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. . . from THE BLUE CARBOY:

They found a table in the window of a late-night diner in Aylesbury’s main street. John said nothing on the way to the restaurant and now sat with his hands clasped, staring out past their reflections. The snow had begun again.

Sherlock didn’t waste time offering expressions of sympathy. He was wholly focused on the case and he needed John to focus, too. He’d found a major lead on the console table and he also knew how much danger John was in now. “John,” he said.

“I’m fine,” John said absently, patently lying. But Sherlock wasn’t asking after his mental state.

“John.”

“I said I’m fine–” John began.

Sherlock leant forward. “John. I need you to listen to me. Really. Listen. What happened to your friend: it’s all over that damned stone. They know he gave it to you and they’ll be coming for you now.”

John blinked. “What are you...? How would they know that I have it?”

Sherlock didn't answer but his eyes never left John’s, and suddenly John understood. He shook his head, refusing to believe it. “Hamp would never–”

Sherlock stood up so abruptly that he knocked his chair over. “You’re out of this,” he snapped, and his voice was colder than John had ever heard it. "If you're not going to use your brain I’ll move faster on my own.” He reached for his phone. “Lestrade can send a car for you–”

Then John, too, was on his feet. “Don’t you dare.”

“Then focus,” Sherlock snarled. “Feel later. Focus now.”

From Baker Street...

"Are you distilling cyanide on the cooker?"

* * * * *

...Sherlock and John are on the case...

Sherlock sprang from the sofa and snatched up his coat as he strode to the door.

“Where are you going?”

“Out. I’ll find Fielding myself.”

“Oh, God,” John sighed. “Well, you’re not going alone.”

* * * * *

...to bring a murderer to justice.

John didn't need his left hand to shoot. Even with the all-pervasive noise of the running water the sound of the hammer when he cocked the gun was clearly audible. “Stop. Now." His voice was a low growl made through clenched teeth. “I will kill you if you touch him again.”

* * * * *

But with a monster storm taking aim at England, what they find when they pursue him into the sewers of London...

Fielding screamed. Sherlock shouted “John!” and then it was chaos. Over Fielding's piercing screams and Sherlock's shouts, John could hear . . . something . . .an inhuman snarling, a crunching noise, a dry scrabbling like claws on the brick, and then Sherlock’s grunts of effort as he struck furiously with the torch at whatever was up there in the dark. “Sherlock!” John yelled.

* * * * *

...could cost both of them their lives.

Sherlock was frantic now to get out of the tunnel, but he realized that John had stopped thinking of Fielding as a prisoner and now saw him as a patient: one of his holy patients. "Dammit, John. The water's coming now. If you stay here, you'll die."

"So will he!"

"I don't care about him," Sherlock snarled. “Listen!” And now John too could hear it: a distant hiss, like the sound of the sea in a shell -- but here in this subterranean maze the sound filled him with terror.

* * * * *

Sherlock’s frantic strength and the inexorable pull of the water were in stasis, but it couldn’t last. The merest slip and John would be gone. John squeezed his eyes closed and devoted every ounce of strength he had left to holding on. "Don’t.” Sherlock’s voice was strained and unnatural. John opened his eyes and looked straight into Sherlock’s, and he saw his own terror mirrored there.

* * * * *

Metacarpal Tunnel Syndrome: read the whole adventure here.