In retrospect, John realized they all ought to have taken that threat on Sherlock's life much more seriously. The detective had dispatched his attackers single-handedly the first time; and there had been no sign of the man who had hired the assassins in the two months since. And so, they had become complacent. And now they were paying the price for their carelessness.

He and Mary had left their flat that morning as usual, she heading to the clinic, he bound for Baker Street to meet with Sherlock. He had arrived and was on the point of indulging in Mrs. Hudson's famous blueberry scones; but first, he had texted his wife, as was his custom. And she had not replied.

"Mary's not answering," John said aloud.

Sherlock grunted, absorbed in the research he was conducting on his laptop.

"She never doesn't answer," John insisted.

"Perhaps her phone battery died. Or she dropped it on the tube. Or when she arrived at the clinic, she was instantly swamped with work and hasn't time for you just now," Sherlock replied impatiently. "She's a grown woman, John. She doesn't have to check in with you as if she were a delinquent pre-adolescent."

John sighed. Sherlock had never really understood why John and Mary texted constantly throughout the day. He seemed to believe that John was just an obsessive worrier and had never grasped the emotional impact Mary's past had had on her psyche. But John had come to realize early on that Mary, the most fearless person he knew, was nevertheless terrified of people disappearing; and rightly so, since practically everyone she had ever cared about had, at least in seeming, disappeared. Because of this, he made it a practice to text her often throughout the day, using any flimsy excuse, just to reassure her that he had not vanished from the earth. And she always, always answered his texts. Now, it seemed, she was the one who had vanished.

An hour crawled by, and as he skimmed through the morning newspapers for usable information, he had to physically restrain himself from ludicrously sending multiple texts; as if she might magically receive the tenth one even if she hadn't received the previous nine. "I'm calling the clinic," he announced at last into the silence. Sherlock frowned and shook his head sarcastically, but John dialled the number anyway. As he had feared, Mary had not arrived at the clinic that morning, and no one had heard from her. A cold, sick feeling churned in the pit of his stomach. But there must be a perfectly logical explanation. Mustn't there?

"Sherlock, could you check the incident reports on the tube?" he requested, trying to sound calm.

Sherlock looked exasperated. "John, she's a little late. Perhaps she ran into a friend and got talking. Perhaps she lost her bag and had to go look for it," Sherlock reasoned, irritated at the interruption. "She's not a child, and she doesn't deserve to be treated as one."

"No, she's not a child. Unlike some people I know, she's a very responsible person. She would never just get distracted and not show up at work; certainly not without calling in. She would never just take off and not let anyone know. Please just check the incident reports for me," John replied with equal annoyance.

"No incidents reported," Sherlock said. "All of the lines have been clear and on time all morning. That's rather astounding, actually. We should stop all our work and take time to celebrate this phenomenon," he added a bit scathingly.

John could not believe his friend didn't seem to understand how alarming this news was. "It must be something worse, then. Check the Met reports for incidents on her route from the tube station to the clinic."

Sherlock opened his mouth to protest, but John didn't give him a chance. His alarm was igniting his temper, and he snapped, "Fine, then, I'll do it myself," and pulled his own laptop out of his bag and turned it on. He begrudged every extra second it took to pull up the information himself on his slower computer. Sherlock ignored him, going on with his own tasks.

"The Café Nero down the street from the clinic was robbed this morning. Police found the entire staff tied up and locked in a storage closet. But nothing was taken. Sherlock, Mary always stops in that shop for coffee on her way to work. This would have happened right about the time she arrived there."

Now he had Sherlock's full attention. "She goes to the same place every day at the same time? John, we ought to have warned her to vary her daily routines, not to become predictable. Those assassins last month . . . . We've been lax." He whipped out his mobile and called the familiar number he never wanted to call.

"Mycroft. The Café Nero close to Mary's clinic. Check the CCTV around 9:00 this morning and see whether she was there," he said tersely, without preamble. He waited, tapping his fingers impatiently. John stood over him, as still as if he'd frozen into place, his anxiety rising with every passing second.

