A/N: Last bit. -csf
4.
'Greg, I didn't know who else to call... I can't find Sherlock anywhere. He's gone. I think he's gone off on his own, getting himself into trouble. He does that... What am I saying, you know that he does that! It's my head... it's not clear, right now, my head. Makes it harder to think... Mycroft! I should ask Mycroft, he'll be able to locate his brother. Sherlock will be upset that I got his brother involved, but it can't be helped... Call me when you get this voice message, will you? I know I can count on you... End of message. To replay your message press 2. To save your message press 3. To—'
DI Lestrade groans to his fogged up bathroom mirror. Missed call while he was showering, didn't even hear his phone ringing in the bedroom and what would he have done if he had heard? He was one soap bar slip away from an old age pensioner's accident.
He rings John's number on the speed dial. The doctor doesn't pick up. It goes onto voice mail.
.
'Mycroft Holmes? This is DI Lestrade... Well, I will just come out and say it. I hope you have found John Watson by now. I will not ask how, I don't want to discuss the legality of your methods although, as I'm sure, no case could ever be brought together. I just worry about John.'
The manicured, curated voice on the other side of the line assures: 'I have, indeed found the doctor. He was a bit erratic on the streets. I offered him a ride to a safe location.'
'Where is he?'
'By my side, at the moment. Snoring in my best office chair. Drooling on it, in fact.'
'Let him catch his zzs, he needs them.'
'Indeed. Now, Detective Inspector Lestrade' – and Greg was sure initials were not shorthanded for his title in this case – 'I seem to be missing a brother.'
'Sherlock? I've got him here. He's fine. He came over to raid my archives.'
'Indeed. We should organise a swap.'
Says that as if saying a prisoners swap. Greg shakes his head, breathes deep and prepares to possibly lose his job. 'Just send John over, I can handle this.'
A short silence greets him from the scariest Holmes he knows and Greg wonders if the snipers are sliding into place already, locking in their target.
'Indeed, ' Mycroft Holmes says, after an inordinate amount of time. Playing all possible scenarios to his advantage, the inspector guesses. 'I shall get John to your location and let you handle this. Do tell my lazy brother not to loose his flatmate so carelessly again.'
'Okay... I'm at my place right now, that's—'
'I know all that already, Gregory. Goodbye.'
Spooked, Greg hurries to disconnect the call. He hadn't been called Gregory since his great-aunt Margaret's passing when he was a teenager.
.
Sherlock waltzes around Lestrade's office in absentia as if nothing was up. Following closely is Chandler, the intern, currently hidden behind a perilous tower of files.
'Mate, we need to talk. Chandler, get us some fresh coffee. No, leave the files...'
Sherlock's eyes trail the leaving young man, and as soon as the door clicks shut, he dumps himself gracefully on the inspector's swivel chair and demands to know: 'Did John ring you? Was he upset?'
Lestrade feels the weight of his age, all of a sudden.
'Did you want him to be upset?'
'Yes. No! It's... illustrative of a point I'm trying to make, Lestrade.' It's complicated.
The inspector feels like he's suddenly aged a decade on top of his true age.
'Will you stop this silly one-upmanship between you? Christ, you two are not kids!'
Sherlock bristles at that. 'It's not what you think at all. I want John to understand his importance to me is as vast as is mine to him. In order to do so, I needed to explore my importance.' The consulting emotional toddler fingers the desktop, as an excuse not to look him in the eye. 'I was hoping John would miss me.'
'Miss you?' Greg splutters. 'John was tearing himself to pieces because he thought you went after the murderer!'
'Oh, the case, of course,' Sherlock hisses, clearly disappointed.
'Not the case, you! He thinks you've gone to get your neck into trouble and he's not there to keep you safe.'
'I'm perfectly capable of taking care of myself,' Sherlock remarks, his voice marred with a resentment that doesn't quite suit him.
Greg really wants to open his office window and shout away his frustration. Maybe the only reason he does not do that is that his office window doesn't open.
'Listen, it's a bad look having you lurking around here all the time. Why don't you go find John, he's in one of the interrogation rooms...'
