Archive of Our Own

He should probably move out of the flat. Make a clean break. Start afresh across the city, where there weren’t reminders everywhere. But he knew it wouldn’t make a difference. The first time he heard “Behind Blue Eyes” left him a trembling mess of nerveless limbs and wet skin.

Besides, there was a homeless person on his doorstep.

It happened four days after they ID’d the third body.

The first one wouldn’t have been a surprise, really, except for the complete lack of forensic evidence. And the fact the body’s fingerprints came up on an Interpol search with an outstanding warrant for the murder of some Austrian dignitary. Eventually the Yarders put it down to a turf war, but it made Lestrade edgy. The dead man had been holding a piece of paper with the address of the school Greg’s kids attended.

Members of a sports club fished the second victim out of the river three weeks later. This one was a woman wanted by the FBI. She had a business card for a beauty salon called Don’t Touch My Hair pinned to her jacket. John recognized the name—Mrs. Hudson was always trying to set him up on a date with her stylist.

Those coincidences had been eerie enough, but the third body he’d never forget, not if he lived to be a thousand. When Molly had passed over the report—suspected of murder in Japan, Mexico, and Canada—John had nodded, just once, unsurprised.

Then she’d flipped over the page and showed him the tattered photograph they’d found on the body, in his breast pocket. John’s own face, smeared with blood but still recognizable. Mycroft’s doing—had to be. No one else had the resources to ferret out a plot like that. John figured he was honoring his brother’s memory the only way he could. 

John had bought a fifty-pound bottle of scotch and poured half of it out over soggy London earth before starting in on his share. “Here’s to you,” he’d said and saluted Sherlock’s headstone.

With three assassins in the morgue and Moriarty in the ground, John thought maybe he’d move on. For months he’d been filling his life with everything he could. He worked whatever hours he could get. When he had time off, he badgered Lestrade about open cases. He wasn’t Sherlock—by no means—but he knew how to think, how to observe. And he desperately needed to be part of it, of the task of bringing down Moriarty’s organization in London.

Now he had, and it was time to move on. John wondered if he were too old to enter the police force. Sherlock had been right about that much; John would wither and die without a challenge, without danger, without—

Well.

He should probably move out of the flat. Make a clean break. Start afresh across the city, where there weren’t reminders everywhere. But he knew it wouldn’t make a difference. The first time he heard “Behind Blue Eyes” left him a trembling mess of nerveless limbs and wet skin.

Besides, there was a homeless person on his doorstep.

John wasn’t immediately sure if it was a man or a woman. He couldn’t see their face, hidden as it was under a ragged excuse for a scarf. Whoever it was, they were filthy, stick thin, ragged, curled into a sickly ball outside 221B. There was a certain smell, one John had come to associate with patients who weren’t long for the world. He probably ought to call EMS.

But for the past months, when he wasn’t working, when he wasn’t fitfully playing at detective to fill a void in his life that never should have been there, he’d been working with the homeless network. Discovering what they’d heard. Earning their trust. Several times he’d offered medical attention to the sort of people who could never go to hospitals. This seemed to be one of those.

John reached for his keys. “Hello?” He knelt and put a hand on a filthy shoulder. For a second he thought they might already be dead. “Can you hear me? Can you stand?”

The creature stirred. One thin hand uncurled on the sidewalk; the fingers were almost skeletal, and two of them had been broken and not set properly. Big enough for John to make the deduction, though: a man.

John got an arm around his waist and managed to key open the door with the other hand, and then he more or less dragged his guest upstairs. It was easier than it ought to have been.

First things first. Warmth, water, food, a bath. After that John could diagnose. He helped the man to the chair by the fireplace, then lit the logs in the grate. Pulled the blanket from the back of the couch—he could wash it later.

Technically John was a doctor, but he was an English one: he made tea. Weak, no milk, only a bit of sugar—not enough to overwhelm a starving stomach, but he couldn’t help trying to slip in an extra calorie or two. Serving it would have to wait until it was cooler lest his houseguest burn himself. While he waited John made thin porridge, hardly thicker than water. “Do you have a name?”

Sherlock would have said it was a stupid question—everyone had a name. But the point of the exercise wasn’t to determine what he was called, it was to put him at ease.

He just saw the man nod, though no answer was forthcoming. Not unexpected. Shock, probably, and a healthy dose of mistrust to boot. John brought out the tea and porridge. “You should eat and drink.” He set the mug and the bowl on the small side table.

The spidery fingers curled around the mug carefully, like they were unfamiliar with the practice of tea drinking. But the man made no move to bring the drink to his mouth.

“Here, I’ll have to take your scarf off,” John said when it became apparent that the man wasn’t going to set the tea down again.

Even though John moved slowly, the man still flinched when he reached up to unwind the garment. It might have been fine once—the weave was small and the cloth was broad—but now it was tattered, filthy. John drew it away from his face first, then sought the ends and unwrapped the whole thing. Then he looked at what he’d uncovered hissed in spite of himself.

The man’s face was—“a mess” would have been putting it kindly. His nose had been broken and was swollen and crooked. Both eyes were black, narrowed to mere slits. Blood and muck John didn’t even want to speculate about covered the skin over a scraggly, sickly beard. He had a fat lip as well, crusted over with more dried blood. Judging by the irregular shape of the man’s face, he’d been hit hard enough times for multiple goose eggs to have formed. Jesus. Someone had beaten this man within an inch of his life. Not all at once, either: some of the bruises were a fresh deep purple, others a sickly yellow green.

John needed to examine him fully sooner rather than later. “Drink your tea,” he instructed. “I need to get something.”

Upstairs, John retrieved his kit from his bedroom, slid his laptop into the drawer with his sidearm, locked the desk, and pocketed the key. He’d changed the sheets on the bed the day before; that would have to be good enough for his impromptu guest. He couldn’t bring himself to put anyone in Sherlock’s room. John could sleep on the couch.

The man had finished the tea by the time John returned to the sitting room, but he hadn’t touched the porridge. He was just sitting and staring out the window. If John could see his eyes at all he’d have said the expression was vacant. This was the stare of someone who’d seen too much.

He wished it weren’t so goddamn familiar.

“Right. Don’t suppose you feel up to eating?”

No response. From the awkward way those hands had curled around the mug, John thought maybe dexterity might be a problem. He wasn’t going to be able to set the bones to rights without a proper X-ray, though, and then there’d be physical therapy, and, well. Most of his homeless patients didn’t exactly have the resources for all that. John picked up the spoon.

“It’s probably awful,” he offered. “But you’ll need to keep your strength up, and it’s easy on the stomach.”

John wondered what it said about him that spoonfeeding a grown stranger a bowl of cold porridge didn’t even rank on the list of the strangest things he’d ever done.

About halfway through the bowl, the nameless man turned his face away from the spoon, and John figured he’d had about as much as his body could handle. He felt a little sick, but he swallowed it back and made himself focus on the next step. “Right, okay. You’re not going to like this, but we need to get you cleaned up. I have to see what kind of care you need.”

His guest lowered his gaze but nodded.

“If you prefer to have a chaperone, I can ring the landlady,” John offered. Trust wasn’t something he took for granted in the patients who came to him at home.

He shook his head.

Huffing out a breath, John gestured behind him. “Right, then. Loo’s this way.”

John left him to undress while he gathered the rest of the things he’d need: the kitchen scissors, some of the extra clothing he’d picked up at a rummage sale for just such an occasion, a pillow for his knees, a bin bag for the discarded clothes, a towel. He took a minute to close his eyes and centre himself, preparing for the worst; the first time he’d taken a homeless patient, he’d thrown up afterward out of disgust with society.

