The detective felt the cold air burning in his lungs. The chase had been going on for 17 minutes and 37 seconds to be exact. It also didn't help that the genius hadn't slept for almost 4 days and was a heavy smoker.

He could feel the exhaustion collapsing upon him. It made him want to just stop and sleep. Right here, just on the floor of this dirty alley. No! I'm on a case. I will catch this man. He will be tiring soon, any second now.

The world around the consulting detective suddenly became slow and every sound, even his own feet pounding on the ground, seemed distant. It was like he was in his own bubble separating him from the world.

The thundering of his pulse in his ears was the only clear sound. The detective's chest was being to hurt as he drew in each breath. He would have sworn he could taste blood in the back of his throat.

Suddenly, before the great detective had realised what was happening, he was falling rapidly towards the hard, cold tarmac. He would have said it hurt but he had blacked out before his body touched the floor.

He gave in to the darkness, practically embracing it. He wasn't going to fight it, not when it felt this good. The chase could wait, for now.

A hand gently shaking him pulled him out of the comfortable unconscious into reality where, frankly, his nose hurt. He groaned as he came to, feeling pain and aches all over his body.

"Sherlock? Come on, mate. We need to get you home." Lestrade's London accent just made his head hurt even worse.

Sherlock cracked his eyes open to see the DI leaning over him with a concerned expression. He groaned as the light assaulted his eyes. The genius could hear Donovan moaning, stood by the police car Sherlock supposed.

"If he's dead can't we just leave him to get eaten by pigeons or something?!" Both the men ignored the sergeant's bitter comment. Well, Lestrade ignored it. Sherlock just didn't have the energy to bite back with a scolding insult.

The consulting detective tried to push himself up into a sitting position and was successful with the help of Greg. Sherlock peered down at the tarmac to where a small pool of blood was drying slowly. The detective lifted a heavy hand to his nose to feel something wet stick on his fingers.

Lestrade noticed the detective's confusion was because of the blood drying around his nose, "We think you fell flat on your face when you blacked out and because you were unconscious you couldn't stop yourself hitting your nose."

Sherlock looked up at the sky noting that it was beginning to grow dark. He must have been unconscious for a few hours. That is the danger of sticking to back allies, no one goes down them.

"It took us a while to find you. You didn't even tell us what direction you went in. Thankfully, your brother has a few security cameras around the area so he pointed us in the right direction." Greg studied the other man's face to see if he was going to be sick.

"Come on! It's getting freezing. He's awake so let's hurry up and drop him home!" Sally hollowed from her position by the car.

"Can you stand up?" Sherlock send Greg a scaving look for asking such a question, "I'll take that a firm yes."

The younger man rolled his eyes as the police inspector tried to help him up. Greg wrapped his arm around Sherlock's waist, frowning when he could feel his prominent bones through his thick coat. He obviously hadn't been eating again. The DI was about to mention it but the taller man knew what he was about to say, "Don't eat while on a case. Slows down thinking." Sherlock mumbled on the edge of sleep.

Greg sighed. Mrs Hudson wasn't going to be happy with the state of her tenant.

They stumbled the few meters to the end of the alley, where Donovan was waiting with the car door open. Lestrade sat Sherlock in the back seat but while he was getting in to the front the exhausted man collapsed across the back seats, falling into unconsciousness.

"He cannot keep doing this! It is so unprofessional!" Sally whined.

"Yes but on the same note of professionalism, isn't Anderson's wife away tonight? Sort out your own professional issues before having a go at him!" Greg lectured absently, distracted by the busy road. Donovan huffed and crossed her arms.

The journey to Baker Street took longer than expected because of busy traffic. The long wait was filled with nothing but silence and Sherlock's light snores.

When they arrived Mrs Hudson was waiting by the door looking concerned. Greg had told Sally to ring ahead so the landlady could have the door open for them to bring the consulting detective inside.