Sherlock smirks and, just like that, Sherlock takes the bait, grabbing Greg's coffee as he passes Chandler who is returning right then. Lestrade feels that he's come out of this on the cheap.
.
DI Lestrade is surprised to hear that the Baker Street duo is still around hours later. Perhaps he shouldn't, given the sizeable pile of files Sherlock had appropriated earlier from his filing cabinets. Greg goes to find the duo, each to his own work, in the interrogation room.
'The Vanishing Gnomes?' John sounds it out, tentatively, sat in his armchair, laptop on his knees. He's updating his blog again, it seems. 'The Garden Gnome Gang?' he tries again.
'The G in Gnome is silent, John,' Sherlock reminds him.
'Still counts as an alliteration in a written blog, no?'
'Must you come up with a title? I haven't solved the case yet.'
'You will, and then say I take too long to type it all up!'
Sherlock flashes him a smile for the blind confidence, John just misses it as usual.
'Hmm, two fingers typing again? Better put in the extra hours, John.'
'Oi!' John protests lightly.
It's almost back to normal in a quiet 221B afternoon. Amazed at how easily these two find their equilibrium again, Greg brandishes a file he's brought in.
'Fingerprints, guys! You won't believe this! Dead man had a criminal record as a petty thieve fifteen years ago. Refused to cooperate and give up the location of some diamonds that were never recovered. Guess they're really gone now!'
John seems perplex, Sherlock annoyed as he snatches the file off the inspector's hands.
'Can't be,' Sherlock protests, full of annoyance, 'makes no sense! Unless—'
Sherlock freezes in artistic shock.
'Lock? Mate?' John tries.
Greg glances warily at the blond.
Suddenly Sherlock reboots, wyes flashing bright, full of potential energy coiled tight as a spring ready to unwind.
'Inspector, isn't it time we return the evidence?' he asks, casually.
.
'Brought you back your gnome,' Sherlock hisses, barely containing his temper, politeness fraying at the edges. John insisted Sherlock do it.
Greg chuckles to himself, amused. John may have done a faux pas with those fake poison letters, but he still commands Sherlock's moral duties. The short, stocky doctor has insisted that the detective return the cheeky gnome to the old man who owns it. For all of Sherlock's earlier refuses – "evidence in an ongoing investigation" was the expression he borrowed from the Yard – suddenly he gave in and indeed insisted on returning the piece himself.
John said he needed to watch to be sure it happened.
Greg offered them the lift.
The old man is accepting his gnome with a gratitude smile more suited to a grandson or a pet, making the inspector suspect of a case of longstanding loneliness. John must have read it too, for he volunteers to wanders through the shrubbery and tall grasses to replace the garden idol. Just as he takes the first steps in the clay mud, the man starts directing him towards the other side of the yard. Sherlock and Greg exchange looks.
'Come along, John!' Sherlock snaps.
'I'll be done in a second! What, more to the left? Sherlock, wait up! Lock! Yes, yes, I'll get your gnome in its place, just that my mate is getting away!'
Next thing, John nearly jumps off his skin. Sherlock is standing right next to him, mud on his shiny shoes.
'Don't call me that, John.'
'Right. You really don't want your names shortened, do you?'
Sherlock's eyes give the Ice Age a go.
'John, when you are quite done wasting our time, I require an assistant of small stature and good flexibility such as yourself.'
'You want me to help you?' John asks sharply, wadding through the untamed grasses.
'Either you or train a small monkey, but I find them hard to source in London nowadays,' he smirks. John rolls his eyes. 'John.'
The doctor hears the tine of voice this time. He drops the gnome as if it was some heavy stone idol and wipes the sweat off his brow.
Sherlock presses his lips, tenses his jaw. 'I had a friend once before. That was a mistake, naturally,' he scorned so easily. 'Victor used to shorten my name, like friends do, just like you did. The first two letters from each of us put together was as close to brotherly love as we ever got', he says, solemnly.
John mouths out the word, mutedly. Lo-Vi? 'Good grief, I'd be weary of that too', he says conversationally. Trust the detective to fashion a cryptic clue to skip naming feelings and emotions.