Then he stripped down to his T-shirt, donned a pair of nitrile gloves, and walked back to the washroom.

His patient stood in the tub, facing the tile wall. His clothes were contaminating the bathmat but for his pants, which he’d left on despite the fact that they were nearly as filthy as he was. They could quibble about that later. The patient was shaking. John closed the bathroom door, cranked up the radiator, and set the towel on top of it to warm.

Not for the first time, he felt the weight of it crushing him: this man was too tall, too thin, too pale and dark-haired to come into this flat without reminding John of things long past. Seeing him here hurt, twisted something deep in John’s chest. But he gritted his teeth to keep it from escaping and reached for the showerhead. “It’ll make less mess if you’re sitting,” he suggested, and his patient folded up into a stick figure of sharp knees and elbows.

John left the drain unplugged. No reason to save the water that came away from his patient reddish brown and occasionally clumpy. In the places the skin underneath wasn’t bruised, it was almost the color of the porcelain.

John began with the shoulders, chest, and back. The man’s arms were lacerated in places, but those had closed up; none of them looked infected. John rinsed his arms too. Then the legs; a nasty gash high on the inside of one thigh was redder than John liked and puffy at the edges. From climbing a fence, maybe? He’d need a tetanus booster and some stitches.

Frostbite on the toes—only second degree, so that was lucky, no amputation. John shut the water off for a moment and contemplated his patient’s hair.

In a word, it was filthy, not just with mud and sticks but also a piece of litter and possibly even a bird’s wing. The man almost certainly had lice, and that meant everywhere. John sighed to himself and braced for argument. “I’m going to need to cut your hair,” he said. And burn all your clothes. And later I’ll have to ask you to strip off your underwear so I can use delousing shampoo on your privates. The two female patients he’d had had done that part themselves. The only other man hadn’t needed it.  

This patient bowed his head, and John cut carefully, no more than he needed to. Then he got out the shampoo.

After that it was mostly autopilot. Or—to be fair it had been mostly autopilot from the beginning. The patient seemed to understand he needed to get up; he nodded when John explained about the shampoo but couldn’t seem to find the energy to stand. At his hesitant nod of what was almost certainly dubious consent, John cut his pants away with the kitchen scissors. Apparently the man’s hands weren’t as damaged as John had feared; he applied the shampoo to his privates and armpits himself and nodded again when John told him it needed ten minutes to set.

In the meantime John checked his toes: blistered from the cold and probably running in less than optimal footwear. He washed them carefully with mild soap and made a note to wrap them later in case the damage was worse than it looked.

More soap up the man’s legs—John swapped out the washcloth and his gloves and got the antiseptic out of his kit. “This could be uncomfortable,” he warned.

His patient didn’t react.

On with the treatment, then: a topical pain reliever and antiseptic, and then stitches. John would follow later with an antibiotic cream.

John rinsed out the shampoo—yet another pair of gloves—while his patient ran a soapy washcloth over his body, and then there was really just one task left.

John took scissors to the scraggly beard. He couldn’t shave it, not with the lesions underneath, and he couldn’t shampoo it either. Instead, he disposed of the hair as safely as he could and, with a fresh cloth, gently wiped away the rest of the grime. Then he said, “Now I’m going to set your nose.”

That got him a wince—the most reaction he’d got so far.

“Yeah, I know, believe me,” John said sympathetically. “Broke mine in Afghanistan. Car a hundred feet in front of me hit an IED. I lost control and smashed my face on the steering wheel. Had to set it myself.”

His patient had gone whiter. His eyes were closed.

Right. Probably not the best idea to share war stories with someone who was already so traumatized he wouldn’t speak. Stupid.

“I don’t have your medical history,” John said apologetically, “or I’d give you something for the pain first. We’ll get you some paracetamol afterward. Okay?”  

His patient nodded minutely, and John put his fingers carefully to either side of the injury. Then—

That sound. The sound he made. It dug under the edges of the still raw scab John wore over his heart, and ripped, just as the patient opened his eyes again.

No.

No, he was seeing things. Had to be.

I’ve punched that face.

But he wasn’t. Only one person John ever met had eyes like that, so cold they burned right through you until you were nothing but ashes.

One more miracle.

Three dead bodies fell into place.

After a moment John realized he was still holding the man’s face and drew his hands back. His fingertips were screaming they’d touched a dead man. John stared stupidly at the head of dark hair and wondered how he hadn’t seen it, if maybe he was the one who was in shock. Then he gathered his wits and pulled himself to his feet and collected the soiled clothes in the bin bag. He threw the washcloths and used gloves in as well.

“The towel’s on the radiator,” he said tightly, fighting for control of his voice. “I’ll just… leave you to get dressed.”

He meant to go to his bedroom, to throw himself onto his bed in shock and maybe have a go at the panic attack creeping up his spine. Somehow he ended up in Sherlock’s room instead, sitting primly on a bed that hadn’t been slept in for months, with one hand rubbing over his mouth because he was half certain he was going to scream.

He should’ve been angry—should’ve been furious, that Sherlock had done this to him, had hurt him like this. But he couldn’t dredge up the anger, not against the tide of relief and hope and the final release of the grief he’d kept bottled up inside. Not when Sherlock was naked in their bathroom looking worse than some of the men John had treated on the battlefield, with a vacant stare and his stupid mouth silenced and musician’s hands twisted and broken and—

The first noise that exploded past his fingers wasn’t a sob exactly. It almost sounded like a hiccup. The ones that followed were quieter but every one of them cut on its way out, so that John could only hold a pillow to his face and breathe in that smell and wonder that his chest didn’t split open from feeling too much. He couldn’t even worry about being overheard. He was too overwhelmed that there was someone there to overhear him.

When the fit passed, John unclenched his fingers. His hands were shaking, but he took out his phone anyway and typed in a number from memory. If you ever do anything like this again, he began, and then had to pause to grit his teeth lest he dissolve back into frantic rocking. not even he will be able to find your body.

It was several minutes before his phone chirped in reply. John had expected snark or condescension or that uniquely Holmesian compound of the two; what he got was Understood. –MH.

Right. Okay. John took a shuddering breath. Sherlock was back from the dead like some kind of mythological hero, and John hadn’t heard him get out of the bath, so. Shock, maybe worse than John had thought. He should probably be in hospital. John scrubbed his hands over his face and reached for the door.

Something made him pause with his hand on the door, though, and it took him a minute to figure out. Huffing, he yanked open the bottom dresser drawer and withdrew a pair of stupidly luxurious pajamas. Then he took the dressing gown off the back of the door and tried to tell himself everything would be fine.

In the bathroom everything was not fine. For one thing Sherlock was still in the tub, leaning against the wall, his swollen eyes closed. Despite the heat, he was shivering.

The only way John was going to get through this without losing his mind was to take it one step at a time. So: towel first.

“Can you stand?”

Sherlock shifted in the tub, but one of his feet slid out from under him. John caught his arm before he could fall. “Easy.”

Stretching, John just managed to get his hands on the towel. Once he had it wrapped around Sherlock’s shoulders, the shaking subsided, and Sherlock stepped out of the tub.

Keep breathing. But no matter how many times he reminded himself, he found he was holding his breath as he toweled Sherlock dry. Getting him into his pajamas was another trial: left foot, right foot, left arm, right arm. The drawstring was too loose; as far as John could tell the trousers stayed up mostly on faith. Then the dressing gown—it was too big too, though John pretended not to notice as he belted it.

“Upstairs,” John said. “More water. Then sleep.”

