As John sinks toward the bottom of the pool, Sherlock tight against his chest, he thinks that now his life will forever be defined by these moments – before the bomb, after the bomb; before the pool, (before kidnapping), after drowning; before Moriarty, after Moriarty.

He always realized life had become before the war and after the war, was always going to be pre and post warzone, gun shot wound, limp. Before the war was simple and after the war was empty.

He did not foresee this. He did not foresee a life again – adventure, running, fighting, the rush, rush, rush.

Yet right now under water, a man in his arms and fire making black cinder of pool white walls he realizes from now and forever his life will be defined: before and after Sherlock Holmes.

Sherlock stares at walls, stares at books, stares out windows, stares at computer screens (his or John's, stolen or not).

Sherlock stares at the skull when Mrs. Hudson returns it, moving it around, John finding it in the middle of the floor, on the mantel, in the window, under his bed, on Sherlock's pillow, in a cabinet.

Sherlock stares at the newspaper, soft 'ahs' followed by growls of disappointment.

Sherlock stares at him.

But he does not stare at John, he peeks. He watches and looks away. The longest time clocks in at one minute, forty-five seconds, somewhere in the running for 100th place for the time Sherlock spends looking at things.

John wonders if it's the not looking that means something more.

"Safety pins at the bottom of her pants, obviously too busy or uninterested in details such as her hem but still wears suits so a desire to look fashionable or powerful. So probably important work environment but not as important position, not a concern; look at her hair – cut professionally but not styled; worn down shoes, active in city life because she's always walking; not a loner, out in the world…"

Sherlock points at everything as he speaks; John wishes he owned a video camera in these moments. Lestrade only half listens because the other half of his will clearly keeps his anger in check (maybe not anger, more like defeat), that this man – this Sherlock Holmes – will always, always do his job better.

Sherlock snaps his fingers. "Obviously murder, not a suicide, need I go on?"

Lestrade twitches at each sound but he listens despite himself. John knows Lestrade gave up a long time ago, gave up on being impressed or angry or anything but a lap dog to the genius he can't work without.

John doesn't have to check himself about Sherlock, doesn't have to hold back – won't hold back – because he will always be in awe, always fascinated. John conducts his own clinical study in a far more human sense as to how this creature of a man ticks, tocks, and lives life in a world so unlike him. Sherlock the consulting detective, the genius – always right – the man apart. John constantly wonders about Sherlock's life before him; was he better, worse or always so amazing yet cold?

Sherlock bends over the corpse, pushes back curly hair, his tiny magnifying glass clicking open, closed, open, closed.

"John?"

And when he looks at John, asking for an opinion he doesn't need, John feels that – it's the rush. Sherlock's eyes invite adventure, like he'd been waiting all this time for the perfect mix of a person to latch onto his coattails. John's nowhere near giving up or giving in because he doesn't see things the way Lestrade does. Lestrade feels the burden but in Sherlock John sees salvation.

Sherlock Holmes has not stopped smoking; or perhaps really it should be said he has started again.

The nicotine patches disappear from John's basket when he's in the store buying items for the flat. Sherlock trails behind him, eyes on his cell phone seeming to pay no attention to the chore John's dragged him on. Yet, whenever John reaches the check out, slides the items through the scanner and bags everything up, the patches turn up absent.

"Sherlock, where are your –"

"Did you buy extra salt? I need some for an experiment."

Sherlock cuts off questions and then cigarettes appear in the window; that small red bowl from the top middle shelf they never use turns into an ash tray stuck just barely keeping the left window open. Each edge gains chips from Sherlock putting the window down on it with too much force each time; as if the pressure in pushing down might make him stop.

For a while John never actually sees Sherlock smoking. He smells the traces of acrid smoke, the hint of a burnt match. He finds a butt, smoked perfectly down to the filter, resting as far as possible to reach the outside world in the red dish. He sees a half smoked pack, top open, three cigarettes fallen out onto the table beside Sherlock's computer.

"You just gave up then?"

But Sherlock only sighs and looks at him. "Breathing is boring." Always remembering, calling back, and responding to entire conversations and lectures with answers that aren't real.