Sherlock looked up at John with stricken eyes. "She went in, but she never came out," he said flatly, his even tone belying his concern. "She wasn't among those found tied up in the storage closet. The security cameras in the shop were expertly disabled so as to look like a harmless computer glitch. There are no cameras near the back entrance or in the alley behind it. She could have been taken anywhere."

John tried to shove the panic that was rising within him down into the back of his mind with great effort. He had been under enemy fire in Afghanistan; he had been kidnapped and threatened by murderers; and he had never been more afraid in his life than he was in that moment. For a few dreadful seconds, he allowed himself to experience what life would be like without Mary in it—a hollow life; mere, colourless, empty existence bereft of joy and laughter. He deliberately snapped himself out of it. He did not have time to feel just now. Now was the time to take action.

"Let's go," he barked, and Sherlock followed him out of the flat. They snagged a taxi and called Lestrade on the way. The Met was, of course, handling the break-in at the coffee shop; but when Lestrade heard that Mary had been there and had disappeared, he dropped what he was doing and took charge of the case immediately. In fact, he arrived on the scene before they did, having the advantage of a siren.

But it seemed to be all for naught. The staff didn't know anything. The robbers had burst in from the back alley, wearing masks. Holding one of the cooks hostage, they gained control of the others easily, dressed themselves in employee uniforms, and then they were gone. What they had done while the staff were in the closet was anyone's guess.

"How could we let this happen?" John cried out in frustration, tearing at his hair with both hands. "How could we be so stupid?"

"I blame myself," Lestrade admitted, his face a study in anger and concern. "After a week or two, I let the investigation drop in priority. I didn't take the threat seriously enough."

"None of us did," John assured him. "This isn't just your fault. We're all to blame."

Sherlock turned grief-stricken eyes to them. "I am to blame. She was taken to get to me. This wouldn't have happened if she hadn't befriended me."

John put a comforting hand on his shoulder. "Well, that isn't an option, is it? She's your friend because she chose to be. You didn't have any say in the matter. I could say it's entirely my fault, for marrying her. I put her at risk. But right now, we have to find her!"

Lestrade put his best people on the case. Sherlock called Mycroft and demanded he find Mary immediately. There was nothing else they could do but wait. John, desperate to do something, found this forced inaction unbearable. He felt he would explode if a course of action did not present itself soon. He and Sherlock paced the flat, barely capable of speaking, unable to preoccupy their minds with thoughts other than nightmare visions of what might be happening to Mary.

At three that afternoon, the waiting came to an end—Sherlock's mobile signalled an incoming call from an unknown number. "Yes?" he snapped, putting the mobile on speaker so that John could hear.

"Sherlock Holmes? Is Dr Watson with you?" the voice demanded. John quickly called Lestrade on his own phone, asking him to trace the call.

"This is Sherlock Holmes. Dr Watson is also here," Sherlock said cautiously.

"You put our father in prison. He died there. A death sentence for cybercrime," the voice said coldly. "Now I have your lady friend. Are you prepared to let her die?"

"You sent hired assassins, and they didn't succeed. Since then, security around me has greatly increased. You have found it impossible to kill me without exposing yourself. Therefore, you plotted to make use of someone I care about to get to me," Sherlock deduced angrily, stalling for time. "She is utterly innocent. Let her go, and I'll do whatever you ask."

"You're right, you will. You and the doctor give yourselves up to us, and we'll let her go, unharmed," the voice said flatly. "I'll text you the address. Be there alone in one hour or she's dead."

John sought out Sherlock's eyes. He felt gratitude as he saw in his friend's aspect that he was quite as ready to give his life for Mary as John was himself. However, neither of them had lost their good sense.

"How do we know you really have Mary and that she is still alive?" Sherlock demanded hoarsely. "Let us talk to her."

"Predictable!" the villain snapped back. "Here she is, then."

A second of silence; then Mary's voice. She sounded perfectly composed. "Captain?"

John snatched the phone from Sherlock's hand. "Mary," he whispered, barely able to speak past the choking sensation in his throat. "Are you all right?"

"Don't do anything foolish on my account, either of you. Don't do anything he says."

"Shut up, bitch," they could hear her captor snarl, but she soldiered on with what she wanted to say.

