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Dr. John Holmes-Watson (Alpha) was wrapping up a lecture on Omega versus Alpha severance. His mobile was on silent, and as was the norm when either was doing something that required not being disturbed, John had partially shut Sherlock out of his thoughts to concentrate. Thus, he was utterly unprepared for his daughter's internal screams for him via their unique Pack connection.
{PAPA! DADDY!}
The only thing worse than the feeling of his daughter's panic was the sudden silence that followed, and Sherlock’s panic was right behind it.
{Donna‽ What’s going…?}
Unlike Sherlock’s emphatic connection, John heard his daughter’s screams as mindspeak within himself and her panic. Only the pure, raw core emotion of the pack can break through a partial shutout, which solidifies that something is indeed wrong. {Donna‽ DONNA!}
John was already reaching out to his omega when he felt Sherlock's panic through their bond as Sherlock called out to him via mindspeak.
{ALPHA!}
John didn’t think twice; he took off at alpha speed and reached out to Mycroft.
By the time John received the official alarm on his phone, he had already left the podium and a room full of stunned attendees after his incredibly swift departure.
********
Sherlock Holmes-Watson (Omega) was following a lead on a client’s case when he felt the panic of his child. Whereas John, in his unique way, could internally communicate with him and their children, Sherlock did not hear her scream but, like all omega parents, had an overall emphatic feel for them. He felt the panic of his daughter, a panic that suddenly went silent when she went unconscious.
{ALPHA!} Sherlock immediately reached out to his alpha through their bond, knowing their combined panic would break through the shutout of their minds.
{SHERLOCK!} John was already reaching out to him. {It’s Donna! She’s alive, Sherlock! Unconscious but alive. I still feel her!}
Sherlock was out of the building and using his uncanny ability to instantly flag a taxi when the official alarm went off.
********
{MYCROFT! Something has happened to Donna. She’s in the City but unconscious. FIND HER!}
Mycroft Holmes-Lestrade (Alpha) was at his Diogenes office when Alpha John Watson reached out to him internally. He had barely comprehended what the already semi-feral alpha was telling him about his niece when Anthea rushed into his office with the news: an Emergency 1 notification.
15:49!E1:PHW11 + GPS coordinates.
According to the GPS, the 11th member of Pack Holmes-Watson, daughter Donna Clementine (Omega), activated her emergency tracker at ten minutes to four in the afternoon just outside her music academy. Her mobile was unreachable, but the tracker remained active. She had been abducted.
{John, we're tracking her. You and Sherlock head for Baker Street, and I'll contact you. My team will get her.}
********
15:49!E1:PHW11 + GPS coordinates.
Detective Inspector Gregory Holmes-Lestrade, as a Beta, even a bonded one, did not have the pack connection. He was at a crime scene when he received the alarm. He had stepped away from the scene, about to call Mycroft for details, when his husband contacted him.
>>TEXT: 15:54| PDA Standby – MH
Greg read the plausible deniability advised warning and internally cursed. He knew it would likely be handled via AlphaOmega laws first, meaning he had to stay out of it. He was aware the ancient laws and customs of his husband's ilk sometimes ran counter to those of Crown Law. He could not be a part of whatever was about to happen with Pack Holmes-Watson in case it crossed his jurisdiction as an officer of Crown Law. Greg returned to work and waited impatiently until he heard from Mycroft, Sherlock, or John again.
All the four men had questions.
Questions like: Who? And why?
And how bad is it going to be for the kidnappers once they are found?
Mycroft’s people had identified the van less than fifteen kilometers from the academy. The van driver did not notice, as different large SUVs surrounded him until he tried to make a turn and was not allowed. He quickly understood the situation, and the van was routed to a place without cameras. The team safely retrieved the still unconscious Donna out of the van and alerted the two fathers separately en route to Baker Street with their location.
Sherlock had arrived first. Though he recognized the man on sight, Hugo Perry and his accomplice Kurt Hallman had been identified by the team. He went straight to his daughter.
“Daddy!” Donna Clementine burst into tears at the sight of her omega father when she awakened minutes later in the back of one of the SUVs, understandably shaken.