He couldn’t find it in himself to be glad that Sherlock didn’t argue. It was wrong. But this Sherlock, silent and pliant and fragile, would never last in the old Sherlock’s room. The shadow of his old self would consume him.

Or that was what John told himself while acknowledging that the room at the top of the stairs was more secure, and he could sit comfortably outside the door all night with a cup of tea and his sidearm.

But before he could do that he had to settle Sherlock in his bed.

First he set the water on the nightstand and turned on the bedside lamp. Easy. Then he turned down the covers. Thankfully Sherlock didn’t need any actual prompting to climb in—but once he was there John spent thirteen heartbeats staring and remembering how to breathe.

In the end he left Sherlock there with a bottle of water, retrieved his gun from the drawer, loaded a clip, and went to sit on the stairs.

John didn’t have to wait long.

When the door creaked open, he put his thumb on the safety.

“Dr. Watson?” A pause; then Mycroft came into view. He blinked at the sight of the gun on John’s right knee, resting loosely in John’s right hand. “I do hope that’s not loaded.”

John gave him a humorless smile. “Try me.”

Mycroft removed and pocketed his gloves. Then he sighed, and John had to feel a bit bad for him. “Tell me what he needs.”

“I need you to clear his name so I can take him to hospital.” John set the gun on the top stair and ran his hands through his hair. “He needs X-rays, probably surgery, an MRI. Intravenous fluids wouldn’t come amiss. Blood work. A psych evaluation, if I thought he’d stand for it. Though that will be… difficult.”

“More difficult than usual?”

God, did he really not know? “I’d imagine so,” John said flatly. “He hasn’t spoken.”

Though he hid it well, that seemed to hit Mycroft hard: his mouth tightened, and some of the color went out of his face. Sometimes Sherlock went days without speaking, certainly. But not before he impressed upon an audience exactly how brilliant he’d been in solving a case. “Dr. Watson, I don’t suppose I could impose on you for something stronger than a tea.”

On second thought, some company tonight might not be such a terrible thing. “There’s Glenmorgandie in the kitchen,” he offered.

Apparently that was good enough. Mycroft returned a few minutes later with two glasses and offered one to John. “Your health,” he said and drank deeply.

John raised his glass in a silent toast and knocked it back.

Into the stretching silence, Mycroft said, “He’ll be cleared by tomorrow. I’ll send a car to escort you.”

For once John didn’t even consider declining. “Thank you.”

*

Once upon a time, John used to comfort himself by believing everything would look better in the morning.

Nothing looked better in the morning. Especially not if you had chosen scotch over sleeping during the night. John in particular did not look better this morning; as he finished shaving by rote, he noticed his eyes were bloodshot and his skin had gone sallow.

When Sherlock stumbled down the stairs an hour and a half later, he didn’t look better either. The bruises John could see had evolved into a purple-chartreuse rainbow. He limped and clung too heavily to the railing. His hair was a disaster of epic proportions. He still wasn’t talking. But at least he could move under his own power.

“Shower,” John directed him. “I’ll make you some breakfast.”

Sherlock obeyed without comment. That was maybe the worst part.

At half ten, a large black car pulled up outside and John’s phone chirped. He ordered Sherlock into clothes that were far too loose for John’s comfort—the buttons on his shirt didn’t pull at all—and then bundled him downstairs and into the automobile. Mycroft was already seated there, fiddling with his mobile.

John tried not to clench his teeth when he and Sherlock met eyes and both men nodded. That was more than he’d gotten out of Sherlock in eighteen hours. Sherlock didn’t even like Mycroft, barely even tolerated him. Mycroft had sold him out, had practically gift wrapped him for Moriarty to vilify. But Sherlock nodded at him. Why wouldn’t he nod at John?

Even for John, the hospital visit was tedious. John took an X-ray of Sherlock’s hand and then a surgeon cut him open and set the bones properly. It was amazing what having a brother in a nameless government position could do for wait time. A nurse drew blood and promised to expedite the results.

The minute the psychiatrist entered the room, Sherlock narrowed his eyes hatefully and glowered, and John gave it up as a lost cause. He hadn’t really been that hopeful anyway.

The MRI came out clean. No permanent brain damage, though there was some swelling. Whatever was wrong with Sherlock, it wasn’t physical. It wasn’t something John could fix.

That was definitely the worst part.

Well, aside from the terrible blankness when Sherlock looked at him.

*

The story made the front page the next day: a tell-all about how the brilliant Sherlock Holmes faked his own death and went undercover to take down a crime ring. How he’d slipped information back to his handler—Mycroft, John thought—the whole while. That he was back. That he was a hero.

John disabled comments on his blog and turned off his mobile. Then he called in at work and told them he needed a few days.

Sherlock kept sleeping in John’s bed. John didn’t know if he didn’t know that wasn’t his room or if he’d just decided John’s mattress was more comfortable. He couldn’t even be properly comforted that apparently Sherlock now slept the same hours as a regular human being.

After the first night, John stayed on the sofa.

On the third day, the stranger wearing Sherlock’s body like a bad coat went into the bathroom and came out cleanshaven, standing tall, his hair tamed into something approximating its usual disorder. He dressed without being told. Then he glided with a shadow of his old grace into the kitchen and appropriated John’s cup of tea.

John caught himself thanking God for a miracle.

That was all before Sherlock cocked his head to the side, held out his hand, and said, “Dr. Watson, I presume.”

*

It wasn’t right to say that the bottom fell out of John’s stomach, but nothing else described it either. Somehow he swallowed past the lump in his throat and shook Sherlock’s hand.

“You know who I am, of course,” Sherlock said.

Jesus. John cleared his throat. “Yes.” But did Sherlock?

He cocked his head. “Iraq or Afghanistan?”

And here was why it wasn’t right to say the bottom fell out of John’s stomach: it couldn’t happen twice in a row. “How did you—”

“I’ve seen you handle a gun, casual, like it’s an extension of your arm. You don’t mind staying up all night but you can also sleep in any position: on the stairs, in that armchair, on the sofa. You’ve had experience keeping watch and making the best of an uncomfortable situation. Your medical kit is comprehensive, must be a doctor from the quality of the stitches you put in my leg, too inherently kind to be a mercenary. Interesting contradiction. With your skills they’d have put you in Iraq or Afghanistan; you’re too young to have been anywhere else before and still have a medical license. But your skin is pale, so you’ve been out for some time. Invalided out, from the way you roll your left shoulder. A year, maybe longer.” Sherlock frowned like he’d forgotten something. Then he said, “Are you going to tell me to piss off?”

Inhaling deeply, John closed his eyes and counted to seven. He was still torn between relief and horror. Whatever had happened, Sherlock had retained this, at least, the core of him that talked too much and thought too fast.

Why don’t you remember me?

John cleared his throat. “How did you know my name?”

That seemed to bring him up short. “I—hmm.” He looked around.

But there weren’t any bills out, because Sherlock hadn’t lived here in months and John was inclined to be fastidious when left to his own devices. John had been up first every day; Sherlock had never seen the mail. He hadn’t opened John’s computer. There weren’t any Christmas or birthday cards on the mantel. And John had never been the type for Property of J. Watson labels, even in the army.

“Interesting.” Sherlock cocked his head again, the other way this time. “Do I know you?”

I was your friend, John wanted to say. The only one, I was your blogger and your friend and I chased you around the country and we used to go on adventures, and then you died and left me all alone so maybe we weren’t friends at all—

He cleared his throat again, but his voice was hoarse anyway. “We’re flatmates,” he said. “Sometimes I help you with cases. Though mostly I think you just like to have an audience when you’re using your brain.”