Yes, John can avoid that nickname.
'It makes me uncomfortable, weary, hearing you using shortened versions of my name. Always have, since Victor.'
John's stormy blue eyes look as if the barometer is in an all-time high.
'I apologise, didn't mean to make you uncomfortable.'
'Good. Because I really must insist on shoving you inside a storm drain to retrieve the diamonds, John.'
The doctor blinks. Behind them, the inspector groans out the word diamonds questioningly. Sherlock beams at John, and John alone, before twirling in the jungle of tall grasses and laying it out:
'Chalk, John, remember? The gnomes were marked, but those weren't secret messages! Simple rain would wash messages away. Those were palm prints. Chalk, as in what climbers use to dry their palms for better grip.'
'You said I was to go down a hole!' John's interruption does not derail the consulting detective.
'The safe that hot broken into? There's no such thing in life as an easy coincidence, Greg. The cases were related! Number 10 kept a secret from the neighbourhood residents, it was a safe house, used by thieves to conceal their thefts until they are no longer hot to the Yard. Have you solved that jewellery store heist from two years ago, the one with the African diamonds?'
DI Lestrade tries to piece things together. 'Wait, are you saying the diamonds were in the safe? Where are they now? What is that about storm drains?'
'The thieves have been thieved, one of the lower ranking of Perfect Crimes. What can the original thieves do? Go to the Police? Hardly. Besides, who but accomplices would know where to find the gems? And how to get away with it without giving themselves up to the gang? By leaving clues for someone else to come collect the stolen goods and break them into profit. John, look at that gnome. It's not where you got it from. This grass was undisturbed for days. It had been moved. That was the real clue, and not a message that wouldn't survive the garden sprinklers.'
'Why move the gnomes?' John asks.
'Have you not noticed, John? It is in your houses and gardens diagram, after all.'
'Err...'
'They have been placed in two crossing lines, and two crossing lines make an X, and X...'
'...marks the spot. That easy?'
'The simpler plots are the hardest to unfold, John. The X comes across the storm drain on the side of the road, and I bet there's a pouch of diamonds concealed in there, accessible to someone with small, sturdy fingers.'
'Oh. I thought you meant I had to get inside.'
'Only as a last resort, John, I have a heart. Most likely the diamonds are in a waterproof pouch held with a string or a chain, perfectly accessible.'
Greg shakes his head. 'Let's go collect.'
'Not so fast,' the old man snarls. He's also got a gun now.
Greg nearly rolls his eyes; insisting on returning those gnomes, of course, how did Sherlock not suspect spewing deductions out loud was going to single out the culprit? Well, he probably did, the bastard. Leaving Greg to deal with it.
'Drop your gun!'
Greg was do fast that the old man couldn't stop him. Now there's a standstill with far too many guns for a respectable residential neighbourhood.
A motorcycle engine splutters somewhere else and it precipitates the action. The man old man fires, startled, Sherlock topples over John, and Greg fires a disarming shot that gets the man groaning on the ground, holding his bleeding arm. 'Sherlock? John!'
The Baker Street duo untangle from each other slowly, Sherlock was on top of the smaller army doctor, nearly eclipsing him under his bulky coat.
'John, tell me you're alright!'
'Sherlock, you're not hurt, are you?'
'I'm fine, you saved me.'
'I'll always save you, you idiot!'
They both grin, the mad friends they are. Greg sighs in relief, as he cuffs the old man and calls Chandler to organise backup.
.
For once, Sherlock Holmes sticks around to give statements at the Yard without a protest. Chandler makes notes on pen and paper, a two finger typist himself. On the chair next to the imposing consulting detective, the army doctor dozes off peacefully, snoring slightly. It would take a visually impaired person to not notice immediately the protective aura the detective is casting around John. From the filing cabinet, Greg smiles benignly. Good to see those two back to normal. And to make sure John doesn't overexert his storytelling abilities to create cases for Sherlock, Greg is rounding up some cold cases from the Yard's haul. Might even get Greg that promotion he deserves for the longest of times.
.
