It wasn't until they were out on the street that John realized several things.
1) His head was positively THROBBING.
2) He didn't know where he was, or whose kitchen he had just plundered.
3) He had, very recently, until just a few minutes ago, in fact, been kidnapped.
4) He was exhausted.
It surprised him, actually, when his hand started to shake and his head started throbbing and he actually felt the adrenaline rush leave him in what felt like a tingling exhaustion from his head to his toes, and Sherlock had to reach out to steady him as he asked, "Ah, where are we?"
"David's house," Sherlock said, and John regained his balance and pulled himself off her.
"Right," he said, blinking. "I need someone to check my pupils, please."
"Oh, please, John, you're not showing any signs of a concussion, I was looking," Sherlock scoffed. "I'll wake you up tonight if you want, but your pupil responses are just fine and you weren't showing any signs of disorientation."
"Ah. Well," he said, and looked at Lestrade. "Thanks for that, by the way," he said, gesturing toward the house, and Lestrade shrugged.
"I didn't do much, to be honest," he said. "I just followed the crazy one." He nodded toward Sherlock.
"Well, thanks anyway. Thanks Sherlock," he muttered, and Sherlock rolled her eyes and put up a hand for a taxi, which magically appeared. Yep, John was certain Mycroft had them waiting around corners.
"Do you want to come home for a cuppa?" John offered in front of the taxi, but Lestrade looked at his watch.
"Actually, I think I'd better check in at the Met - Sally's not going to be happy that this case is off our hands."
"Idiot," Sherlock muttered.
"But, to be honest," Lestrade said, stretching, "I'll be glad for the sleep."
John froze for a moment, remembering his phone call this morning, and wondering if Sherlock's brother really could manipulate things that well. In the end he decided he didn't want to know.
"Take this taxi, Sherlock will get us another one," he said instead, and Sherlock glared at him, but Lestrade gave him a tired nod and got in, closing the door behind him. No sooner had the one taxi pulled out than another came round the corner, and John grinned. Mycroft.
"I'm counting on you to explain half of what just happened, you know," he complained to Sherlock as he got in the car, and Sherlock looked at him - almost confused, he thought, but that didn't make sense, since Sherlock knew everything - and nodded slowly a moment later, then pushed her stray curls behind her ear and stared out the window, and John let the exhaustion wash over him on the way home.
When they got home, John collapsed on the couch, ignoring his primal instinct to make tea the moment he walked in the door.
"You're going to explain what's happening," he ordered Sherlock grumpily. "I'm not incredibly happy right now, in case you haven't noticed."
Sherlock rolled her eyes and perched on the chair across from him. "Where do you want me to start?"
John blinked at her. "Start from the part I don't remember."
"I hope you realize I don't know precisely when you were knocked unconscious, John," Sherlock said, but she tucked a curl behind her ear and started anyway.
"You went in to the Dreamers office, but failed to come out after a while. Lestrade and I went in after you, and Ms. Pillington said you'd met someone inside and had gone with them - except I know you better than that," Sherlock grinned, "so of course I assumed something had happened. It didn't take long to piece things together. She had a photo of the family on her desk - Timmy, her husband, the baby, and herself; the husband, as you know, is in heaven, according to Timmy, so what happened to him? A quick search of recent newspaper databases on my phone revealed he'd been killed in an car crash, with the other party suffering brain damage. The photo of the other person cleared things up considerably," she said, flipping her phone at him, and John caught it and looked at the screen to see a picture of David.
"I don't understand," he confessed, and Sherlock played with a curl as she explained.
"She was setting him up. She planned the murders - the victims had to be clean so the clues would eventually point to David. She told him the clues to leave behind, encouraged his mania with more anti-depressants so he was incredibly suggestible, and coached him through the processes. He believed his dreams were telling him what to do; that they were ordering him to murder. She, in the meantime, simply wanted him to get caught - to ruin his life the way he had ruined hers. If it had gone on much longer she probably would have put an anonymous tip in to Scotland Yard. Anyway, we got David's address easily enough, and there you were. I didn't think it would be that simple, but Lestrade said we should try there first. He was a doctor before the brain damage, so that explains his knowledge of anatomy, he subconsciously knew the best place to strike. But most of the forensic cleanup was Ms. Pillington's work, trying to make sure there was no way we could accidentally trace the crimes to her."
"That's horrible," John murmured, staring at the photo of David, who had been so vulnerable in the end. "Not the finding me bit," he hastened to add, "but the part where she was setting him up."
"Yes, well, there's one piece I still don't understand," Sherlock frowned. "He shouldn't have been so pliant for you, John, I mean, you should have had little to no hold over him, and yet somehow you managed to control him easily."
John blinked up at her. "I'm a doctor," he said, and pulled up the dream dictionary on her phone, tossing it over to her. "I'm meant for healing, and he was sad. He believed me when I said I could help."
Sherlock looked at the dream dictionary, reading the description. "So you used the psychosis Ms. Pillington had created in order to help him." She actually seemed impressed.
John rolled his eyes at her. "Obvious," he said, then his eyebrows furrowed as he thought of something. "Wait a second, you were wrong."
"What?" Sherlock asked quickly.
"Oh, well, there's always something," John teased, stretching out a bit on the sofa.
"No, what did I get wrong, John. John?"
"Well, you said he was confident, and smart, but that wasn't David. That was Ms. Pillington," John pointed out with a smile, and Sherlock frowned.
"Tea?" She changed the subject, and John grinned.
"You're making tea?" he asked, and she made a dismissive gesture.
"I've done it before," she pointed out, "I'm just hoping that if I do it enough you'll let me use that spare corner of your freezer."
John pursed his lips. "I suppose you're going to use it whether or not I let you?"
Sherlock grinned mischievously at him, and left for the kitchen without answering. John sighed. He'd probably find a bag full of fingers in the freezer later. He wondered what it said about his sanity that he was starting not to question it.