Of course, it stops being a non-hidden habit, stops being packs stuck into the sofa cushions and black matches in the sink. It starts becoming Sherlock staring at the wall with a cigarette burning down between two fingers until he hisses with pain and throws it into the carpet leaving it for John to pick up. It starts to become three AM, pitch black, violin still in its case and Sherlock sitting in the window, dish on his knee, and legs out over the edge onto the small iron bar non-porch as the smoke snakes skyward.

"You shouldn't."

"Better than the alternative."

John starts to sit beside him and take the cigarettes away when he notices a stare starting to stick. Nine times out of ten Sherlock doesn't stop him, doesn't perceive because he's cataloging a case in his brain, going over the trail of Moriarty again, trying to find that location where the man must be waiting for capture.

Of all the things Sherlock could be doing John has to be grateful it's only this. Sherlock has never had any sort of healthy sense of self preservation, of knowing when to not get himself hurt, when to stay away from danger. He runs himself ragged, doesn't eat, forgets to sleep – can't sleep, brain too fast – focuses too much on a case, on his job, on his obsession.

John has to be grateful Sherlock's not shoving any pill he finds down his throat, anything to make the body keep up with the brain or worse, to slow the brain down because it runs too swiftly to control.

"One mundane thing which has a charm," Sherlock says sitting in the window, eyes on the moon but voice on John, "and most everything is so dull… yet something so simple." He looks down at the cigarette in his hand before pulling it to his lips and breathing in poison.

"Why?" John asks.

"Nothing else makes me calm."

"You're calm when you work."

Sherlock laughs once. "No. I am focused. I am never calm when I'm working."

John tilts his head with a smile. "But do you really want to be calm?"

Sherlock's mouth quirks – that quirk which makes Lestrade ball his fists and makes John coil with anticipation, fingers tightening – and Sherlock tips the cigarette up with his thumb on the end. "No, perhaps not. Why would I want to be calm? Be bored?"

And by now John can see when Sherlock lies, even if it's only half a lie.

Five seconds beneath the surface, six, seven, and no shots fired futilely into the water, no shrapnel shooting like spears, no Jim following them under.

Sherlock stays still, brain probably still ticking on probability solutions for the explosion, and John counts seconds as they sink.

Running – running he never thought would happen again, let himself believe was something in his past. A limp from his shoulder? Well, obviously that equals wrong. Feeling is believing?

"Come on, John!"

When one is a doctor one's not often running down hospital halls. Even if one works in the ER John would really only call it a hurried or brisk walk. In the war he would run into battle, into the fire, run to soldier's sides to patch them up like Raggedy Anne dolls. That, however, felt like baseball, sliding into home.

Running – this is the chase, the fight, the exhilaration of winning the race to the suspect and solving the case. Running over rooftops, into cars, over pot holes and sidewalks and museum steps and bridges, maybe falling once or twice or leaping over knocked down chairs.

He loves it. Loves the feeling, loves the burn, loves having a point to run to.

Running after Sherlock, following him because Sherlock only runs after the villain. Sherlock said he was not a hero, and maybe he isn't, but he's pitted against evil and despite his intentions John puts him on the side of the right.

So, John runs, wind in his face and passion in his heart.

"We'll start with London."

Sherlock cleared off the map, tacked it back on the wall and John labeled it 'Moriarty' in red at the top.

"We can't count where we know he's been before because he knows that we know."

"Because he knows you…" John whispers.

Sherlock looks at John by looking down and John hands him a pen without being asked. Sherlock stares at the map, the one thumb tack in the center of London – a map of the world with a smaller detail map of London in the bottom right fourth of the wall space. Will Moriarty travel the world willing them to chase or will he stay close in plain sight waiting to pounce?

"France?" John says, no evidence, no reason, just a way to get Sherlock talking.

Sherlock snorts. "Idiotic." And always it works because John knows Sherlock now, knows which buttons always press down and which always pop up the same way. "France would be like posting a sign on our door."

Sherlock steps forward, starts to draw lines on the map talking as he goes, always talking, as he connects cities, possible paths, switches over to London and circles sites of crimes with the smell of Moriarty still fresh in the wake.

John smiles as Sherlock moves because, yes, he has a purpose right here.

When Sherlock is on a case then John is on a case.