At that Sherlock frowned. “I don’t imagine I’m a very good flatmate. I keep terrible hours and body parts in the fridge and sometimes the kitchen explodes.” He seemed to shake himself. “You help with the work? That’s fascinating. I should remember you.” Then, as if to himself: “It doesn’t make any sense. You must have been deleted—”

That was all John could hear. “I have to go. Out.” He took another deep breath. “You should stay here. For now. There’s probably a mob waiting outside.” Fuck, walking through that was going to be awful. “My mobile number is on the fridge.” Sherlock was smart. He could figure out how to text via the Internet if he really wanted. Mycroft had probably given him a phone anyway.

As he pushed his way past the crowd of reporters at the door, it was all John could do to grit out, “No comment.”

*

It was too much to expect he’d be left alone for long. John had rather been expecting Mycroft. He got Lestrade instead.

“Thought you’d look happier,” he remarked as he sat down at the other end of the bench.

John kept his eyes on a tree in the distance. It was a good tree. Not pretending to be dead or forgetting the other trees it shared its existence with. Just a tree, solid, steadfast. Sherlock would’ve called it boring.

“I’m a bit….” He waved his hand. “Not good.”

“Getting your strop on?”

“I’m not….” John couldn’t seem to finish any sentences today. “It was fine—I was fine. He showed up, I didn’t recognize him. Beaten half to hell and back. I patched him up. It was awful. He never said a word, not even when I set his nose. And then….” He floundered again.

Greg passed over a coffee cup, then took a sip of his own and waited.

“At that point it was a miracle, right? Couldn’t very well be mad at him in that state. He was only barely more alive than the last time I saw him.”  Unconsciously John squeezed the coffee cup; the lid popped off and liquid spilled over his fingers. He cursed as Greg handed him a napkin. “Thanks.”

“So, then what? Trouble in paradise?”

Fuck. John really didn’t want to talk about this, but if he didn’t he was probably going to have to kill Mycroft Holmes, and he didn’t like to think of his chances of survival long-term after that. “Surely you’ve been round the flat enough times to know—“

But Greg’s extremely pointed silence stopped him going any further. John took a sip of the coffee and thought about starting again. Ah. That was why he hadn’t burned, then—there wasn’t just coffee in that cup. Good man, Greg. “His tests came back clean. They set his hand. Just a matter of time until he spoke again.”

“Don’t tell me he picked a fight with you first thing.”

No; that would have been easier. John feigned a sudden interest in a nonexistent bird overhead. “He said, ‘Dr. Watson, I presume.’”

“Jesus.”

“He remembers other things. Mycroft, the work. He did a second round of his special brand of introduction, just like the first time. I don’t—was it too much to ask, to let our friendship mean something to him?” That was stupid, though, wasn’t it? To believe that a friendship could mean something when Sherlock had deleted an entire solar system?

Greg’s voice was careful. John had used a firmer tone with dying patients, though mostly he’d been telling them not to die. “You think he deleted you.”

Finishing the coffee, he stared out at the tree. “He as good as admitted it.”

“Did you ask him why?”

“He probably doesn’t know,” John pointed out. That was how it worked, wasn’t it? You couldn’t very well delete someone’s entire existence and still remember why you’d done it.

Beyond John’s tree, a large black car pulled up. They both watched it in silence for a moment.

“Got you running his errands now, does he?” John said bitterly.

Greg bristled. “It’s not like that.”

“You know it’s his fault. He as good as killed his own brother in the name of queen and country. He gave Moriarty everything he needed to know to ruin him.” Things no one else should ever have known, only now they were out there in the world, and people had read them and would think they knew Sherlock Holmes, but they never would.

“He’s just worried.”

“About Sherlock, whom he almost killed!”

“About you!”

John wanted to protest that if Mycroft cared about him at all, it was because he thought John could be either dangerous or useful. Probably both; John knew he was both.

“I just thought he might have some answers Sherlock doesn’t.”

It was the only thing Greg could have said to make him get in the car.

*

“Ah, John.” Mycroft put away his phone. “How kind of you to join me.”

John bit back a growl. “As if I had a choice.”

“There’s always a choice,” Mycroft said smoothly.

A choice between coming willingly or being kidnapped off the street, John thought darkly. “You know what happened.”

“I have my suspicions.” He folded his hands in his lap. “What’s more surprising is that you haven’t figured it out.”

Conversations with Holmeses were more trying than medical school exams. Sighing, John rubbed a hand over his eyes. “Let’s have it.”

“My brother isn’t known for cultivating friendships,” Mycroft reminded him unnecessarily. “He tolerates few, actively seeks the company of, well, serial murderers and you, apparently, make of that what you will. He isn’t given to sentiment, except when he is. So. Start at the beginning.”

Thinking about it was hateful: a silhouette against a gray London sky, a coat fanning out like the wings of some terrible angel falling. “Moriarty shot himself. Sherlock jumped, but he didn’t die.”

In a tone John hadn’t known him capable of producing, Mycroft said, “Before that.”

The phone call. “He wanted me to believe… but he must have known I never would. So why would he say those things?”

Mycroft steepled his fingers. “Why indeed. You’ll remember the assassins.”

Yeah, John wasn’t likely to forget them anytime soon. Not the ones who shot each other in front of him, and not the ones who’d turned up dead afterward.

I’m going to burn the heart out of you.

Moriarty’s endgame.

“He was forced to jump.” The idea had been growing in his subconscious mind for some time; it didn’t surprise him. Still, the words came out raw. Maybe it was transference from Sherlock, but John hated feeling this naked in front of Mycroft.

“His life for yours, and Inspector Lestrade’s, and your Mrs. Hudson’s, I imagine.”

“His life and his reputation,” John murmured with his eyes closed. Months had passed before he’d stopped seeing it when he was trying to sleep. It’d be worse now; Sherlock was back but John had lost him again, and if they ended up like they had been he’d just be vulnerable to more loss. John had survived the first time by the skin of his teeth. He wasn’t at all sure how he was going to get through this one.

“That as well, yes.”

“That explains why he’d fake his death.” John gritted his teeth. But what it didn’t explain—

Mycroft was staring at him intently now. “What would bring you to do it? What would bring you to force yourself to forget the only friend you’ve ever had while trying to save his life?”

John had been under watch, that much was clear. Sherlock couldn’t have come to him, not without endangering them both. So he’d have stayed away at all costs.

What would that have been like? Being alone again after months? On the streets, taking down a criminal organization that must have been choking London, with no one to watch your back, knowing your best friend was there, within reach, mourning your death?

Sentiment.

After a moment, John pulled his hand away from his face and flexed his fingers. “I have to go home,” he said.

Mycroft nodded. “You’re a singular man, John.”

John gave him a look he hoped conveyed I still might kill you in your sleep. Then he got out of the car. The driver had taken him to Baker Street.

*                                                                               

At 221B, life went on.

The next day, the first real day since he’d opened his mouth and proved he was more than a shell, Sherlock was bored. At least he didn’t shoot the wall, but he complained loudly and at length while bouncing a small rubber ball against it. John actually considered digging the knife out of the Cluedo board and offering to play. Sherlock as a sore loser was better than a bored Sherlock any day.

He wouldn’t touch the violin, probably because he couldn’t play with his bow hand in a cast.

Finally, just before John was about to call it a night and slink off to bed, Sherlock said, “Why did you put me in your room?”

John swallowed carefully. “Lots of reasons. It’s less accessible and I didn’t know who else was after you. You didn’t seem to remember much—I thought putting you in your own room might be dangerous.”