"Remember the heron in Hyde Park. We laughed, and it . . . ."

She gasped as the sharp sound of a slap was heard. The kidnapper's voice returned. "One hour, or she'll get so much worse. I'll cut her throat and dump her in the Thames," it growled. The mobile went dead. John's grip on it tightened until the casing cracked.

"Sherlock," he said tightly through gritted teeth. "He's hurting her."

His friend nodded grimly. "We'll find her, John. And they will pay dearly for every injury they've inflicted on her," he vowed. "What was that clue she gave us?"

John roused himself to think. "Hyde Park. That's where we were the evening you were attacked. We saw a heron—it flew away because we were laughing. She kept saying that everything was lovely, and we were laughing." His voice cracked as he recalled how wonderfully carefree that afternoon together had been. "I told her she'd think sumo wrestling a crocodile would be lovely. Yeah, I know, it makes no sense; you had to be there. Wait: before that, I suggested going to dinner at a new bistro down the street from our flat." He thought for a second. "Sherlock, I checked that place out in case we ever actually got a chance to go there for dinner. It's closed on Mondays. Today is Monday. It's deserted."

Sherlock closed his eyes. "She isn't blindfolded; she knows where she is. John, they don't intend letting her go, even if we did give ourselves up to them."

"I know," John said tersely, his face filled with fury.

He picked his own mobile up again, Lestrade still on the other end. The call to Sherlock's phone had been untraceable, but it didn't matter. The kidnappers had sent the text, and they told the D.I. their plan to capture Mary's captors. Then they were on their way to her rescue, not wasting a second of their precious hour.

000

In retrospect, Mary realized they all ought to have taken that threat on Sherlock's life much more seriously. Mycroft's increased security measures at the flat had seemed to do the trick, and they had all relaxed their guard. And even though she had remained concerned over Sherlock's and John's safety, it had never occurred to her that she might be a target as well. After all, who even knew about her? The men in her life were protective of her privacy to an extreme. John never mentioned her in his blog; in fact, he carefully never made mention of his private life at all. Mycroft and Lestrade kept any mention of her out of all official reports and news releases. Even most of her colleagues at work seemed not to realize that the Watson she had married was the same Watson mentioned in the tabloids. Only their closest friends or someone deliberately looking for her would know about her relationship to the famous duo.

Now, tied to a chair in a pantry in a restaurant, she felt a helpless kind of fury at being used against her husband and her closest friend in this way. She looked at the man guarding her with a shred of satisfaction at having bloodied his nose for him with her head when he first grabbed her at Café Nero. It had earned her blow across the face, but she had hardly felt it at the time.

"Do as I say and do it quietly, or I'll start yanking hostages out of that closet and shooting them," her captor had snarled. She stopped struggling then and submitted to being tied up and thrown into the back seat of a car.

Her hands were growing numb, each tied to an arm of the chair she was sitting on. Her legs were numb, too, tied to the chair legs. The gag had dried her mouth, making her desperately thirsty, and it rubbed against the cut on her lip and the swelling bruise on her cheek. There were five men that she had seen—two of them seemed to be brothers and in charge-and at least one of them was always with her in the closet. How could she escape?

She wished she had access to a clock. She knew that her boys had one hour to comply with her kidnappers' demands, and the time was passing at an agonizing pace. She also knew that they would have easily deciphered her message and would have realized that her captors were not planning to let her go, whatever they did. She wished that they would act accordingly and not put themselves at risk. There was no point in all three of them being killed. At the same time, she knew perfectly well that they would attempt to rescue her. She just hoped they would hurry. She'd been trapped in this hard chair nearly all day, and she ached all over.

"It's time," of the bosses said, just outside her door. "Pete, you stay here and wait for our call; the rest of us will go to the meeting site and perform an execution. And you listen to me, Pete," he went on sternly. "You are not to kill her before you get my call. You know they won't show themselves without checking that she's still all right. I want this to be an execution, not a fire-fight."

Pete indicated that he understood the plan. "I ain't stupid, Charlie," he grunted, insulted.