“Clem!” Sherlock pulled the girl into his arms, calming her through their pack connection. “It’s okay. It’s okay…”
{Calm, my darling. You’re safe now; both of your fathers are here.}
“Papa!” Donna looked from her omega father at the internal sound of her alpha father as he arrived on the scene.
“I’m right here, darling.” John kissed his daughter’s cheek even as he ran a hand through his omega’s curls.
The Alpha and omega comforted their daughter together as Sherlock explained the who and why of Hugo Perry to John in mindspeak.
Years before Alpha John Watson and Omega Sherlock Holmes met, Detective Inspector Greg Lestrade worked on a case involving a string of home burglaries spread out over a few months. After the sixth robbery, Lestrade realized there was a pattern, but after two misses, he realized he could not reliably predict when or who the thieves would hit next. He brought in Sherlock, who was not quite renowned as The World’s Only Consulting Detective yet, but he had proven his usefulness in tricky cases. The culprits were caught amid their subsequent home invasion. While the other accomplices could only be tied to no more than three of the robberies, Hugo Perry, the ringleader of the group, was convicted for seven of the nine counts.
While Perry was incarcerated, his wife and children died during a freak winter storm. The flue to the fireplace was blocked, and his family died of carbon monoxide poisoning. It was a freak accident, but in Perry’s twisted mind, it somehow became the omega's fault for catching him, so he could not be there for his family, and an intense hate for Sherlock began. It was a hate that slowly simmered as Sherlock became more well-known. Perry wanted Sherlock to know the feeling of that loss he had lived with for the past several years. Perry played the mostly model prisoner while he seethed within and plotted as he served his full term before he was released back into society.
Less than a year after Perry’s release, their ninth child - the fifth daughter of John and Sherlock of Pack Holmes-Watson, ten-year-old musical prodigy Donna Clementine, was kidnapped when the sedan scheduled to pick her up was late as she waited outside the music academy she attended. Donna had just enough wherewithal to activate the hidden emergency tracker that all elite families like theirs wore. The silent alarm activated before she was rendered unconscious.
“Sirs? I was told to give you this.” One of Mycroft’s minions handed John a tablet.
"It's from Lauren." John flicked his dark eyes over the pad and then to their daughter. {Sherlock...}
Sherlock felt John's rage and knew it was bad. He started to rise, but Donna clung tight to him.
"Donna, stay here in the car a moment. Remember, we discussed what can happen in these situations. We're with your uncle's people. I know you don't know them, but I promise you're safe. " He kissed the girl's forehead and squeezed her tight. "I need to talk with your Papa about things you should not hear. We'll be right here, where you can see us both. It's okay. It's okay."
They felt her reluctance and resolve as she slowly let Sherlock leave the car.
{It's okay, Donna, Daddy, and I are right here.}
"She's terrified, John. Not for the first time, I wished I could send feelings to our children the way we can with each other."
"I know love; I can feel them and mindspeak with them. I can calm her mind, but not even I can calm her soul as she needs right now."
John could not help but feel proud of her surprisingly stoic face even as he felt her trying to find her own inner calm.
Sherlock looked at the tablet with John and understood the Alpha rage he felt John trying to control. Perry’s flat had been found, and Lauren had a live camera feed that showed what had been discovered. John and Sherlock silently watched as she pointed out the evidence that documented Perry’s plan to take Donna Clementine because she was near the same age and had the general look and build of Annette, Perry’s daughter, when she died. Sherlock quickly snatched the tablet from John when he heard it begin to crack in the alpha's hands, as the plans also revealed that Perry intended to recreate the circumstances of his daughter’s death with Donna.
“Papa? Daddy?” Donna tapped hard on the window and looked from one father to the other as she sensed their tension rising.
Sherlock climbed into the car and pulled her onto his lap. Sherlock felt it as John forced his rage down before he turned to their daughter. He was grateful that John could because he knew his eyes had gone full black in the rage he could not quelle.
“Donna, you’re going to need to wait here while your Daddy and I explain to the men who took you why what they did was very wrong. You are too young to witness this, but we cannot leave this undone. Do you understand, darling?” John’s voice was soft, but Sherlock knew Donna heard the steel and the dangerous low-level growl in her papa's voice. She trembled as she saw her alpha father’s deep blue eyes slowly start to go black. Nor had she missed that her omega father’s clawed fingers caressed her face as he held her.
