Chapter One: Awake

He was aching from head to toe. Feet, knees, thighs (burning!), spine, and most of all – head. Oh, his head was killing him. His brain was in racing engine mode and it was running on – empty. Sherlock was hunched in the corner of the empty room in the dark, empty house. Dust, dirt, cobwebs and a tremendously impressive number of empty takeaway cartons jostled for space next to up-turned crates, plasterboard and, strangely, an odd lady`s sandal…silver and strappy. It was his third night watching the house on the opposite side of the road; waiting for Dr Percy Trevelyan to return. Days had been spent at Baker Street; researching documents and performing analyses on a selection of iPhone covers (a mobile phone allows for more deductions than almost any other personal item - SH). Sherlock sank his aching head into his hands and rubbed his temples for some relief; this had been the trickiest of tricky little puzzles. The machinations of his Mind Palace had kept his brain wired and alert for almost seventy-two hours straight. Everyone was furious with him, but he was accustomed to that – it was like swatting away an annoying wasp or bluebottle, dealing with the ill-favour of the masses. No, Sherlock was currently becoming quite concerned for quite another reason – he was starting to lose focus.

John Watson would scoff, enviously, at the way Sherlock Holmes could exist on a veritable skeleton of sleep. When on a case, Sherlock could push through, surviving on nervous energy; mental stimuli and the adrenalin high of an emergent solution. The deductive reasoning, whereby he observed the scene and gradually allocated each tiny detail and minutiae a place and space of its own, was generally enough to feed his brain and generate the power to keep the racing engine running. At the climax of the case – the solution and explanation (goldfish can be so rewarding to instruct, as Mycroft would often say) – Sherlock would then fold up, collapse and take to his bed (or couch), where he would slee-eep. Sometimes, for a straight twenty four hours. John had given up lecturing him on this unhealthy and potentially destructive habit; and Molly Hooper didn't even try. She seemed to tolerate Sherlock as a whole. Just the way he was. Which was why he loved her… and her golden high heels… God! He shook himself to alertness. This was serious. Sherlock Holmes was in the midst of a case that had several members of the Cabinet waking up in a cold sweat during the night. The last thing they needed was a consulting detective who couldn't keep his mind on the job in hand.

Glancing for the fiftieth time through the murky, partially boarded up window, Sherlock decides he knows two things:

Dr Trevelyan was not coming home tonight.

Dr Trevelyan was undoubtedly dead.

Three things! THREE!:

Sherlock Holmes needs to get some sleep...

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Benedict Holmes was wide awake and screaming. Molly Hooper was, subsequently, also wide awake and walking. Again. She was Dead Woman Walking. Two and fro, across the star lined baby bedroom of 221A … back and forth… rocking, soothing, singing. The holy trinity of teething infants and exhausted parents, the world over. A dull glow from the phosphorescent stars studded all over Ben`s ceiling dimly lights the tilt of her nose, curve of her upper lip and bags under her eyes. Three nights running Ben, usually the gentlest and most serene of babies, had heard the clock strike ten and morphed into a heaving mess of painful gums and wet, snotty hysteria. Rock, soothe, sing. Three nights running, Benedict`s father had been out, all night, on a case – a missing Doctor with links to the Russian mafia? Molly was usually pretty good at cataloguing Sherlock`s cases, but she is so sleep deprived at this point, she is seriously grateful that her patients are too dead to care about a careless cut or less than perfect bedside manner…

Hush, little baby, don't say a word.
Papa's gonna buy you a mockingbird

And if that mockingbird won't sing,
Papa's gonna buy you a diamond ring…

"Ah, Ben, Ben…it`s really not that bad! Sssh…You`re going to wake Mrs Hudson…She`s neither your housekeeper or your nanny, my friend, so don`t push your luck…"

The screams have become slightly more muted – more a shaky wail, followed by a shuddering sob. Molly cuddles him close and his little baby hands clench and unclench around her arms.

"Little boy…" She kisses the top of his dark, unruly curls. "What a shame…what a shame your daddy isn't here to play you a little tune."

Whether it was down to rapture or shocked surprise, Sherlock`s violin playing nearly always stonewalled any crying. Molly was seriously considering searching under piles of papers in the flat downstairs for the Stradivarius. She had played the recorder at school – how hard was a violin, after all?

Xoxoxoxoxoxoox

Across in Kentish Town:

The clock told the time like a slap in the face:

02:57 am

Jesus.

Mary Watson feels the onset of a face plant into her Gray`s Anatomy.

Yeah, I don`t faint at the sight of blood! Sure, I know one end of a medical history from another! Of course, I have a very excellent set of observational skills – almost up there with the Holmes brothers! So, surely, the next logical step is to train to become a fully-qualified member of the medical fraternity.

There would eventually be TWO Doctor Watson`s – and wouldn't the world be a better place for it? Better to repair than destroy, Morstan – you know it to be true.

But, holy crap – this nocturnal studying may be ok for the twenty-something medical students she jostled with along the wards each day (getting lost looking for the cafeteria and generally trying to avoid killing innocent people); but how many of them had an eighteen month old with night terrors and a husband who often went out on – adventures, of an evening? Actually, that last thing sounded quite George Michael on Hampstead Heath, so she deleted it… However – the fact remained that the only time for studying was after Sholto`s bedtime; ergo, Mary`s bedtime was getting later and later. She was exhausted.

03:00 am

Thank you, clock – you constant bringer of bad tidings! Why couldn't you race along this merrily when I was in that tedious anatomy lecture this afternoon? As if it would be difficult for me to transect an artery from the Circle of Willis? The base of the brain is a highly efficient kill spot…oh, how appropriate! Mary rubs her face, wearily…reflecting on methods of assassination when studying to be a life-saving member of society.

A creak in the hall shocks her into alertness and adrenalin surge when she realises it`s just her husband, returning from HIS second job…

John Watson enters the room and shoots his weary wife a looks of sincere sympathy.

"Turn it off and let`s go to bed." Her hands are already saving and powering down. The Circle can wait. She needs to curl up next to her husband and dream of being – a florist.

"Did you catch the Doctor?" Mary yawns, virtually sleepwalking up the stairs. John is close behind. His adrenalin levels are more or less back to normal.

"Sherlock called time on it tonight. When I got back with the coffee, he went into some kind of meltdown…"

"Sherlock? Does he do that now? I thought the thrill of the chase kept him going?"

John shakes his head. Concerned face.

"He thought he could see a dog in the corner of the empty house – a red setter; and a few other animals too…I think he just needs to sleep. He hasn't been to bed for nearly three days."

"Well, I think that is a simply marvellous idea – let`s all take the advice of Sherlock Holmes – and get some sleep!" And she races up the remaining stairs ahead of him.

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