrade texted or called him with some news.

He felt useless. Sherlock was somewhere in London, probably hurt or worse (no, he had already told himself that he shouldn't think about that option), and he, John Watson, was simply walking to and fro in almost empty streets. He didn't want to meet people, so he carefully avoided the crowded places and kept on walking. What were they missing? Because it was obvious that he and Lestrade were missing something. Did Sherlock know something that made him understand the name of the drug dealer? Something not incredibly immediate, something subtle, something that only Sherlock could have guessed. He sighed. He was no Sherlock. Yet he had to try. He stopped in the middle of the road.

"Think, John, think!", he said aloud "You're missing something, something obvious, something you saw on those files, but you didn't pay attention…"

He read mentally most of the files one more time. Nothing.

"No, there must be something. There must be.", he forced himself "What Sherlock always says?"

You see, but you don't observe.

The words appeared in his brain like they were sculpted in gold.

"I saw. I saw something. I didn't observe. Something that caught my attention. But I saw it, I didn't observe. Observe now, John! For the fuck's sake, observe!"

The document on which he had stopped. The one and only detail they had about the possible identity of the Viper. The ring. A silver ring. A silver ring in the shape of a snake. A silver ring with eyes made of diamonds. No, wait. In the report there hadn't been written anything about eyes made of diamonds. Then why he had just imagined it? Maybe he was fantasising, maybe he was starting to see things that didn't exist, hoping they were clues. Except that he could figure out how the ring was quite well. Long, lean slightly tanned fingers. A ring on the middle. It was not a silver ring, it was a white gold one. With diamonds as eyes. He had seen it. He wasn't just imagining. He had seen it. Somewhere in the back of his head, something snapped: a hand with that ring on a white tablecloth, a candle in the middle of the table. Laura. Laura Collins had a snake-shaped ring. A white gold snake-shaped ring. A white gold snake-shaped ring with diamonds.

No, it couldn't be. It wasn't the same ring. He was just going crazy. Yet there was something else. Something wrong in the whole scheme. Something he…hadn't observed. The clothes. Expensive clothes. Laura had very expensive clothes. Too expensive for a young teacher like her. And she had got many of them. No, it couldn't be. It just couldn't be.

Yet he was already hailing a taxi to his flat. He needed the gun.

During the ride his thoughts span so fast he couldn't follow them anymore. Laura Collins was the boss of one of the greatest drug dealing traffic in the whole London area. Impossible. Still, the more John Watson thought about it, the more it became the truth. He could have been wrong, but it was the only thing he had. Probably Sherlock had remembered it too, probably he had thought about it for a whole day, probably she had kidnapped him. They had all supposed that the Viper was a man. Fools. A viper could have only been a woman. Now he had to think about where she could have brought him. At her flat? No, too obvious. Far too obvious.

"Think, John, think!", he repeated.

The cabby gave him a puzzled look from the rear-view mirror.

And just as he had got the ring part, he had got the place. Laura owned a small house in Essendon, inheritance from her grandmother. She had spoken about it during one of their dates. She had said that nobody lived there anymore and that it was empty and almost in ruin. She had even said the address. If he were right, Sherlock would be there. Hopefully alive.

As the taxi stopped, he rushed upstairs, took the gun from the drawer in his bedroom and got into the taxi again. He gave the cabby the address. One hour at least to get there. He hoped for the traffic to not be chaotic, he hoped for the taxi to go at the speed of the light, he hoped for the time to stop. Because the clock was still ticking. Lost in his fears and in his anxiety, he had completely forgotten to inform Lestrade.

He remembered it all of a sudden when he was already two metres away from the house. He quickly texted the address to the DI, for he didn't want to make the minimum amount of noise. His experience at war would have proven useful in this situation. He entered the house without waiting the DI's answer. He carefully moved in the darkness. He heard a voice. Laura's voice. If, until that moment, he had still his doubts, now everything became the reality. She was upstairs and talking with someone who was not answering.

"Haven't you suffered enough yet?"

John held his breath while slowly and silently climbing the steps.

"I'm asking you!", she yelled "Haven't you suffered enough yet, Holmes?"

"No.", came a firm, yet broken answer.

Sherlock's voice. John's heart almost collapsed. Whatever was happening he had come on time. Sherlock was alive. He stepped the last step of the stairs. In the room on the left he saw the dark figure of Laura. She had her back turned away from John. He could see her blonde hair. Her damn blonde long hair. She was leaning, a knife in her hand, on a lightened up pale figure tied up to a chair. Sherlock.

The sight of him in that situation made John suffer. He was paler than usual and he seemed somehow older. His dark curls were flat around his face and his eyes were half-shut. John could hear his irregular breath too. But what shocked John the most was Sherlock's chest. The shirt was open and rolled to the elbows, different cuts were visible on the pale skin. John's anger rose and rose at every cut or bruise he could spot Sherlock's body.

