Quiet. Calm. Peaceful... Isn't it hateful?

Sherlock found them himself.

According to his deductions, Mary had been first, then John. From the way the intruder had come in through the house (back door) and where they were each located (dining room, baby's room), that's how it had happened. At least it'd been quick.

Bullets to the brain.

It was just another day, after all. Sherlock had walked into their house with his key, after received a text about dinner an hour previous. He could do dinner, with wine and sitting and talking. And making faces at the three month old baby girl he was completely in love with. This baby girl who bore his name among her middle names, his two best friends' daughter, he wanted to steal her away. As the saying went.

His case was on pause for the moment, he could spare his work for a bit of 'normality'. Or so he thought.

At first he hadn't believed what he saw. Maybe it was just a conjured up scenario in his mind palace, a drug-induced one. Something of his raving chaotic mind. But Sherlock hadn't dosed up in four months. He was clean. He'd been chasing his biggest mystery of whoever was using Moriarty's name to wreck havoc on England, he didn't need the drugs. He had the real thing.

When Sherlock walked into the Watsons' house, he'd called out, stepping lithely into the modest home with a smile on his face and coat wrapped around his lean frame. He called their names, letting them know he was here.

Silence.

Mary was in the dining room, on her back, with limbs cocked at angles where her body had just dropped on itself. Blood pooled underneath her head. The entry wound had been in the back, and was hidden by blood stained blonde hair. The exit wound…well that had put a neat gaping hole through her cheek bone. Blood splattered over her pale skin. Her blue eyes were open, staring up at the ceiling. Pupils fixed and dilated. Body, clad in a smart dark green dress, unmoving and still. Still as death.

Sherlock was slow. Too slow. And Mary Watson was dead. He couldn't quite understand it at first. But when the truth finally made itself present in his mind as reality, the bag of peas he'd been told to bring fell to the ground.

"JOHN!"

Then he was a blur of motion, running away from his best friend's wife, who'd been one of the best friends he'd ever had. He had to find his blogger, his doctor, his John.

John was slumped in the chair in the baby's room. The hole in his head was small, right under his hairline. His arms and legs splayed as if he'd been standing and had fallen back into the rocker at the moment of the gunshot. His open eyes stared at the wall by the door, stormy blue eyes that had seen war and death, and love and family. They wouldn't see anything else.

The person who shot them had been taller than both, taller than 1.68 meters. The deduction popped into Sherlock's head without him meaning to.

It didn't matter, did it?

Sherlock collapsed on the floor by the door of the baby's room in a puddle of dark black coat. His fingers fumbled with his phone until he pushed the speed dial of the only person that could help him.

"Yes, Sherlock. What is it?" Mycroft Holmes answered within one ring.

"Help." Sherlock said, his voice unrecognizable and his tone so soft he hoped the message got through. He couldn't find the strength to repeat it. He let the phone drop and closed his eyes against the vision of John in the baby's rocking chair.

The baby was gone, of course. Sherlock knew that too. She would have been crying if she had been there. But for the life of him, he didn't know or couldn't deduce where she'd gone to.

Five minutes later the police sirens could be heard out of the window.

Ten minutes after that, Sherlock still hadn't moved, lost in his head and away from the pain that was John's dead body a few meters away and unheard echo of the gunshot that had stolen his life. Mycroft knelt on the ground in front of his little brother. Familiar hands tipped his head up and it was then that Sherlock tuned back into the present. He blinked his eyes open slowly as if rising from a deep slumber.

"My?" Childhood nickname for his brother. Unintentional. Unnoticed.

"I'm here, Sherlock." Mycroft's features were drawn, haggard, and worried.

Sherlock wondered why.

"John's not." He replied quietly. "I…I don't want to be here either."

"We'll get you out of the house, somewhere safe." His brother answered. "I've got people on this already-"

Sherlock interrupted him. "I mean…I don't want to be here." He met his brother's eyes hesitantly. "I want to be with John and Mary."

"Your goddaughter is missing." Mycroft said firmly, but his features grew more worried, more drawn, sentimental even. As if he wanted to scope up the five year old version of Sherlock Holmes and hold him through the scary dreams and night terrors and anxiety. "You, Sherlock, will not abandon her. You will not give up. Do you hear me?"

Sherlock's silver blue eyes finally formed tears as the shock slowly dissipated. The shock gave way to only sorrow, loneliness. And nothing. He sniffed once. "I can't."

Mycroft gave into the urge. The elder brother sat down next to Sherlock and wrapped both of his arms around the younger, holding him in a vice grip to keep him from falling to pieces. Still, tears steamed down the younger brother's face and the sobs wracked his body. Caring was not an advantage.

Only because it hurt so bloody much.