Sherlock feels well enough to go to school the next day, Thursday, which is good because he knows how much he needs to work on his project to pass anatomy. Though he got a lot done at home the day before, he still needs to meet with Danielle for her instruction.

Sherlock manages to forget about the nightmare during school. The day passes without any sort of odd incidents and by the time the day is over, he's ready to go to Danielle's house to work.

He agrees to walk with Danielle because she lives nearby, and as they're leaving the grounds, Jack catches up to them.

"What have you losers got on today?" Jack asks, circling them on his bicycle.

Danielle huffs. "We're going to work on our project."

"Hey, as long as it gets me an 'A', I don't care whose project it is."

Danielle rolls her eyes. "That didn't even make sense."

Sherlock doesn't say anything, he just watches closely to make sure Jack doesn't do anything stupid.

"Nothin' from you, Holmes?" Jack asks. He stops his bike right in front of Sherlock.

Sherlock shakes his head.

Jack smiles. "Good. See ya around."

With that, he rides away, and Sherlock and Danielle share the same look of annoyance.

They continue walking, and only seconds later Sherlock's phone vibrates in his pocket.

From Unknown: You know I could get rid of him for you.

Sherlock stops instantly, looking around in paranoia. He doesn't see Ben, but obviously that doesn't mean Ben isn't watching.

"Sherlock?" Danielle asks. "What's wrong?"

Sherlock takes a deep breath, then discreetly checks his surroundings one more time. "Nothing," he finally says. "Nothing. How far away is your house?"

"It's just around the corner, why?"

Sherlock loops his arm in Danielle's. "Nothing, let's just go."

"Okay…" she says, clearly not believing that he's alright.

They make it to Danielle's house less than five minutes later, but Sherlock is still nervous. It must be showing on his face, because Danielle makes him a cup of hot tea and feeds him biscuits.

"Watson said you had…some sort of nightmare?" she asks as she sets the tray down on her desk. He'd been sitting in her room waiting for her the entire time she was gone and he hadn't even looked around at anything.

"Uh, yeah," he says. "Yeah. It scared me, that's all."

"Anything I can help with?"

Sherlock shakes his head and sips his tea.

"Look, uhm, if you want to leave, I'm sure I can manage—"

"No, no," he says. "I'm fine."

Danielle nods, then turns fully to her desk and turns her laptop on.

Sherlock manages to calm after downing his tea as fast as he can. With the biscuits he eats, he can think more clearly and rationalize that he's not going to be murdered today.

They get a lot of work done, nearly the entire project finished by the time Sherlock has to leave. Danielle asks her dad to drive Sherlock home, which he's very thankful for. Not only is he afraid to walk alone, but it's also started to rain.

John isn't there when he gets home, which he should have expected. Since his mother is off that evening, John has to stay home with her instead. Sherlock, of course, is sad, but he's also afraid of having another nightmare.

This makes Sherlock try to stay up all night to avoid it, but since he didn't sleep well the night before, he's exhausted.

He falls asleep around one in the morning, and he starts out dreaming very well.

"I'm sorry," he whispers into the dark. "I didn't mean for this to happen."

"Just remember that I love you."

Sherlock tries to reach out into the black abyss, but he can't reach. He's been trying for what seems like eternity, but he can't reach.

There's a sudden gunshot.

"John!" he yells.

There's no reply.

Laughter.

There's blood all over him. It's John's.

"Just remember that I love you," he hears again, a faint whisper.

Sherlock bolts upright in bed, this time sweaty and completely nude. He knows he must have kicked his clothes off sometime during the nightmare, and this time he can feel his nose bleeding again. He shuffles to get the light on and jumps out of bed, running to the bathroom (where he again turns all the lights on) and gets a towel for his nose.

He runs back into his bedroom for his phone, where he vaguely reads that it's just after two in the morning and instead goes straight to John's contact information.

Sherlock nearly starts crying waiting for John to answer, but he does in less than four rings.

"Sherlock? What? What is it? Are you okay?"