“Hmm.” Sherlock stopped throwing the ball and steepled his fingers instead. It reminded John of Mycroft, which was backwards and horrible. “You were upset when you thought I died.”

“You made me watch while you confessed things that weren’t true and then killed yourself in front of me,” John said sharply. That hurt was never going to heal. “I was devastated.”

Sherlock was silent for a moment. Then: “Confessed things?”

With some effort, John managed to modulate his tone into something softer and more even. “On the phone. You said it was your note. You said ‘that’s what people do’.”

“I’m not people.”

John almost smiled, though it was bittersweet. He let the comment pass.

Another moment of quiet. “I called you. But I prefer to text.”

“So you’ve always said.”

For the rest of the night, Sherlock didn’t speak, even to claim he was bored.

The second day John was woken from an admittedly fitful doze by thundering footsteps on the stairs and rather exuberant shouting. “John! We’ve got a case!” The door crashed open and Sherlock poked his head in. “Get up! There’s been a murder!” Then he thundered back down the stairs again.

John spent twenty seconds staring blankly at the ceiling and counting.

The next steps up the stairs were quieter, more hesitant. Sherlock opened the door again. “Why did I do that?”

“You say it’s because genius likes an audience.” John shrugged helplessly and tried not to hope too hard. “A reflex, like a muscle memory, maybe.”

“Hmm.” In half a second, the confusion was gone. “Well, are you coming? I won’t ask again.”

One of these days, John would grow a spine. Until then, he supposed he’d better hurry and get ready.

By the time the cab pulled up at the crime scene, John was squirming. However this played out, he was going to remember it for the rest of his life.

He was right about that, though not for the reasons he expected.

Lestrade and Donovan met them in the museum lobby and John almost choked on his temper. His body seized up; his feet just stopped. He couldn’t have kept the snarl from his face if his life depended on it. “What’s she doing here.”

Donovan flinched. Lestrade only gave a weary sigh. “Look, it had to happen sometime. We all got manipulated. This is going to be a tough case. I need my best people on it.”

“You have your best people on it,” John pointed out acidly, uncomfortably aware of Sherlock’s eyes burning holes in the back of his neck. “That is why we’re here.” He rounded on Donovan. “You played right into his hand, do you know that? So congratulations on seeing exactly what you wanted to see. Excellent detective work.”

 Donovan bristled. “Listen, I was just doing my job—”

He tried desperately to keep it together. The slightest slip would give him away, and this Sherlock didn’t know him, didn’t care for him like the old one. If he suspected… everything would change. “No, you were doing his job, and you’re shite at it.”

“I don’t get it. Why are you defending him? He’s a freak, John, he doesn’t care about anything but his stupid murders. He’s a sociopath—he admits it—”

That was too far. Sociopaths didn’t jump off buildings to save other people. Before he knew what he was doing, he was taking a step forward and his hand had balled into a fist—

Donovan flinched again and took a step back, and John swallowed his anger. He wasn’t quite ready to start hitting women in Sherlock’s defense. Not even stupid ones.

“Children!” Lestrade interrupted. “We do have a murder to investigate, so if you can pretend to be civil to each other for the next twenty minutes?”

It was probably for the best that John shut his mouth now anyway.

As Lestrade led them back into the museum proper, he started in on the rundown: locked from the inside, of course, body found by the security guard, all security measures circumvented—and a valuable painting from a collection of artifacts recovered from the Nazis after World War II missing.

They stopped just outside the exhibit. “This was a messy one,” he warned. Then he pushed open the door.

Messy was one word for it.

By John’s estimation it was a perfectly ordinary room that could have been part of any museum: white walls, high ceilings, pedestals and glass displays for the artifacts. The only thing out of place was the lake of blood that had spread across the center of the floor as if it were part of the exhibit. The smell made what would have been a cavernous space feel rank and claustrophobic.

As a doctor, John knew there were just under six liters of blood in the average human body. The puddle seemed to be all of it. Cause of death would be easy, anyway.

“Exsanguinated,” John murmured. He felt more than saw Sherlock’s sharp gaze on him at that, sizing him up at a crime scene. But where was the body?

“Look up.”

“Ah.”

The exhibit’s curator hung suspended from the ceiling by her ankles, ten feet from the floor. Despite the wide slice through both major arteries in her neck, her head was still attached, though John doubted it would be for much longer. He followed the rope to the ceiling: industrial beams. Not such a locked room—the walls didn’t go all the way up.

Sherlock paced off a quick circle, carefully avoiding the blood. He was probably more concerned about not getting it on his shoes than disturbing the evidence. “What did they steal?”

It was a good question. Apparently part of the point of the exhibit was to demonstrate how many masterpieces confiscated by Nazis were as yet unrecovered; a good portion of the display cases were intentionally empty.

“Portrait of a Young Man,” Lestrade said grimly.

That rang a bell. “Hang on, that was just recovered, wasn’t it?” John asked. “Been missing since 1945. Raphael, right? I thought it was supposed to go back to Poland.” It was Raphael—the thing had to be stupidly valuable. “What the hell was it doing here? There’s nowhere near enough security for something like that.”

“The exhibit wasn’t supposed to open for another two weeks,” Donovan said. “No one was supposed to know it was here. Only the curator and the museum board knew of it—extra security was supposed to be coming in today.”

Well, that narrowed down the possibilities.

“So she had to steal it last night,” Sherlock said. He was still circling the body.

“We need to get her down from there sooner than later,” John told Lestrade. “Unless you want her head to fall off.”

Lestrade grimaced. “Donovan, have a museum employee to get you a ladder or something, would you?”

“She was killed at the crossbeams,” Sherlock announced. John watched as his eyes traced the elliptical shape of the pool of blood, and he noted a few outlying splatters. “Her body swung after her throat was cut. Her clothing isn’t formal enough for her to have been working, and there’s no reason to tie someone up and hoist them like that to kill them, not if it isn’t part of a ritual, so it’s safe to assume she was working in collaboration with another individual.”

Further deductions had to await the ladder and the body being lowered to the floor. Then the pacing resumed.

“Dark hair, dark eyes,” Sherlock murmured. “On first glance.” He held out his good hand wordlessly and John gave him a nitile glove. Sherlock put it on—and then immediately pinched at the woman’s open eye and removed a contact lens. “Colored,” he said. “Natural eye color is blue. And her hair….” He pulled out a few strands, then held them up. “Lighter at the roots. Probably blonde.”

John blinked. “Is this… I mean, that’s a bit cliché, surely.”

“Clichés exist for a reason,” Sherlock said. “By her features, a Caucasian woman, possibly of German descent.”

“Maybe she just wanted to change her looks,” Donovan pointed out. “It does happen, you know. Some women are obsessed with their appearance. It’s stupid, but it’s true.”

How did he manage to give her such a cutting glare without looking up from the victim’s slashed throat? “Yes, and society tells them they’re prettiest when they’re blonde and blue-eyed. No, she wasn’t who she said she was. Obviously, if she was an art thief working at a museum. So she’d be in disguise. John, what do you make of this?”

John pulled on gloves of his own and hunkered down beside him. He wondered what it said about him that he didn’t even flinch as he tilted the woman’s head back. Probably that he’d spent too much time in Sherlock’s company. “One smooth cut. Someone with experience with the weapon; it’s not serrated, just very sharp. The wound is almost uniform in depth, so a straight edge, maybe even without a point. The killer is right-handed—the cut is shallower on her left side; he’d have done it from behind.” He stopped when he realized everyone was looking at him. “What? Come on, that wasn’t that difficult. You do this for a living!”