Lestrade opened up Sherlock's door and gently woke the sleeping man, "Come on, mate. We've got you home. All you need to do is walk up the stairs."

Donovan was sighing impatiently as Sherlock came to. The detective wanted to insult the woman but nothing of use was coming to the forefront of his brain.

Lestrade hooked his arm around Sherlock's waist again and pulled him out of the police car. He helped the stumbling genius to walked slowly across the pavement to where Mrs Hudson was waiting.

"Sherlock Holmes! The worry you put me through!" She scolded the man.

"If you wouldn't mind opening his flat, Mrs Hudson. It's just he is a lot heavier than he looks."

"Yes, yes! It's all open." The elderly woman waved them inside.

It took a while to get the partially unconscious man up to his flat even with Sally helping. A few times Sherlock had almost slipped completely out of Greg's grasp. As much as Sally didn't like the man, she realised that the faster they had him up the stairs the faster she could go home, so helped support the sagging man.

When they finally made it into the flat Sherlock tried to move towards the sofa but Greg easily guided the man to his bedroom.

"Come on, this way. You'll sleep better if you're in bed." Lestrade's London accent bringing the younger man back to consciousness slightly.

The police officers had to step around piles of books and papers to get to the man's bedroom which was just as messy. Experiments sat unfinished on shelves and old books lay open scattered around the room.

Greg put Sherlock gently down onto his bed and pulled off the man's shoes, coat and jacket. Laying them on a chair which was piled high with empty test tubes. The older man was about to leave the room when Sally's voice stopped him.

"Are you gonna leave him like that?"

"Yeah... Why?" Greg frowned and looked over at Sally who was gazing down at the asleep detective.

"No. I was just wondering." She turned to leave but Greg caught her wrist.

"Why?" He made his voice sterner, demanding a real answer.

"Well, shouldn't you put him in the recovery position? He is unconscious." She asked.

"I didn't realise you cared." Lestrade mocked quietly.

"I don't. It was just a suggestion." She quickly answered in a just as hushed tone. "It's just if he dies half of our cases will go unsolved and we will all get the sack."

Donovan turned and hurried out of the dark room to wait in the living room.

Greg let out a long-suffering sigh before moving Sherlock's long limbs into the recovery position so he wouldn't choke on any sick. He then pulled the blankets over the tall man and left the room.

He found Sally nosing through some of the boxes that sat on Sherlock's desk, "Have you seen some of this stuff?"

"Unfortunately, yes. Now put that down. You don't know where it's been and let's go!"

Sally practically threw the jar, of what looked like eyes, back into the box and followed the DI out of the flat.

Lestrade was about to pull away from the curb when he peered up at the sociopath's flat, "Remind me to arrange a drugs bust." Then he pulled away.

Sherlock awoke to the sound of Mrs Hudson making tea in the kitchen. He looked over to the clock by his bed and yawned. It was nearly 10am. The detective stretched as his landlady knocked gently on his bedroom door.

"Sherlock?" She called timidly. "Can I come in?"

The man grunted the affirmative and collapsed back onto his pillows craving the sleep that had just been taken from him.

"Morning, dear. It's time to get up. You've slept for almost 14 hours." Mrs Hudson placed the tea-tray on Sherlock's bedside table. The older woman jumped as the detective suddenly bolted upright in his bed sending blankets flying around the room.

Sherlock lent over and picked up a mug of tea. He sighed in satisfaction as he brought it up to his lips enjoying the taste and warmth it brought to his mouth. The genius watched as Mrs Hudson rushed around his room picking up books and putting them on the shelves and pulling his research papers into neat piles.

She was about to leave the room when she turned to Sherlock, "That nice policeman who brought you home last night asked me to say that you'd need to go to the station today to give a statement"

Sherlock groaned. He opened his mouth to protest but Mrs Hudson got in there first.

"No, Sherlock! After everything he did for you last night you can at least give a statement!" She said firmly before leaving Sherlock alone.