John has a job. He still works for Sarah, has an office, sees patients; hands out flu medicine, diagnoses strep throat, sometimes stets bones and refers the fearful to oncologists. He does not stare at walls until some new exciting murder shows up because his mind works too fast and cannot be idle. John earns money saving lives in the conventional sense. John lives a normal life.

Only not at all.

"No, not again, John." Sarah sighs at him as he asks her to leave early, to see his last patient for him. "I know exactly where you are going."

"Sarah…"

She presses her lips together. "You have a regular job, you know. This isn't a hobby."

"Don't say that. I know that. I just…"

She stares at him and John hears each thought passing through 'get your kicks,' 'irresponsible,' 'obsessed with him,' 'you bastard.' She shakes her head and begrudgingly snatches the file from his hand. He smiles, trying to pour every bit of charm into it he can.

"Thank you."

As he turns away she says, "it's going to kill you," softly as if he can't hear but they both know he can; and they both know when she says 'it's' what she really mean is 'him.'

When John sinks toward the bottom of a white tiled pool he wonders if Sarah would find vindication in such a fate.

Sherlock plays the violin at the strangest times.

John played the clarinet once in primary school, orchestra playing everything static and flat thinking 'Ode to Joy' simplified into one page of quarter and half notes is the hardest piece ever. Three years of a tight embouchure before he knew what the word even meant then on to better things like biology class and frog dissection. John wouldn't be able to say what the normal time for a non-professional to play an instrument would be regardless. Piano at Christmas for carols? Bagpipes at a funeral? Guitar trying to charm the girl on your candle-light date?

The violin?

John will wake up to the violin – six AM, hitting his alarm clock three times before the sound forms into music and not just noise.

"Sherlock?"

Sherlock sits in his chair, violin on his shoulder under his chin and bow moving quickly through some classical piece John would never have a chance of naming (Bach, "Chaconne from Partita 02 in D"). Sherlock plays with eyes closed, lips slightly parted, and curls dipping toward his eyes. John knows Sherlock won't stop to answer him. So, John sits down and listens.

And here is something John does not know about Sherlock. He has no idea what Sherlock thinks about when he plays. The piece? A case? His feelings for the music? Some obscure historic reference to the time period of the composition?

Or perhaps nothing. John can't comprehend Sherlock thinking of nothing.

"Would you care to hear something?"

Sherlock gazes at him, surprising John because he didn't notice Sherlock had stopped, didn't realize he'd fallen into a stare of the kind only Sherlock does – can such habits as 'deep thinking' really cross over when living with someone? But now, now Sherlock looks at him, completely serious, and it feels like a present, a gift, Sherlock's focus and intent on him.

"Whatever you think I'd like."

Sherlock stares at John again, presses his lips together, hands still up with the violin poised to play. Then John sees an expression which rarely crosses Sherlock's face.

"I – I don't know what you would like, John."

Surprise.

John smiles. "I would like whatever you play."

Sherlock stares at John longer, classifying, accessing memory logs, flipping through files in his head to fill in the blanks John left open to be filled, no cell phone to steal to check John's music preferences. John wants to tell him, wants to give in, admit he knows nothing of classical music besides strings of Mozart in films but anything from Sherlock's hands is heaven.

"Well." Sherlock shifts his head then strings meet bow.

It's Mendelssohn, "Spring Song" and it turns into John's favorite.

John hates Sherlock in equal parts to the pleasure he takes in Sherlock, in his work, in his friendship, his eccentricities, his genius. Some sort of three dimensional pie chart exists in his brain color coded for the things he likes about Sherlock versus those he hates. The list and chart constantly changes because one day the smoking smells like death while the next it keeps John's eyes fixed to Sherlock's mouth.

But some days, some dark and vicious days, everything shifts into hate, every aspect, every stare and sneer and condescending tone and disregard for everything which has to be inherently human about Sherlock bubbles up into a full, bleeding, gale of concentrated hate.

"You can't do this, Sherlock. You can't just brush aside people as if they're pieces on your game board."

Sherlock raises an eyebrow. "I do not brush them aside. Every person has a place and a part in this case."

"That's just it!" John grinds his teeth and wants to slam the top of Sherlock's computer right on to his fingers. "Case. Life is not a case. Every person you investigate, all of it is not just a case. They have lives these people!"

"I know all about their lives, I know what I need to know about them to solve their case and why should I care more after that?"