No one made a comment at that.

A few minutes later, Sherlock and Donovan clambered up the remaining rope to investigate the beams. John tamped down on the worry that they’d actually push each other off—or he tried to, anyway. He didn’t breathe right again until they were descending the rope again. “Found the painting,” Sherlock said shortly. “We left it where it was so you can dust for prints later, but that’s useless, you won’t find any. Entry point was an air conditioning vent. Presumably the curator shut the climate controls off before she officially left for the night.”

Blowing out a breath, Lestrade ran his hands through his hair. “Well, there goes motive.”

“Don’t be an idiot. Motive is perfectly clear. The killer didn’t want the painting stolen. You’re looking for a right-handed Jewish man who works as a kosher butcher. That’s where you’ll find the murder weapon—a hallaf knife.”

Frowning, John asked, “Why would a Jewish butcher get mixed up in a plot to steal a painting recovered from a Nazi stash?” It didn’t make any sense.

“He wouldn’t. That’s just where you’ll find the knife. The killer isn’t a butcher and has no interest in the painting beyond ensuring it doesn’t fall back into Nazi hands. Or the hands of one of their descendants. Someone probably found out about the plot to steal the painting and he was put in place to stop it. Simple.”

Simple. Right. “Well, good luck in your search for a Jewish contract killer,” John told Lestrade.

He just shook his head. “Thanks, I think.”

In the cab, silence reigned. John knew he’d shown his hand. The old Sherlock would have put his outburst down to loyalty. They’d been friends; they’d known each other long enough that Sherlock thought he knew everything about John and had stopped trying to deduce him. This version was a stranger who saw John as nothing more than a particularly unusual puzzle.

The cab had pulled up in front of 221B before Sherlock said a word. “It doesn’t make sense.”

John paid the cabbie and turned to Sherlock. “What doesn’t?”

“Why did you speak to Sergeant Donovan like that? She likes you. It was all over her body language until you opened your mouth.”

Risky as it was, John couldn’t bring himself to lie about this. But maybe a half truth would suffice. “I don’t take it kindly when trained police officers fall prey to the machinations of sociopathic serial killers and accuse my friend of fraud.”

When John gathered the courage to look, Sherlock’s face was a study. Pain, something he’d been carrying around with him for years behind a mask of haughty impassivity… and hope. “I don’t have friends.” He’d said that before.

“No,” John answered as evenly as he could, “you just have the one.” Then he went upstairs to be alone.

*

There was only so much social responsibility John felt comfortable dodging (less than most, since he often found himself atoning for his flatmate’s misanthropy), and declining a shift during an apparent flu epidemic was across the line. Besides, he needed to get out of the flat, put some perspective back in his life. Remind himself the world didn’t revolve around Sherlock. Not anymore.

For the most part he was useless; flu would run its course. Some of the worst cases he admitted for a course of IV fluids to prevent dehydration, but apart from that and a few vaccinations, there was nothing to be done. All he wanted when he got home was a shower, then bed—though he hadn’t properly slept in a week and he had no reason to think tonight would be any different.

But when he pushed open the door to his bedroom, damp towel in hand, he found his bed was already occupied.

John stared. Pale skin; sharp cheekbones; still fading bruises in yellow and green; a long-fingered hand in a cast. Sherlock was in his bed. Of course he was.

Quietly, John shut the door and made his way down the stairs. Then he sat in his armchair and stared blankly at the window.  Just out of the corner of his eye he could see the jewel case for Solo Violin, which had serenaded John to sleep the months when Sherlock was supposed to be dead. Now he was back and John… couldn’t put it in the player. He’d tried listening with headphones, but it didn’t work unless the sound came from the living room.

He didn’t know how long he’d been sitting there when Sherlock said, “I can’t have deleted you.”

John was too tired to startle. “And yet it appears you have.”

“Once you discount the impossible, whatever remains, however unlikely, must be true.” Sherlock started to pace, his footsteps quickening in time with his words. “First, I find your company pleasant. I have no reason to suspect I was any less fond of you than you seem to be of me. I have deleted some details of the past few months, completely for my own safety, but I remember I did something to save the lives of those close to me; one of those lives must have been yours. Furthermore, I’ve been having—” And here Sherlock faltered. John was momentarily taken aback. “—flashes. Of things I couldn’t know. I remember you shot a man to save my life, the first day I knew you. I remember—therefore I can’t have deleted you.”

“All right,” John said faintly.

“I must have encrypted your file. I simply have to remember the password, and I’ll remember everything.” When John didn’t respond, Sherlock continued uncertainly, “That’s good, isn’t it?”

I have no idea. If Sherlock remembered… well, John could finally stop mourning him like he was actually still dead, for one thing. But then what? It was always best to assume Sherlock knew everything, after all. When the old Sherlock met the new one, would John’s secret be forfeit? Would it even matter? Sherlock would probably just continue on as he always had. Would that be better or worse than the alternative?

“John? Are you all right?”

Before he could censor himself, John admitted, “I’m tired.” Tired of waiting, tired of hiding—but mostly just tired.

He heard more than saw Sherlock’s frown. “You haven’t been sleeping.”

“Can’t,” John admitted, even as he felt his eyelids drooping. “Haven’t slept properly since you came back.”

There was a long silence. “You’ve been awake for most of six days.”

John nodded heavily.

“Is having me back so terrible?”

Fuck. No, that wasn’t—John forced himself awake. “It was a miracle,” he said. His voice sounded flat at first, then suddenly hoarse, but this was important, more important than a secret that probably wasn’t a secret anyway. “I’m not afraid of sleeping. I’m afraid of waking up.”

Of course Sherlock chose that moment to notice the damned CD. John was too bleary to catch his expression. “You need to sleep,” he said softly.

John’s eyes fell closed almost before the music started.

*

When he finally woke up, he was in bed. His eyes were sticky with sleep; he was starving and dehydrated. He didn’t remember getting up and going up the stairs, but he must have done, because the alternative was that Sherlock had carried him.

Then he finally opened his eyes and decided he was still sleeping, because John wasn’t in his bed at all.

Okay. Well. He hadn’t expected that. Maybe John hadn’t slept in a week, but he was pretty sure he still knew where his bedroom was.

It was probably better not to think about how he’d gotten here.

Instead, John got up—he was still dressed, so he didn’t have to feel too violated, though at this point he wasn’t even sure he would have—relieved himself, and put the kettle on. Sherlock was nowhere to be seen, so John had some time to collect himself. He wondered how long he’d been asleep. He felt awful.

John drank his tea. Then he decided to try his luck with the contents of the refrigerator. Surprisingly few horrific body parts greeted his eyes. A plain white takeaway box was labeled in Sherlock’s precise hand: Not an experiment. Figuring he wouldn’t have bothered labeling it if he’d planned on eating it himself, John took it out and heated it. He started to worry. Was Sherlock dying? And if not, why the very strange behavior? Had he deleted part of his personality?

Deeply involved in contemplation, John barely registered Sherlock coming in.

“Good, you’re awake.”

John smiled. He’d heard that before. Usually about half a second after Sherlock dragged him out of unconsciousness.

“I’ve just spoken with Molly, and she confirmed my hypothesis: I’ve password protected your file. Eight days after I jumped off the roof, apparently. That’s all she would tell me; evidently I told her not to say more, though I’ve no idea why.”

John looked down at his curry, then back up. Then down. He tried to identify the emotion swirling in his stomach, but it was impossible. “Molly Hooper knew you were alive.”