"And don't hit her in the face anymore," other voice reminded Pete. "If she can't talk clearly, they might think it isn't her at all, and it'll complicate things unnecessarily. If you must hit her, hit something besides her mouth, you twat."

Pete protested, but his companions noisily left. Mary sighed into her gag and prayed John and Sherlock were not planning to meet them on their own terms.

A commotion outside confirmed they were not.

Pete jumped into the pantry with Mary and locked the door behind him. "Someone's here!" he gasped. "Keep quiet or I'll end you." He pulled out a firearm and put the end of the barrel against her temple. Mary could hear the sound of doors opening and closing and heavy breathing in the kitchen area outside her pantry prison. The doorknob to the pantry rattled. Then the door was kicked open, and John was there, looking like some furious, avenging spirit and pointing his own weapon at her captor. Sherlock immediately appeared over John's shoulder, anger smouldering in his expression.

"I'll kill her! Put your gun down!" Pete shouted at them.

Sherlock snarled at him, "You must realize you can't leave this room alive if you kill her. The only possible way for you to remain among the living is for you to lay your weapon down and surrender. And even then, I can't vouch for your chances with John."

She could hear Pete's uncertainty in his unsteady breathing beside her. She looked at her husband's expression and thought that if this man had any sense of self-preservation whatsoever, he'd give up immediately. John's face was terrifying in his wrath, and hands were completely steady.

Pete's decision was made suddenly, his solution to his dilemma to duck behind his captive's chair for cover and shift his aim from her temple to the back of her head. In the split second it took for him to adjust his position, John's finger twitched, and the kidnapper dropped like a stone, a trickle of blood leaking from the wound between his staring eyes.

Instantly, John dropped his firearm and went to his knees at her feet. He gently pulled the gag from her mouth and tenderly touched the swelling on her cheek. "Mary," he rasped hoarsely. "Are you all right?"

She nodded. "I'm okay. It's just superficial," she assured him. He gently wiped the blood from her split lip with a trembling thumb.

Behind John, Sherlock was on his mobile with Lestrade, who was waiting at the kidnappers' appointed meeting place. "She's safe. You can move in now. Yes, she's fine, just a bit bruised. We do need a coroner's wagon, though. Her kidnapper has apparently managed to get himself killed."

John had pulled out a pocket knife and was slicing through the bonds that tied her hands to the chair arms. Sherlock shoved his phone away and pulled out his own knife, cutting the ropes that bound her feet. And then she was free. John carefully looked her over, taking inventory of every abrasion, contusion, and rope burn, his face growing darker with each injury he discovered. Mary thought Pete was probably lucky he was already dead; if it were possible, John would undoubtedly kill him a second time, and more slowly.

Finally, he helped her to her feet. It felt good to stand after being locked in one position for so long. But her legs didn't want to work, and she fell into him heavily. He wrapped his arms around her and held her for a long time. "Mary. I've never been so frightened in my life," he murmured into her hair. "Don't ever get kidnapped again. I can't take it."

"I'll try," she assured him, her voice muffled in his jacket. "I'm just thankful you're all right. I was so afraid they'd kill you and Sherlock before you could catch them."

"Not a chance. Look how inept they are," Sherlock intoned.

000

It was hours before they could finally return to their flat. The trio collapsed in John and Mary's sitting room and wearily dug into their Chinese takeaway. According to the report, Mary's kidnapper had clumsily shot himself in the forehead just before the two, unknown do-gooders stumbled upon the crime scene and discovered her. John and Mary had not taken part in the report-making; he was seeing to it that her injuries were cleaned and bandaged and properly kissed.

"The owner of the bistro where you were being held showed up while you were in the infirmary," Sherlock informed them. "He was dismayed that his establishment had been used for such a heinous purpose. He has assured us that we may dine there free of charge at any time, in perpetuity."

Mary frowned. "To be honest, this has put me right off restaurants, good and proper. I think it'll be a long time before I'll ever want to go out to dinner again."

John agreed. "I think, at least for the time being, we'll just stay in."

And so, John and Mary did not even attempt to go out to dinner again for months-until their one year anniversary. But that's another story. . . .

0000

That other story is told in "Can't Manage Ordinary".