Author's note: Three chapters to go! There will be an epilogue too!

Apologies in advance for my mistakes. Thanks for reading and please, review!

"Alkaline."

"Thank you, John."

"Molly."

"Yes."

This case was far too good to waste time and sources. Chalk, asphalt, brick dust and vegetation. That was all he had and yet he couldn't just get the last one. Glycerol molecules?

"I... owe... you."

Molly turned to him confusedly. "What did you mean, 'I owe you'? You said, 'I owe you'. You were muttering it while you were working."

Sherlock noticed John was moving across the lab to get something from is jacket. "Nothing. Mental note."

"You're a bit like my dad. He's dead - No, sorry -"

"Molly, please don't feel the need to make conversation. It's really not your area."

Molly continued even though she wished she hadn't said a word. "When he was... dying, he was always cheerful. He was lovely, except when he thought no one could see. I saw him once. He looked sad."

"Molly -"

"You look sad when you think he can't see you." She said, her eyes on John. She suddenly noticed Sherlock was no longer focused on the microscope but his eyes were on John, on the man Molly considered was Sherlock's friend, flatmate, maybe something more. "Are you okay?"

But Sherlock had nothing to say. Maybe he had but he chose not to say it. No one, no one in this world could possibly understand what was happening inside him, around them. Mycroft didn't get it. John, the centre of all of this would never understand. John, who was that someone Sherlock had never been looking for but suddenly appeared, was the reason why Sherlock was doing all of this.

John.

John, who was the man Sherlock loved was also his adoptive brother. But there was more than that. John was his brother too. Biologically speaking, John and he shared the same blood.

What Sherlock wanted to have with all his heart, with all his being could never be his. Because what Sherlock wanted was John's heart, soul, love, body, mind. Sherlock wanted to possess everything that made John Watson but he couldn't. Those lips he had kissed long time ago would never be his again because those lips belonged to a man who was his brother.

And it hurt.

The only thing that comforted Sherlock in his moments of solitude, when the lights at 221 B were off, when there was no one else but himself inside his room was the thought that soon everything was going to come to an end and everyone soon would be safe.

That's the way his parents wanted it. Sherlock remembered the moment his Mummy died. She made their father promise he would look after them. Nothing could Father do because John left to Afghanistan and the drugs destroyed the young man whose wish was to become a detective. However, now Sherlock realised after so long that his Father wanted to tell them the truth but never got the chance. Or maybe he never wanted to admit to his sons, Mycroft and Sherlock, that he betrayed their mother and the child he brought one day 'just because' was no one else but his own biological son, his bastard, the child he thought he would never meet, raise, love.

Before Sherlock could say anything, Molly cut him off. "And don't just say you are, because I know what that means, looking sad when you think no one can see you."

"You can see me."

"I don't count."

There was a silence in which the only thing both could hear was John going through some papers.

"What I'm trying to say is that, if there's anything I can do, anything you need, anything at all, you can have me - No, I just mean... I mean if there's anything you need - It's fine."

"What could I need from you?"

Molly looked at him. "Nothing. dunno. You could probably say thank you, actually."

"Thank you." He said, hesitantly.

"I'm just gonna go and get some crisps. Do you want anything?" She waited for an answer, but she quickly turned back to the door. "It's okay, I know you don't."

"Well, actually, maybe I'll -"

"I know you don't."

She left.

This reminded him of those maids he never liked. There was one who Sherlock had long time ago erased, deleted from his brain. Still, even when that maid had no name for him, Sherlock could remember her tender face, her sweet voice when she asked whether he or John or both wanted or needed anything. John liked her, that he could remember.

Mummy had strictly instructed every person working at the house not to talk to the children unless necessary. To them the personnel were outsiders, even though they lived in the house. He could walk all around the house while the maids cleaned and they would never glance at him, nor dare to look at him. Strict orders, that's the way Mummy put it once. She said you ought to be strict with those people, but also nice and polite because after all they were cleaning the house, keeping the grass short, driving them to the city and cooking for them.

That maid John was so fond of played with them when there was no one else to play with them. Sherlock remembered once being called a 'nice little boy' by her, after he helped her to set the table for tea. He would have never done such thing, having been born in a wealthy family with enough money to hire the large personnel working for them. But John once said, and this Sherlock could remember, that that girl, that young girl Sherlock was sure was no less than eighteen, reminded him his own sister Harriet.

Harriet. Sherlock often wondered if John visited her now, as he used to do when both were in university. The detective wondered if John had already told her about him, that they were living together and that he 'didn't know' they were brothers. Adoptive brothers. John still didn't know and Sherlock knew he would never know the truth. John would never know he's Father's bastard, that he's indeed a Holmes.

That they are brothers.

"Sherlock."

John's voice brought him back to reality. "Hmm?"

John presented him an envelope found at the missing boy's trunk and another one he had found early at their doorstep. Both had the same seal and inside the one John found at their doorstep, breadcrumbs.

"A little trace of breadcrumbs... hardback copy of fairy tales. Two children led into the forest by a wicked father follow a little trail of breadcrumbs."

"That's 'Hansel and Gretel'. What sort of kidnapper leaves clues?"

"The sort that likes to boast. The sort that thinks it's all a game. He sat in our flat and he said these exact words to me."

It wasn't difficult to find the exact location of the factory where Sherlock knew the kidnapper had the missing children. What was really difficult was to avoid everyone's faces once the children were safe at the Scotland Yard and the little girl cried when she saw him.

Everything was going according to the plan.

Sherlock knew the end was so close that he could already feel it, sense it, taste it.

Bitter-sweet.

Jim was getting into everyone. John was telling Lestrade about how children deal with the stress after such situations like this one. All Sherlock could hear was nothing, utterances which had no sense to him until Sally approached him.

Sally's mind was already contaminated with Moriarty's idea.

And Sherlock wondered if John would fall for that lie too.

"You okay?"

"John..."

John looked at him expectantly.

Something inside Sherlock made him hesitate.

And he was to regret this moment for the rest of his life.

"Sherlock, you okay?" John repeated the question.

There was something wrong in the way John pronounced his name. It sounded so - unfamiliar.

"Thinking." As soon as the cab pulled up, Sherlock opened the door and got in. "This is my cab. You get the next one."

"Why?"

"You might talk."