Sherlock can only cry into the phone. "John…"

"God," John mutters, audibly waking up more. "What happened, babe? Calm down, breathe."

"He…" Sherlock sniffles. "He had you…and you…he…" Sherlock can't get the dream out, he can't say it out loud.

"It's okay, Sherlock. He didn't get me. I'm home and I'm safe in my bed, I promise."

It doesn't calm Sherlock. "John…"

"I'm so sorry, baby. Is your nose bleeding again? Get some ice for it."

Sherlock doesn't leave his spot at the edge of his bed. He knows he should go to change his sheets, but he also knows he's not going to get back to sleep tonight.

"I'll stay on the phone with you. Get your headphones and lay back down. Get comfortable."

"I can't…" Sherlock chokes out.

"Please, babe. You need to relax."

Sherlock makes sure his nose is finished bleeding, then does as told. He plugs his headphones in to both his phone and his ears, then lays on John's side of the bed.

"There," John says. "Comfy?"

"No," Sherlock tells him. "You're not here."

"I know, I'm sorry. If I could be I would, I promise I would."

"I know," Sherlock sighs. He's feeling more calm than he was when he got on the phone, but he doesn't want John to hang up. "I'm sorry," he says.

"I know. This ends tomorrow, Sherlock. It has to. You need to go see Lestrade."

"I can't, John. He'll know."

"Lestrade will keep you safe. And he will believe you."

Sherlock just nods, even though John can't see him.

They stay on the phone until the sun comes up, when Sherlock finally feels safe enough to let John go. He hopes John can get at least an hour of sleep before school.

Sherlock finally agrees to see Lestrade on Friday after school. He goes alone, not wanting Ben to somehow see that John was involved. When he gets to NSY, he goes right up to Lestrade's floor and to his desk.

"Sherlock?" Lestrade stands to meet Sherlock in an awkward but somehow welcomed hug. "What's up?"

"We need to talk."

"Uh, sure," Lestrade mutters. He clears the chair next to his desk and gestures for Sherlock to sit.

"In private?"

Lestrade's face turns very concerned, then he motions to Sherlock to follow him.

They go into an empty interrogation room, where Lestrade turns off the microphone and tells Sherlock to sit. He sits opposite of Sherlock.

"Can I get you anything?" Lestrade asks.

Sherlock shakes his head.

"Alright," Lestrade says. "So…what's going on?"

"I…uhm..." Sherlock takes a deep breath. "A while ago, my friend Taylor asked me to look into the whereabouts of her boyfriend because she thought he was on drugs. Well, she was right, and her boyfriend was Danny."

"Danny…murder victim, Danny?"

Sherlock nods.

Lestrade shifts in his seat. "Alright."

"I followed him one day, to find out if he was on drugs, and he led me to this house…the house where he was later murdered."

"Okay…"

Sherlock takes another deep breath and continues. "I saw a guy there. And I didn't recognize him at first, but eventually I remembered who he was and…"

"And he's the murderer," Lestrade finishes.

Sherlock slowly nods.

Lestrade runs a hand through his hair. "Jesus, Sherlock…"

"I'm sorry," he quickly says. "I'm sorry that I couldn't remember when you gave me the case."

"No, Sherlock, god, it's not your fault."

Sherlock can't tell if Lestrade is angry or relieved or what emotion he's feeling.

"There's more," Sherlock says.

Lestrade looks at him.

"That Friday night after I was looking over the case, John had a party. Harry, John's sister, invited all of her friends and a lot of people showed up. And there was one significant person who showed up."

Lestrade's face turns white. "Jesus, Sherlock, don't tell me it was him."

Sherlock bites his lip.

Lestrade rubs his forehead. "Fuck."

"I had met him before. His name wasn't Kai, it was Ben, and he was Harry's friend from A.A., but he wasn't an alcoholic. I figured that out. He talked to me about the cases I'd been doing, he said John told him all about them because he had gone to John's grandmother's house with them earlier. He left right after that."

"Please tell me you haven't seen him since."