John huffs and Sherlock leans back in his chair, folding his hands together.

"These people have no connection to me beyond their death or their part in it. I am not responsible for their happiness – boring thing regardless. I only care about my work and solving the –"

"- the case!" John interrupts. "I know. But it's not a vacuum. It's not the case and the rest of the world. People are affected by what you do, by what you say."

"Stick and stones?" Sherlock smirks.

John's breath goes out and he thinks of all the ways to start a physical fight. "You can't really tell jokes, you know."

John sits down and stares at the wall, stares like Sherlock, like if he looks hard enough maybe somehow an argument will stick and Sherlock will learn how to not say the worst things, to not point out flaws and mistakes and every thing a person hides just because he can.

"I know people are affected by what I do, John." John does not look at Sherlock as he speaks but he feels those eyes, feels Sherlock trying to pry open his brain so his thoughts spill out. "Everything I do affects people, its crime."

John finally turns and it's just hate, hate at a man who could be so perfect, could be amazing, could be love – but no, right now, it's just hate for all that arrogance and cruel genius. "How can you be such an idiot?"

Sherlock's lips curl together in that sneer John rarely sees focused toward him, that look he gave at the mention of Moriarty and the pool and a gun he wanted to shoot.

"Perhaps you care too much for people who don't deserve your thought or your pity."

"Perhaps you need to learn how to be human!" John shouts.

And it's still hate for the expression he gets back - nothing, no hurt at all.

When his back hits the bottom of the pool John remembers he could drown. If he pulls them up, pushes up to the light he could burn. He counts time in his head, remembers the explosions of Afghanistan and tries to calculate differences in C4, in ammunition, in time for fire to burn out.

But neither of them will die, not in a pool, not drowning, not here, and not now. John feels Sherlock tense against him, against the water, breath becoming scarce for them both. Sherlock's pushes sluggishly against the water around them, grabbing at John's arms, reaches back for his hip. It's a feeling John knows too well, 'I don't want to die.'

So, John thinks it's time to play the hero and rise up through fire, the only choice they have.

Sherlock reacts to things in mostly the same way, either indifference or intense interest. It's boring or it's fascinating, nothing or something. He switches between polls of what is important and what is not.

John has no idea how he landed in the pile of what is considered 'important.'

Normal life bothers Sherlock, bores him: why go to the movies, he knows the end? Why watch TV, it's all predictable or fake? Polite chatter is just that, the chatter of birds which means nothing. Relationships? Sex? Sticky and messy and not worth the time, full of rubbish.

But Sherlock has a human relationship, one he chose and John still can't fathom why it's him.

Lestrade is by work. Mycroft is by blood. Mrs. Hudson is by circumstance, a result of the job which is his whole life, the only things which brings him real joy. John. John is a choice. John is not necessary to the job, not a relation, not someone Sherlock is forced to cohabitate with or talk to or spend the majority of every day with.

John is Sherlock's choice.

John's head will not stop asking why? Why, why, why?

He does not understand but he won't be sorry, won't give it up, won't leave. Nothing thrills him as being with Sherlock Holmes does.

Sherlock warned John once he sometimes wouldn't talk for days. John didn't hear him at the time – they'd only just met, everything was a blur, the man assumed then knew and threw facts out like insults before disappearing. Thus, John still finds himself surprised, worried, and finds Sherlock silent.

Sherlock goes fifty-one hours and twenty-three minutes without speaking, at least from when John starts counting because Sherlock might have started his expedition of stillness before John found him.

"Sherlock?"

It starts with Sherlock typing furiously on his computer. When he does not respond after three tries John just glances over Sherlock's shoulder.

London – Surrey – Kent – London

France – predictable. Not predictable because it is predictable?

J. M. James M. Jim M. Moriarty. More – art. Jim More Art. Jim More Rarity. Jam

China. Mob. More mob connections?

South America? Predictable because not done yet or unpredictable?

Molly? Unlikely.

Bombs? So messy but efficient.

Poison?

John? John.

It all circles back. Sherlock's brain keeps circling back to one man, one source, one point which everything else splinters off from, every case which crosses his door.