"You…you're the origin of everything…", she kept on.

Her voice was so different now, John thought, it wasn't sugary and soft. It was cold, dead cold.

"You sent the man I loved to prison, you made me suffer..."

"He deserved to go to prison…", Sherlock smiled wickedly "He is a criminal!"

Slap. Laura slapped him with her hand. A small drop of blood ran on Sherlock's cheek. John froze.

"But I didn't know who you were back then…I didn't know who sent him to prison three years ago…I took his place as the Viper…I was good, very good…"

"Hadn't we had this conversation other three times in these days? It's getting boring…", Sherlock teased.

John thought for a second whether Sherlock was completely mad or what. He was literally provoking her. Yet he was still alive. John was almost paralysed.

"Silence!", she shouted "The business grew. I made friends, important friends. It was all going so well. But I didn't have a name. I didn't have the name of the man that imprisoned my Al. I had to keep up with the appearance. Chemistry professor. Perfect. I could experiment with new drugs and I was above any suspect…it was so unrewarding…two years like that…faking and pretending…"

"You were a great actress…"

God, Sherlock, close your damn mouth. John should have shot. Yet he couldn't. He kept listening.

"Then I found a good man. John. I thought that I could have changed for him. I liked him…", she said in a sort of chant "…but a man called Sherlock Holmes took him away! You took him away too! Still, I didn't know who you were…"

"You could've asked…"

Slap. Another hit. Sherlock coughed and some blood came out from his mouth.

"…so I became crueller, more vicious…people needed to suffer as I did…", she hissed, but still in a lulling tone "…then someone advised me that the police was trying to get the Viper…they called a detective to investigate…and then I discovered it was the same detective that had sent to prison my Al, the same that had taken John from me…you!"

"Are we done?"

Slap. This one hit harder. Sherlock turned his face.

"I'm going to make you suffer…slowly…I'm going to make you pay for everything…"

And she moved the knife closer to the body of Sherlock. It was the moment when John finally managed to move. It took him a great effort to make his legs cooperate. He took three steps, but a board of the floor creaked. Before John could notice, Laura had turned to him, pulled out a gun and shot. John barely managed to avoid the bullet by completely leaning on the wall. At the same time Sherlock took his chance. John didn't know how, but he managed to stand up and take a step towards her. She noticed the movement and pointed the gun directly to Sherlock. And shot.

Everything happened in slow-motion. The bullet exiting from the silver gun, the bullet hitting Sherlock in his shoulder , Sherlock falling down on his back on the ground.

All John heard was the bang of the bullet, the sensation of the cold metal cutting through the live flesh, his voice screaming.

"Sherlock!"

He didn't think. Before she could even turn, John had already shot two times. She dropped on the floor, dead. John almost didn't realise what he had just done. He ran to Sherlock, already with the phone in his hand.

He knelt on the floor. Sherlock was lying there, blood exiting from the wound, but still alive. He mentally cursed himself for not having called Lestrade first. But it was no time for remorse.

"Sherlock!", he shouted "Are you alright?"

Stupid question, he intimately smacked himself for having even thought about it. The young man slightly opened his eyes.

"Yes…I'm…fine…", he tentatively answered, smirking.

"You aren't fine…", John smiled back, caringly, a tear running down his face "But don't worry, I'm calling an ambulance now. Everything will be fine."

And he quickly started to tap the nine-nine-nine on the phone.

"No, John, please!", came the cracked, but firm voice of the young man.

"What?"

"Not the…ambulance…", Sherlock groaned in pain.

"Sherlock, you have a bullet in your shoulder…it's really not the time to have a tantrum!"

And he pressed his left hand on the wound, trying to slow the bleeding down, while he called the A&E.

"Emergency at 7 Rectory Close, Essendon. Wounded man. Bullet in his left shoulder. I'm a doctor…but be quick! The man is debilitated too and needs immediate help!", he yelled , quite panicking.

When he closed the call, Sherlock was still looking at him.

"It's always the left…", he groaned, while trying to smile.

"Yes.", was all John could answer.

Sherlock closed his eyes.

"No, Sherlock. Don't close your eyes.", he said and slowly caressed Sherlock's curls "Stay with me, listen to my voice!"

He reopened the eyes and looked at John. Sirens, sirens in the distance. John sighed.

"I don't like…hospitals…", the young man lamented.

"I know, Sherlock, I know. But you need it now. Trust me."

The blood of the young man was burning like fire on John's hand. He could feel the pulse slowing down and the sticky sensation of the red liquid. He exhaled.

"I…trust you, John.", said Sherlock, firmly this time "Thanks."

"For what?", smiled John, crying.

"For having come.", he murmured in a feeble whisper "You always do."

"Of course I do, you daft."

Then Sherlock passed out and John panicked.

AN pt.2: Do you believe that the second time I re-read it I had sad music playing in the backround and I cried when Sherlock and John spoke at the end? These two will be the death of me.