He heard Sherlock pause in the middle of removing his coat, and had to look up. The buttons of his stupid fitted shirt strained across the front. “Well of course Molly knew. How do you think I managed to fake my death? Someone had to sign the death certificate. Honestly, John.”

If this weren’t Sherlock, John wouldn’t believe it. “For three months Molly Hooper knew you weren’t dead, but no one thought to tell me, your best friend. Whom you deleted.”

“John, I told you, I haven’t deleted you, I just don’t remember. You know I hate repeating myself.” He must have caught something in John’s expression then, because he said (in a gratifyingly tentative tone), “Not good?”

With some effort, John managed to keep from shouting. “No, not good. Sherlock, I mourned your death. I went and talked to your bloody headstone. It took me weeks to crawl out of the bottle I drank myself into. I—” But John swallowed on that last admission before it could escape. Even now, telling Sherlock how close he’d come to eating a bullet seemed cruel, as if he were spitting in the face of the new life Sherlock had given him. “And all this time people knew—Molly, whom you only occasionally remember to address as a human being—”

“You’re jealous,” Sherlock said. He sounded curious rather than accusatory.

“Yes!” John shouted before he could stop himself, and then there was nothing he could do but continue. “Yes, I’m jealous and I’m hurt and I’m angry, Sherlock, I don’t think I’ve ever been this angry, and on top of all of it I’m relieved, because I don’t have to go back to those days when you weren’t there, until the next time you decide not to tell me you’re not dead.”

For a few precious seconds, silence reigned. John had never felt more naked. His hand shook, so he put down his fork.

Finally Sherlock offered quietly, “You never said before. That you were angry with me. You seemed fine. I… didn’t know.”

John sighed and all the tension flowed out. He still found it difficult to stay angry with Sherlock, especially when it was clear he had no context for navigating a friendship. “As a doctor, I find it challenging to be cross with people who’ve been beaten so badly their best friends don’t recognize them.”

Sherlock finished hanging up his coat. From him, it was almost a fidget. “Ah.”

After a moment John sighed in relief. Apparently they weren’t going to talk about his feelings anymore. “What did happen to you, anyway?”

“His name was Sebastian Moran.”

John recognized the name from the autopsy report. “The assassin who was supposed to kill me if you weren’t already dead.”

Sherlock sat across from him, a good deal more stiffly than was his habit. “He almost killed me instead.” He rubbed his left hand over the cast on his right. “It was days before I could move from my safehouse.”

The last weak traces of John’s anger evaporated. “You were lucky.”

“I was smart,” Sherlock corrected him.

“I’m sure you were brilliant.” You still almost got yourself killed—for real. John took a deep breath. “Sherlock.”

“Hmm.” He was miles away, staring out the window. Maybe that was for the best.

“You’ve been sleeping in my bed.”

“Yes.”

When no further reply seemed forthcoming, John ventured, “Why?”

“During sleep the human body secretes sweat and sheds epithelial cells. The sheets retain the aroma.”

John turned that over in his head a couple of times, but his brain refused to translate it as anything but because it smells like you. “And?”

“Olfactory sensory input is a strong memory trigger.” Sherlock thinned his lips. He still wasn’t looking right at John, which was somehow more disconcerting than usual. “The first night we met—you shot a man to save my life.”

John exhaled slowly. “Yeah, I did. That’s not exactly public knowledge, though, and I’d appreciate it if it stayed that way.”

At least Sherlock was looking at him now. “Of course. I will treat this information with the utmost discretion.”

Right. Sherlock was smart enough not to land John in prison intentionally or even accidentally (most of the time); it was regard for safety he lacked. “That’s good to know.”

“I thought it might help me remember the password,” Sherlock explained unnecessarily.

John should have known better than to think he could be anything more than yet another unsolved puzzle. “Well, let me know if you figure it out,” he said a little more sharply than he meant to. Then he shut himself in the bathroom until the hot water of the shower soothed away the trembling in his hand.

*

Two days later, John caught Sherlock with a steak knife under the edge of his plaster cast. “What are you doing?”

“It itches and is tremendously inconvenient.” Somehow Sherlock managed to sound like a three-year-old who’d swallowed a thesaurus.

John carefully snatched the knife away. Either Sherlock was too slow or he wasn’t trying very hard. “A broken bone means six weeks in a cast, Sherlock. If you try to cut it off early, there’s a chance your hand won’t heal correctly. Ever.” With four weeks to go, John just hoped Sherlock would be careful when he did eventually cut it off. He didn’t hold out any hope that it would last another two weeks, let alone four.

“Bored!” Sherlock announced predictably.

John wished fervently that he hadn’t disposed of that bottle of scotch.

*

Surprisingly, Sherlock lasted another two weeks before John came home to find him sitting on the sofa, a pair of bolt cutters and the remnants of the cast beside him. In those two weeks, not much had happened. John went to work; sometimes they had a case. The Yard arrested a man even John was fairly sure was innocent in connection with the art gallery murder, but he’d confessed to everything. (Sherlock thought it was some kind of Jewish counter-conspiracy.) Occasionally John found evidence Sherlock had been sleeping in his bed, though he never actually caught him at it again.

In an incredible act of cowardice, John failed to broach the subject a second time. He wasn’t actually sure he wanted Sherlock to stop anyway.

Sherlock continued to remember things, usually asinine unimportant ones he’d confirm with John: Mycroft tried to bribe you; Harry is your sister; you dated a woman you work with. John always nodded and went on wondering when the borrowed time he was living on would finally expire.

One case brought them to the morgue at St. Bart’s, where Molly and Sherlock greeted each other oddly warmly and then proceeded to completely ignore each other, like John and Sherlock had done after John had moved in but before he’d developed that uncomfortable perpetual awareness of Sherlock’s presence. He supposed they must have become friends.

But when Sherlock went upstairs to examine something under a microscope, Molly turned to John with regret written all over her face.

“Don’t,” John started, but no one ever listened to him.

“I’m so sorry,” Molly said miserably. “I wanted to tell you—even Sherlock wanted to tell you, though he wouldn’t say it. But we couldn’t risk it. It was wretched.”

“Yeah, it was,” John said bluntly, then immediately regretted it. “Sorry.” He clenched his jaw. He meant to be angry, but Molly didn’t deserve that. Against the odds, they were all still alive because of her. “It’s not your fault. I knew I couldn’t have acted—that—convincingly. Just….” It’s just that it almost ruined me to lose him and I was only just starting to deal with that and now he’s back and I’ve forgotten how not to wear my heart on my sleeve.

When she realized he wasn’t going to continue, Molly said softly, “It wasn’t easy for him either, you know.”

No, I don’t know, John thought bitterly. And neither does he.

Molly flattened her mouth, looking pained. Then she said, “Can I ask—I mean—were you…?”

John sighed. There wasn’t much point correcting assumptions when they weren’t wrong. “Sherlock didn’t tell you?” But of course he wouldn’t.

“Not in so many words.” Molly paused. “And I didn’t ask. I didn’t think I needed to.”

Swallowing, John thought about that. Molly really only ever talked to Sherlock—John was used to people basing their assumptions on his behavior. “Ah. No, actually.”

Then Sherlock came back in and saved him from further awkwardness. At least on Molly’s behalf.

But that was then, and now Sherlock had got plaster dust all over the sitting room carpet. “That took longer than I thought it would,” John admitted.

Sherlock flexed his right hand. John could practically hear his joints squeaking. “I solved the puzzle.”

At first John thought he meant the art gallery killer. Then he realized Sherlock wouldn’t bother repeating himself. “You found the password?”