But Sherlock stops talking. Sherlock stands in front of their map on the wall, now criss-crossed with red marker, blue pen, notes filling every space of the margins, victim names in the oceans and tacks smashed into known locations. Sherlock stands motionless for six straight hours – John goes so far as to set the timer on the kitchen stove each hour in the hopes the noise will distract Sherlock enough to make him move when it goes off.

John goes to work, tries not to worry, tries to focus on the woman with bronchitis, tries to not think of Sherlock's mouth closed, lips tight, tries not to think of ways to break the spell.

"Sherlock, you could at least eat. Tea? Anything?"

Sherlock sits in his chair, knees up and hands palm together as his eyes stay fixed on a point not in the room, blinking the only sign of life.

After twenty-seven hours – John unable to sleep, coming down stairs every hour to see Sherlock still in the chair – after twenty-seven hours something changes. Sherlock drinks the tea John left him and his eyes come back to the room around him. The laptop closed, cell phone out of typing range, hands still together, Sherlock begins to watch John.

At first John thinks Sherlock gave up on staring at the map or where ever he was and started imagining him as Moriarty but that's not it. Sherlock's eyes changed, eased away from the tight annoyance and concentration of being outwitted and beaten by this mystery man. Instead he seems to contemplate something pleasant, as though this kind of thinking never happens. And he's watching John.

"Sherlock, what is it?"

When John walks into the room Sherlock's eyes tick like a clock and follow John's revolution. Perhaps he's making a book of the pieces of John – sweater, trousers, hair, femur, clavicle, sternum, heart, lungs, flowing blood. John can't tell if he's a subject or a specimen. He still doesn't know if Sherlock hears him which has to be odd because Sherlock looks right at him.

Even when John goes to work the next day he feels Sherlock staring at him from over the streets.

Day two, hour fifty-one. "Sherlock, would you like some tea?"

John brews tea, a shake in his hands, not the old tremor but nerves, fear, worry, something he can't control. If he concentrates on the task – sugar, milk, box of PG Tips – then he won't think about Sherlock's following eyes and unmoving mouth. Boil the water, pour the water, let it cool, pick up the mugs.

He holds a mug out for Sherlock which he takes then, "Thank you."

John jerks in surprise, tea sloshing onto the floor, catching his jeans. "Sherlock!"

Sherlock tilts his head. "Not too much sugar, I hope?"

"You… you talked."

"I assume you remember I know how."

"But it's been – it's been two days."

"Fifty-one hours I believe was your count?"

John's eyes flick to the clock. "And twenty minutes."

Sherlock smiles slowly like he's pleased, like what he expected happened and for once it's not haughty arrogance but plain pleasure at being right. "Twenty-three."

John sits down, brushing dampness into his jeans, not helping the situation. Then he puts down his tea and leans forward over his knees.

"I saw you working on… on him but… then you…." John breathes in. "Just what were you thinking about all that time?"

Sherlock sips his tea. "You."

Daily life is not 'daily' with Sherlock Holmes.

Daily life has chemistry experiments, beakers with green liquid, bubbling Petri dishes, two microscopes comparing, and John's take away turned into fodder for an explosion.

"They suggested fumigation."

"That again?"

"Sherlock…"

"We haven't died yet."

Daily life Lestrade begs in the kitchen.

"You can't just say no, it's a multiple murder!"

"Drug store robberies do not interest me."

"Do I have to start making up eccentricities to force you to come?"

"Hmm, no, I can tell when you lie."

Daily life has midnight inspirations, "Ah! Plaid coat," stacks of tea bags, four books in German, Three in French, one which might be Bulgarian, yet no dictionary in English; pieces of two computers on the living room floor and –

"Sherlock, can you put it back together?"

Daily life John finds a strange sword under the couch.

"Oh, that, nothing, old case."

"It's a sword, Sherlock, not a file."

Daily life breaks light bulbs by throwing the 'Love Actually' DVD at a spider.

Daily life memorizes the libretto to The Mikado for three days to infiltrate a theater company to implicate a dramaturge.

Daily life eats lunch with Mycroft.

"How is my dear brother doing? No wait, I'll get my blackberry."

Daily life John wakes up to Sherlock sitting on the end of his bed. Sherlock crosses his legs, fingers threaded together, with his eyes checking every inch of John's room. Sherlock looks like a cat, head tilted, back arched and eyes going where you don't expect. He taps the comforter, bunches up fabric and turns his head.