"Yes, Papa. Yes, Da," Donna Clementine gave them a teary nod.
John kissed his daughter’s temple. “{Keep your eyes closed until I or Daddy tell you to open them.}”
As John and Sherlock spoke with their daughter and were updated, the van's two men were also being spoken to.
Perry and Hallman now had a hint of the power behind John and Sherlock to have been so easily found and diverted from the streets. They also knew they were not getting out of this easily. Mycroft’s team, who knew AlphaOmega societal laws as well as Crown Law, approached the men inside the van and gave them a choice: Go strictly by Crown Law and serve the maximum jail sentence for the kidnapping of a child with intent to murder, with no chance of parole. It had been made quite clear that should they choose Crown Law and go straight to prison, their jail time would be as pain-filled as possible. Or they could go by AlphaOmega Law and decide to fight the father of the girl they kidnapped. And if they survived the fight, they would serve half the sentence.
"And if the father is killed?" Hugo Perry asked.
"Then he is unworthying, and you go free."
Most betas in the know of their kind did not accept the offer to fight. The chances of surviving were next to nil; if they survived, they rarely did so with their body intact. It was a guaranteed loss of at least one limb if the alpha was merciful.
Perry was not a beta in the know.
Blinded by hate, angered by the botched kidnapping attempt that denied him the vengeance he sought and now thwarted by rules he didn’t quite understand, he was further incensed to learn he would be up against Watson, not Holmes.
On the other hand, Hallman, an alpha, knew the rules. He knew an omega, weak things that they are, would never make such an offer. Most could not hold their own against the average beta in a fistfight and had no chance against an alpha. He immediately understood by the offer they were going up against another alpha and explained it to Perry. Hallman saw when John arrived and identified him as the alpha they would fight. He took in John’s physically smaller size compared to his own, plus with Perry also fighting, it was two-to-one odds against Alpha Watson. Even if Perry didn't, Hallman knew he would survive.
But John was not an Alpha who was merciful.
And there was no way for Hallman to know that this alpha was Doctor John Hamish Watson. An alpha with a natural strength and agility above the average alpha male. An ability that was then enhanced by being in a special program in the military. Of them all, only the former army captain had no doubt of his survival against the two men, even if both had been alphas. And that was before John had learned he was Aadeshyakar given the cross bonding with his omega Sherlock.
None of which mattered as the husbands mindspoke.
{Are you sure you want to handle it this way, love?}
{I am sorry for his loss, but he took our daughter, John. And the plans he had for her…? No, I will not let that stand.}
Neither man in the van understood that Sherlock Holmes was the exception to damn near every rule that applied to an omega in general. Nor were they cognizant of the penchant for the alpha and omega of Pack Holmes-Watson to go against much of the established rules that govern their kind.
{Fine, then. He’s yours, my omega.} John took their daughter into his arms, then looked to one of the guards. “Let Perry out. Let the other one watch what happens, but do not interfere.”
It was to Hugo Perry’s surprise and liking when the van's rear doors opened, and he saw Sherlock awaited him. “I thought your rules said I had to fight your husband-alpha or whatever.”
“You took our daughter in vengeance against me, not my alpha.” Sherlock, his upper body stripped down to his undershirt, growled. “You will fight me, not my alpha.”
“With pleasure!” All the years of suppressed hate exploded in a primal yell as Perry rushed toward Sherlock.
Sherlock waited until Perry was within striking distance, and then he moved.
Kurt Hallman blanched when Sherlock looked up at him with full black eyes that should never be seen on an omega just before he landed a blow on Perry that broke a bone. All of their kind knew an omega could be vicious in the protection of their pack or when in personal danger. Hallman understood neither situation applied here. He gaped at the controlled viciousness unleashed by the omega simply because he was livid and he could. When Sherlock finally stopped moving, it was clear that Hugo Perry would never be able to do so again without assistance for the rest of his life.
Hallman watched as the omega, his mercurial eyes now returned to their normal verdigris color, calmly walked back to his alpha. John handed Sherlock a towel to wipe his bloody body and hands before he redressed. Sherlock placed clean towels across his lap before he sat and took their daughter into his arms.