Sherlock looks down at his hands on his lap. "The next day, he called me to meet and I…"

Lestrade practically jumps out of his chair. "God damn it, Sherlock! What were you thinking?!"

Lestrade had never yelled at him before, and that makes Sherlock jump in his seat and want to apologize over and over, but instead he continues with his story.

"He explained to me that he'd met all these kids I'd gotten in trouble and he had convinced them to do the bad things. He didn't like that I was getting them into trouble. He said to stay out of his way."

"He threatened you?"

Sherlock nods. "We agreed to leave each other alone."

"Why didn't you come to me?"

"I was afraid you wouldn't believe me."

Lestrade sighs and sits back down. "Sherlock, listen to me. I will believe you until I can prove you wrong. Understand?"

Sherlock nods.

"Is there more?"

Sherlock nods again.

Lestrade pats his shoulder. "Continue, please."

"I remembered that his name was Kai, so I asked him about it and he showed me many different identification cards. He's…many different people. From different places. That's how he never gets caught, that's how Kai didn't exist."

Lestrade nods in understanding.

"After the meeting, I started getting nervous. What if he came back, you know? And then…he did."

"He did?!"

"He showed up at the library when I was there with a friend."

"When?"

"Monday."

Lestrade runs his hand through his hair again.

"He said he wanted to make sure I wasn't talking. And now…and now I am and…" Sherlock can't stop scared tears from welling in his eyes.

Lestrade grasps his shoulder. "You're safe, Sherlock, I promise. You're doing the right thing."

"I'm getting text messages from an anonymous number. I'm having nightmares, Lestrade. I'm…"

"You're scared, I know. But again, you are safe."

Sherlock nods.

"Is that the end of the story?"

Sherlock nods again.

"Okay. Alright."

"I don't know where he is. I don't know where he lives. All I know is his real name is Kieran Steele."

"Okay. That's…that's something to go on."

Sherlock takes a breath of relief, finally feeling calmer for telling Lestrade.

"Sherlock, I mean it. Tell me these things, seriously. Especially when there's a murderer on the loose. And what the fuck were you thinking meeting him?!"

Sherlock frowns and shrugs.

"Your brother will be hearing about this."

Sherlock nods.

Lestrade stands and ruffles Sherlock's hair. "You'll be okay. I'm going to get an officer to escort you home and I'll keep him there all night. Okay?"

"Okay. Thank you."

Lestrade gives Sherlock a small smile, then leaves the room.

Sherlock is free to leave not long after that, and he is taken out with an officer he'd never seen before. Of course, he doesn't know everyone in the building, so he trusts the man anyway.

"Right this way, Mr. Holmes," the officer says once they get outside to the street.

Sherlock follows him down the block, figuring his car is parked further away.

He takes out his phone to send a quick text to John letting him know he's on his way home.

To John Watson: Everything went well with Lestrade. I feel better already. On my way home. I love you.

But suddenly, as he's stuffing his phone back into his pocket, Sherlock is being grabbed and pulled all over the place, shoved into an alley and then everything is dark.

He immediately begins to panic, of course. With his nightmares being focused around dark and murder, he nearly wets his pants as a first response. He controls himself, though, and soon he's thrown into the backseat of a car.

"Sherlock, Sherlock, Sherlock."

Sherlock stomach drops.

"So you tattled."

Sherlock doesn't say anything. He tries to pay attention to where they're going while his hands are being ziptied in front of him.

North, turn west, turn north again…

"Who should I kill first, then?" he asks. "Your boyfriend or your girlfriend?"

"Stop it," Sherlock manages to squeak out.

BenKaiKeiran laughs. "I've planned for this. I have waited for this, Sherlock. So I want you to choose right now. Who?"

"Stop," Sherlock says again, this time quieter.

He laughs again. "The best part? You're not going to know who I choose."

East, turn south, straight, straight…

There's a faint pinching on Sherlock's arm and suddenly everything is getting somehow more black by the second.

"Goodnight, gorgeous…"

East…

A/N: Are you guys ready for this?