"Good morning, John."

When they break the surface of the water, reach the edge, hang on for glorious life, they float alone with the pool and the fire and empty space where once Jim stood. Breathing in and out, only breathing really lets them know they are in fact alive.

Then Sherlock laughs. John rests his forehead against the cool damn of Sherlock's back, feeling the rise and fall as Sherlock laughs, two parts hysterical and five parts so very alive.

John's life defined again – now, here, after, always – by Sherlock Holmes; the two of them alive in a pool surrounded by fire.

Sometimes Sherlock Holmes needs help.

Advice, he gives it constantly, hates to ask it even from alleyway graffiti artists. It's not advice he needs though. No one needs to name a book to use as research or a suspect to interrogate or evidence to collect, points to notice; no one needs to tell him those things. Sherlock does not need help with his job, with detecting, with solving mysteries and crimes, does not need help noticing any and every detail.

Red shoes, left handed mug, broken window, sharpened pencils, mud tracks, bicycle wheel, double parked taxi, jasmine tea, Les Misérables, pink marker, banana custard, David Bowie, oil leaky car, bus route change, clock two minutes off, tape dispenser, jammed printer, carpet stain, hair tie, neck tie, no tie, shoe polish, peanut butter, chlorine and water and…

It's not that but actually it's all of that.

John wakes up to wind. Cool air reaches John's face from a window down in the living room with two doors in the way. Two fifteen on the clock.

'Sherlock.'

When did John start knowing when to wake up? When did cigarette smoke hit his nose this distinctly, violin music act like a timer, the lack of sound mean something?

The window stands wide open, red dish with three burnt cigarettes inside. They have long since died out completely, probably smoked somewhere around midnight in rapid succession. John follows the path of the wind to Sherlock's room to the second open window beside Sherlock's bed.

Funny, but John thinks this may be the first time he's actually seen Sherlock in bed.

"Sherlock?"

Sherlock stares at the ceiling – two cracks, long, snaking around until hitting the wall, paint chipping at the corner, three years old, not white, beige – and only his eyes shift toward John in the door.

His mouth moves 'John' but no sound comes out. He makes a frustrated noise, closing his eyes once and opening them again, back to the ceiling; The only light in the room comes in from the street lamps outside – electric street lamps, two burnt out, one intentionally, a third fading fast – putting Sherlock in an eerie half light, back lit but still discernable. John walks in until he stands beside the bed. Sherlock still wears his suit, laid out like a corpse for a wake.

"Sherlock?"

Another ash tray sits in the window, six, seven cigarette butts and a crumpled pack beside it. Sherlock's face pinches and John watches the clock wheels turning, spinning out of control, uncontained and trapped at once. John sits down on the bed beside Sherlock, takes his hand, squeezes to make him focus.

"It's all right, look at me." Sherlock clenches his teeth. "Come on, Sherlock, now." And he does.

Sherlock stares at John, frozen until he curves, curls over, and rolls himself against John so his face rests against the covers and against John. John anchors him to earth, out of the ocean, out of the pool and Sherlock breathes sharply until John stretches out, lies beside him. Sherlock clings onto John trying to climb John as a ladder back down.

And maybe it all led to here.

When John tilts Sherlock's head and kisses him everything sharpens to one point. The tension rushes out - not the running rush, not the adventure, but really just the same - Sherlock calms, focuses, touches John's arm and kisses John back. John tangles fingers in Sherlock's hair with one hand (the other stays clasped in Sherlock's, won't release, tight together) and just kisses, kisses, kisses.

God, why have they waited?

Sherlock presses close to him, body bony, sharp, unnatural in a state John knows the man rarely finds himself. When John breathes he breathes in Sherlock, breathes in life and smoke and warmth and genius.

Sherlock touches John's hip, sucks on John's lips, fingers reaching skin as John's shirt hikes up, and maybe Sherlock tastes like mint, like nicotine, like bliss.

He whispers, "John…" against John's lips.

John knows this one time, now, between them only clothes and touching lips and laughter in a pool long gone, John knows it's not just him but that Sherlock's life too is defined; right now, his life is defined by John Watson and just maybe where John always saw salvation Sherlock does too.