{I want him to suffer, Alpha.}
With Perry still on the ground between them as a reminder of what the omega can do, Hallman finally began to realize the trouble he was in. Watson tenderly kissed his omega over their daughter’s head, then looked at Hallman and smiled. All could see the slow panic build on Hallman’s face when John made a gesture at him that could only be described as You’re next.
John crossed the space at his actual Alpha speed and climbed into the van. If John had heard Sherlock's request, he gave no sign of it as he looked his Omega husband in the eyes and dropped. One of Mycroft’s people who saw John’s face visibly shuddered as deep blue irises instantly turned into black eye sockets as he let his monster loose and closed the doors behind him.
If Hallman had any thoughts of changing his mind, it was too late.
The man never had a chance.
They were a Pack family. Sherlock knew Donna's sudden shudder; she sensed the monster was her alpha father, in addition to his own barely controlled rage. She was the physical age at which most children started to learn of the darker aspects of being Pack. Donna Clementine was young, but she was also a Holmes-Watson. Sherlock knew she was aware of precisely what was happening. Knowing it and being witness to the violence were two different things. Sherlock was grateful John had placed headphones over Donna’s ears so she would not hear the screams.
It was over too quickly when the alpha stepped out minutes later.
{I heard you, omega.}
It may have been quick, but it was anything but painless for the two men.
A half-hour after Mycroft’s people, the alpha, the omega, and their daughter had departed, the van was ‘found’ by a Met officer who claimed the men were already beaten when she found them.
Perry, now who has tetraplegia, confessed to the attempted kidnapping but claimed to have had no recollection of how he became so severely beaten.
Hallman had easily escaped the minor charge of alpha fighting in AO court when he confessed as an accomplice to the kidnapping in Crown Court. All Hallman had known was that she was a child from a wealthy family; he was only in it for the potential money. He had not known the personal history between Hugo Perry and Sherlock Holmes and was appalled when he learned of Perry’s other plans for the girl.
I am an army doctor; I can name every bone in your body while breaking them.
Only John, Sherlock, Mycroft, and Greg knew that the doctor, with his unique healing touch due to being Aadeshyakar, also knew how to break an alpha’s bones so they would not heal. Hallman would spend the rest of his life as a person with paraplegia, with only partial use of one arm. It was an extreme rarity among fast-healing Alphas. Regardless, Hallman survived solely because Sherlock wanted him to suffer. You can't do that dead -because, with the knowledge of what Perry intended to do, all involved knew the alpha wanted them both dead- it was more than likely it would have been ruled as Justified Retribution in AO Court IF the court had someone to bring charges against. It was better this way.
As it was their daughter, John was brought in for questioning in the assault of both men in Crown Court. Though Hallman wore a single marque of shame across his cheek that blatantly stated otherwise -for no alpha will lay their marque on another without explicitly stating why to the offending alpha's face- like Perry, Hallman had also claimed not to know his assailant. AO Court knew no beta could do what was done to Hallman barehanded, and the evidence was clear it was an alpha fistfight. For Sherlock, being an omega, had worked in his favor, as none in the AO court had even considered that he was one of the combatants involved. Thanks to John’s hidden abilities, neither he nor his omega had shown any physical evidence of having been in a fight that, indeed, would have left bruised fists on the alpha had he been a combatant. As neither injured man would press charges, and with some hidden influence from Mycroft, of course, John was released.
Like many things in Pack society, no matter how 'off the grid' things are meant to be kept, the attempted kidnapping and rumors of the dual patriarchal responses got out. Naturally, everyone in the pack denied everything. The official story: The worried parents found their daughter wandering the streets via her tracker and brought her home. They officially called Lestrade, who, as a cop and a member of the family, immediately turned it over to Metro police. Donna surprised even her parents with her steadfastness as she looked her interviewers in the face and tearfully said she could not recall how she got out of the van or anything else before her parents found her.
Donna Clementine suffered nightmares and was extra clingy with the family for quite some time, but she was able to work through it with therapy, her music, and the love of her Pack.
The incident was among the first to become part of the Legends of Pack Holmes-Watson. Legends that begin with stories that may or may not be true but nonetheless end with the same variously worded warning:
Do Not Fuck with Pack Holmes-Watson.