When the wicked spring as the grass, and when all the workers of iniquity do flourish; it is that they shall be destroyed for ever:

But thou, Lord, art most high for evermore.

Psalm 92:7-8

"Greg, we were just in a burning building. A blanket is the last thing we need," I said drily, brushing off the gaudy orange 'shock blanket' that was repeatedly placed over us. Sherlock seemed to just accept the inevitable.

"Still got some aspiring paparazzi's on the force?" Sherlock said carelessly. I frowned, but my question was cut off by Lestrade's response.

"Well, now they wanted one with both of you. Only way to get photographic evidence of you two under a blanket together."

I just stared blankly into the void, beginning to agree with Sherlock about the idiocy of the rest of humanity. Sherlock snorted derisively and rolled his eyes.

"What other methods have you tried?" Sherlock asked sardonically. The inspector shrugged, the corner of his mouth turned up in a half-smile. He leaned against the open doors of the ambulance we were sitting in and kindly took the blanket. He threw it at some random emergency personnel, earning him a curse, but it made him and Sherlock chuckle, so I guess it was worth it.

After the building had collapsed, we were quickly whisked away by pushy paramedics, and treated for a while before being left alone (or at least they tried to treat Sherlock, before he annoyed them so much they figured he was fine and left him alone, for the sake of law and order).

"Looks like you took quite the beating," Lestrade commented, looking over my torso, bare except for two cold packs over the bright, angry bruises on my chest and side.

"Well this poor sod had to live through what was probably a double dose of that hallucinogen," I said, gesturing with my head toward the skinny detective next to me. Sherlock shrugged, but I could tell he was slightly off-kilter, making concern twist my stomach. But now wasn't the time.

In reality, we weren't all that hurt. Sherlock had some bruises and cuts, mostly on his face and around his wrists and ankles. I had bruises and a somewhat damaged ankle, and possibly the beginnings of a cold. And, of course, both of us had some minor burns and smoke poisoning. Nothing that wouldn't heal before too long. Lestrade had long since stopped being concerned about for us, finding we were causing him the usual migraine and grey hairs.

I reached for the pile of my discarded shirts and coat, and plucked a small microphone out of the collar of my jumper.

"Guess this was all for nothing," I said with a slightly mournful tone. "It's fried." Sherlock's head snapped with interest towards the device, snatching it out of my hand like the polite gentleman he is.

"Nope," Lestrade returned proudly. "It was recorded. All on here," he said, holding up an encased CD, which was also confiscated with the same amount of cordiality and chivalry.

"You recorded the entire conversation?" Sherlock said sharply, glancing between us. "Whose idea was that?" he demanded. Lestrade gestured with those agile eyebrows of his toward me. Sherlock looked at me, with a bewildered did-John-do-something-intelligent expression.

"That way, we would have evidence against him. And then Lestrade would have grounds for intervening." I explained, feeling smug for impressing him. He smirked.

"Nice one. Though I guess it still won't do us much good now," he said, looking at the smouldering pile of timber that used to be a house. I sighed in agreement.

"So, what's going in the official report?" I asked. In the last Baskerville case, there had been no official file. Now, all the evidence we had gathered would probably never be filed in Scotland Yard, let alone come before the public eye.

"Accidental. Nothing about kidnapping, attempted murder." Lestrade explained in a low voice. Sherlock nodded approvingly.

"Well, we really ought to be going Lestrade." Sherlock said pompously, rising. I stood hesitantly, not placing any weight on my left foot. Though it had been cleaned and wrapped, I wasn't eager to try it out.

"Sherlock, you can't. I need statements." Lestrade answered sternly.

"Tomorrow." Sherlock replied stubbornly. I couldn't help but agree. Exhaustion didn't even begin to describe how I felt, and Sherlock was probably no better.

Lestrade glanced between the two of us, unconvinced. Sherlock coughed convulsively and I visibly winced when I put my injured foot to the ground. The inspector sighed dramatically.

"Fine." he said in comical defeat, stepping out of the way.

"Thanks Greg," I said quietly as I gathered up everything of mine and Sherlock's, piling it on one arm, and donning a much less conspicuous blanket around my shoulders. Lestrade just rolled his eyes and walked away.

I turned to go, but Sherlock took the bundle of belongings and placed it in his own arm, and offered his other one to me, looking at me appreciatively. It seemed that I had earned his official stamp of approval, at least for the time being. I took his arm lightly, using it more for balance than support. Walking wasn't as bad with a piece of metal embedded in your joint, and soon we walked down the driveway, and out to the street, where we walked for a while before a cab turned up.

Once inside, I allowed my tense muscles to relax, and I grunted as they slowly loosened, a good sort of pain. Sherlock was silent, and I think 'brooding' would be an accurate adjective for his knitted brow and darting gaze out the window. I had a lot of questions, and wasn't sure if now was a time for answers. But I let curiosity and concern finally push the reluctant words out of my mouth.

"Did he - do anything to you?" I asked nervously. Sherlock shook his head, staying silent.

"Where did the wagon come from?" I continued lightly, hoping to get him talking. The dark cloud lifted from his face somewhat, and he turned a bright gaze on me.

"A child's room," he said enigmatically. That made no sense.

"Cornwall didn't have any children," I replied stubbornly, although a vulgar possibility made my stomach turn. Sherlock waved away both of my statements, spoken and unspoken, explaining himself.

"It was clearly a secret. The room was inhabited at one point, and I'm sure that it was a playroom. But not for a few months. I looked a bit more, and behind a burning panel there was a collection of toys, our wagon among them. Some of them old family heirlooms, some state-of-the-art. There was also a good deal of medical equipment, all of it stuffed in that little secret closet. A bed, wheelchair, IV stand. Sentimental." He said, and left it at that. I frowned, the new information somewhat saddening. Cornwall had had a child, who had been sick and died. Illegitimate, in all probability.