"I was doing something for him when I collapsed in the first place!" He shouted after her.

He listened but there was no reply. The sociopath sighed and pulled the blanket off his legs before heaving himself out of bed. He quickly changed into his favourite purple shirt and black suit before padding out into the living room.

He went through to the kitchen where his experiment on how different body parts absorbed water once removed from the body was soaking. He poked the floating toe with a spatula before turning to see what food Mrs Hudson had left for him.

He pulled a face at the cold Shepard's pie as if it had personally offended him. Sherlock scooped a lump of it onto a fork and swallowed it down. God, how I hate transport. He repeated the process until the majority of the food was gone.

The detective moved back through to his bedroom and slipped on his shoes. On the way out of the door he pulled his coat on and started off on his way to the Yard, only stopping to call goodbye to his landlady.

He hailed a cab and was at the police station within minutes. He threw 20 pounds at the driver before striding up the steps outside the building.

He made his way swiftly to Lestrade's office. As he got closer to the DI's office he saw a short man exiting it. He was walking backwards so he could continue to talk to the laughing policeman as he left. As a result of the man's backward walking he walked straight into the tall consulting detective.

Sherlock began to lose his balance and would have fallen to the floor if the shorter man hadn't suddenly twisted around and caught the detective. The man looked shocked but a friendly smile quickly grew on his face.

"Sorry, Mr Holmes. I'll be more careful next time." He smiled again at the taller man before walking off towards the department door.

Sherlock's eyes followed the man-Grey strands in his short blonde hair suggests late 30s. The way he holds himself implies Military past so does the cropped hair, recently returned from Afghanistan or Iraq, judging by the tan on his hands and wrists, if it was a long time ago he would have probably gotten a job and seeing its working hours on a Thursday he probably doesn't. Invalided judging by the way he is starting to limp.

He was pulled from his rapid deductions by Lestrade calling his name.

"Sherlock? Are you looking for me?"

The detective turned around to see the DI leaning against the frame of his office door with his arms crossed. He had an expectant look on his face.

"Yes. You wanted a statement." Sherlock pushed past Lestrade and sat in one of the chairs opposite the desk.

"Yeah. I did" The detective inspector started to dig around in his drawer for a pen.

After Sherlock had given his statement, Greg began to explain to him what had happened the night before. He told him about how it took them nearly 2 hours to find him because he ran off with telling them where he was going. Sherlock rolled his eyes at the man's lecture.

"So you caught him?" Sherlock asked genuinely interested for the first time during the whole conversation.

"Yeah," Lestrade smiled satisfied. "Well, to be honest, it wasn't actually me. It was John."

Sherlock frowned in confusion, "John?"

"Yes, John Watson. You might have seen him on your way up. He was giving his statement this morning as well."

Sherlock nodded, "Quite short? Military background? Late 30s? Was invalided home in the last year?"

"Don't tell me you got all that from just looking at the bloke!"

Sherlock shrugged, "Who is he then?"

"He's like you... but human." Sherlock turned around to see Donovan standing in the door. He rolled his eyes at her comment.

"I asked something, Detective Inspector." Sherlock ignored Sally sneering in the doorway.

"I'm surprised you haven't bumped into him already... Although, he doesn't really help out in the Yard very often. He normally just helps out with the normal kind of criminal on the run type of cases. He only happened to know about this case and when he saw the man running he thought he'd grab him for us." Lestrade smiled until he saw Sherlock's vicious frown.

"How is he like me?" The consulting detective demanded to know.

Sally came and sat next to Sherlock, "He runs around chasing criminals and doesn't get paid for it but he's more human than you."

"How is he more human?" The detective crossed his arms with a huff.

"He doesn't do your weird 'look at someone and know their life story' and he also eats, sleeps and drinks regularly." She smirked as Sherlock couldn't argue with the evidence.

"Whatever!" Sherlock swiftly stood up and left in a swirl of curls and coat.

He was determined that he would find out more about this John Watson.