“There was only one thing left it could be.” Sherlock nodded to the violin case propped up against the wall, where it had remained, untouched, throughout his months of absence because John couldn’t bear to move it.

In retrospect it seemed so obvious. Sherlock had to have considered the possibility before. So then why wait until now? Genuine concern for his physical health? John wasn’t going to buy that.

He cleared his throat. “That’s good. So what’s the holdup?” Had Sherlock decided he was better off not remembering?

Without moving his head, Sherlock raised his eyes to meet John’s gaze. “I thought you’d want to be here.”

That wasn’t something John was used to hearing. Usually Sherlock was too impatient to prove a theory to wait for his audience. “Do I need to do anything?”

“Hand me my violin.”

Hiding a bittersweet smile, John did as he was told. Some things never changed.

While Sherlock refamiliarized himself with the instrument, John observed: his right arm was thinner and paler than the left, if such a thing were possible, and the fingers didn’t bend easily to undo the catches on the case. When Sherlock plucked the violin’s strings to check the tuning, his left hand on the peg seemed unsure. His expression was inscrutable. John found his breath catching, not just in anticipation.

Finally Sherlock set the violin to his chin and picked up the bow. But for long moments, he didn’t play.

First he drew out a quick scale, crescendoing and decrescendoing seemingly at random, until John noticed the bow slipping in his grasp.

Then Sherlock stood and went to the window. He played a verse of “Loch Lomond,” followed by one of “We Wish You a Merry Christmas.” Then silence.

Still, John waited.

Sherlock cleared his throat quietly. “What do I play for you, when you can’t sleep?”

Unprepared for the question, John faltered. “I—I don’t know.”

Sherlock made an impatient sound, and John realized that wasn’t quite true. “I don’t know what it’s called,” he amended. “But it goes a bit like this”—and he hummed the first few measures.

After only two notes, Sherlock turned from the window to look at him; John could read nothing but curiosity in his expression. “Telemann’s Largo, from the Fantasia for Violin,” he said with a slight shake of his head. “Mummy made me practice it twice a day when I was eight. I hated it.”

John’s chest tightened. “I didn’t know.” Certainly he’d never asked for it.

“Obviously.” Turning away again, Sherlock set the bow to the strings and began playing without further comment.

Watching it was almost too much. John saw the tiny hitch after the first phrase and wondered if the password was working.

At the end of the introduction, Sherlock fumbled a few notes and dropped the bow with a curse. Had the memories caused him to stumble, or was that his injury? Or both? Maybe he would give up, decide he was better off not knowing anything more about John than he did right now.

But then he bent and picked it up, and if the phrasing was slower and more deliberate than John was used to, he wasn’t about to mention it.

John caught only a few more stutters and missed notes after that, though the changes in Sherlock’s posture alarmed him. Something like defeat had softened his shoulders, and his head seemed to have taken on a sharper tilt.

Eight stanzas from the end, the bow scraped across the strings and Sherlock inhaled sharply and held it out to his side for a heart-stopping minute. John wondered what he was remembering that took him like that. Maybe nothing. Maybe his hand was tired.

John watched Sherlock take a breath. Then he raised the bow again and finished the song in halting, tragic phrases. When he was done, he stood silently at the window, violin in his left hand, bow in his right. With John’s luck this was one of those times he wouldn’t speak for days.

But he only had to wait a minute before Sherlock spoke, his voice lower than usual and hoarse. “He said he wanted to burn the heart out of me.”

Swallowing past the lump in his throat, John searched for words. “Don’t,” he finally managed. “Don’t, Sherlock. Whatever you had to do, you did it, and now you’re alive and he isn’t. Don’t give him more than that.”

Sherlock continued as if he hadn’t heard John at all. “I worked out his endgame—of course I did, he was clever but not that clever—but I couldn’t get around it. At first I thought I’d have to die. Then I thought I might be able to fool him. But I knew you’d have to think….” John watched his fingers whiten around the neck of his violin.

“It’s fine,” John said thickly. “It’s—I’ve forgiven you, if that’s what you’re worried about.” I just wanted my friend back. Now he had him, and he’d have to be content not asking for more. John almost thought he could do it.

No acknowledgment. “It was harder than I expected, the phone call. Part of me wanted you to believe the things I said. I thought it might be better for you if you could be angry. But you wouldn’t. Nothing I said could convince you.”

“Why are you saying this?”

And a moment later: “Nobody could be that clever.”

“You could.”

“Well, I was right, wasn’t I?” John said, mostly to himself.

“It was a week before I could leave Molly’s flat. The funeral was already over. I knew my ruse had worked, but I had to see for myself—I had to know. I had to make sure….”

Make sure of what? John wondered. That I was convincing as a grieving widow? But he didn’t allow himself to interrupt.

“When I caught up to you, you were in the cemetery, talking to me like I could still hear you. That’s not rational, it should have been ridiculous, but I couldn’t—” Sherlock’s voice broke there and John went cold all over. “—couldn’t stop thinking after that. I hurt you, and I needed to make it right, but I couldn’t do that either, not without risking your life. I couldn’t go after Moriarty’s men, not in that state, not distracted. So I went back to Molly’s and I made myself forget.”

He leaned his forehead against the window. John had to strain to hear his next words. “Moriarty said he wanted to burn the heart out of me. But he didn’t have to. I did it myself.”

Later John wouldn’t remember moving. One minute he stood rooted to the spot, watching every naked emotion play over Sherlock’s frame and the reflection of his face in the window. The next Sherlock was facing him, eyes closed in freshly remembered pain, and John had framed his face with both hands, and there was nothing else he could do. John’s thinly worn control finally snapped and he kissed Sherlock hard on the mouth.

And there it was, John thought faintly as he pulled away, fighting to keep his hands steady. There was his heart on a plate. From the expression on Sherlock’s face, John might as well have slapped him and called him a dog-botherer.

For a few long seconds, the world stopped. Then Sherlock set the violin and bow on the armchair and—was he going to wring his hands?

Then he said, “John,” in a voice so full of—something—that John made a noise of defeat and kissed him again.

The first time had been a bit like kissing a brick wall: Sherlock had frozen stiff, whether in fear or shock or horror John didn’t know. But this was nothing like that. This was elegant hands curling too tight around John’s biceps and full lips parting against his own. It was too much teeth and not enough tongue and they could work on those things later, because right now John had Sherlock just where he wanted him.

After an endless moment John pulled back from the kiss just far enough that he could see Sherlock’s eyes, but they were closed. He felt the thundering of Sherlock’s pulse under his palms, beating time with his own.

“Sherlock.” John couldn’t be this lucky. No one was this lucky, to get the love of his life back and then keep him too.

Sherlock kept his eyes closed, but he tightened his grip on John’s arms. Lines of misery etched his face, and John traced his thumb over one. “I had to put it away,” he said. “It hurt too much.”

Jesus, John could hear his heart breaking. He took a deep breath and tried not to move.

“Will it stop?”

“Hurting?”

He nodded, a microscopic tip of his head.

“Yes,” he said.

Sherlock opened quicksilver eyes and moved his hand up John’s elbow to his chin. “Liar.”

Shaking his head, John owned up to it. The truth would’ve been unnecessarily cruel.

Then Sherlock kissed him, and for a long time John let himself forget about the pain.

*

Some time later, after they had devolved into an awkward pile of limbs crammed together on the sofa, Sherlock raised his head from John’s chest and said, “How could I not know you wanted this?”

John snorted softly and pushed an errant curl back from Sherlock’s face. “You idiot. Did you even know you wanted it?”

Sherlock rewarded him with a glare and a huff and put his head back down.