"A bit strange that the building would burn down. Cornwall didn't seem like the careless type." I commented, trying to keep my friend from sinking into one of his black mood swings that often happened after the conclusion of a case. At first I thought he was going to ignore me, but eventually his body language loosened enough for him to answer.

"He wasn't. It was arson." Sherlock replied, turning his body toward me. "First of all, you're right, Cornwall was not so careless as to burn his house down. And secondly, you might have noticed the fire got worse the closer to the outside of the house we got. If the fire had begun inside, it would have been the opposite."

"Petrol around the perimeter?"

"Most likely," Sherlock replied, nodding.

"Who then?" I asked. Not that a man like Cornwall wouldn't have a lot of enemies, but most enemies wouldn't burn your house down.

"Hard to tell. Whoever it was, they were very clever to get past Lestrade's perimeter unseen, twice. Most likely not Fleming, he wouldn't have any reason to. He wanted either a profit or a public scandal, and he got neither of those. A personal grudge, then. There could possibly be a large number of people that had a quarrel with him. But from the way that there was no direct physical violence, I sense the woman's touch. Lover's grudge? The child's mother?"

"Mara, Victor's mother. She hated him with a passion that would outburn the sun." I suggested. Sherlock shrugged.

"I suppose we'll never know. Either way, I can hardly complain about it." he said, his debonair attitude returning somewhat. I grinned, relieved.

Sherlock suddenly sobered, looking out the window again.

"Did you get a call too?" he asked, his tone emotionless. I caught my breath slightly, but grunted in affirmation. "What was it?" he continued.

"Afghanistan." I answered, equally stiff at the memory. "And yours?"

Sherlock frowned, answering. "There's audio equipment that makes it possible to distort a particular person's voice. Not specific words as much, but screams are much easier to manufacture." I felt rage bubbling up. That was just sick. I didn't ask Sherlock to elaborate, he didn't want to talk about it and it clearly bothered him. But he did, though not exactly along those lines.

"I was down at the door, waiting for you when I got the call. I had just hung up when I heard a cry from you upstairs, and a thud."

"Yeah, I fell down the stairs." I threw in, and he nodded before continuing.

"When I went up, you weren't there. I took your revolver and went down to the street. That's the last thing I know for sure." he stopped, his brows coming together in frustration. I clenched my fist, wishing that Cornwall had met a less merciful end. Even without a hallucinogen in my system, those events alone would be sufficiently terrifying. I knew the story from there, and I was guessing Sherlock wouldn't bare his soul to me about whatever he had seen. But I could make an educated guess. A certain quirky and slightly Scottish consulting criminal would fit the bill.

I looked more closely at my friend, saw suppressed dejection and guilt in his body language. I suddenly understood.

"Sherlock, it's fine." he looked at me in slight confusion, and I explained. "I don't blame you, whatever you were seeing, I would have pulled the trigger too." I hoped he would take my words to heart instead of calling me sentimental and shrugging it off. He just nodded, not replying. But I could tell he felt better, his brows separating a bit more, his jaw untensing.

"He told me. That I killed you." he said suddenly. I felt a wave of grief for him, unable to even imagine what that must have felt like.

"Well, you didn't," I replied lamely. "You're more likely to kill me with some poison you accidentally left in the butter dish than a bullet. It's thanks to you that I survived, actually," I said, lifting the coat. "I like it even better now. The bullet holes give it character," I said. He snorted, no doubt insulting me internally for being fanciful.

"So, another case solved then. What now?" said Sherlock, a bit remorsefully. I made a mental note to find another board game to challenge him with, something nice like Monopoly.

"I'm going to have a cuppa, and then I'm going to sleep for a week," I said firmly. Sherlock chuckled.

"Don't you have work tomorrow?" he said, and I simply pulled out my phone and sent a text.

"Not anymore," I retorted triumphantly, and he grinned.

"Dinner?" he asked nonchalantly.

"Anywhere where there's decent tea and comfortable seats," I said, though I knew it was possible I'd just fall asleep with my face in my food.

"Done and done," he said pleasantly, and gave an address to the driver.

The reader may be interested to know that, as Sherlock later informed me, according to those files, Cornwall had been financially on his last leg for a few months, something big draining his resources. I can't help but think of the mystery child, maybe the treatment was just that expensive. 'Culverton Smith' was Cornwall's business pseudonym, or 'stage name' as a certain consulting detective insisted on calling it. He actually sold the H. O. U. N. D. hallucinogen on the black market, along with some other classified information that he had access to, including whatever was supposed to have been in his safe. How he got his hands on the drug in the first place, I'm not sure. I guess some questions will always be unanswered.

Also, the seats were very comfortable and the tea was excellent, but we were thrown out of the restaurant when Sherlock made one too many embarrassing deductions about the staff and the people at the surrounding tables, and he was banned from the establishment for life. We're quickly running out of restaurants that won't toss us out on our ear, but I wouldn't have it any other way.

The End

A/N: I literally feel like crying. I finished it. I freaking finished it. It's taken me a year. A bleeding year of work. Sad, but hey, I did it. You may also be interested to know that I wrote this entire freaking story because I wanted to write my own Hobbit/Sherlock crossover. If anyone finds it, let me know. But I spent a lot of time finding a way, and then building a plot around it. It was hard. I hope somebody out there gets it.

This chapter is really long, I know, but I wanted to get this thing finished before I watch s3. Eep! :D

Please, leave me a review! And thank you, to anyone who read this entire thing. It's been great.