THE BARE EDGE

by saizine

It was a bloody awful time of year.

February. Spring. The season of rebirth, blooms, renewal. John hated it. But then again, he'd hated almost everything about the world since the previous June. Not one wonder of the natural world could tempt him into a smile; not the crunching of autumn leaves, nor the first untouched snow, nor the sprigs of yellow daffodils outside the clinic.

You… you told me once that you weren't a hero. Umm… there were times I didn't even think you were human. But let me tell you this: you were the best man, and the most human… human being that I've ever known and no one will ever convince me that you told me a lie, and so… there.

It felt like an insult that the world moved on so easily. Forgotten so easily. John couldn't forget him, couldn't forget what they'd been and what they'd seen and what they'd done. There was no way to deny those eighteen months, no way to convince himself to fold them up tidily and pop them into a neat little box. So what was he supposed to do? It'd been eight months—eight fucking months—and nothing had made the pain any gentler. He doubted if anything could.

I was so alone, and I owe you… so much.

He'd seen it happen to other people. He'd seen it happen to himself before, but not like this. Pain never became gentle, never became domesticated. You could only sedate it, chemically separate consciousness from reality.

So what had he done? He'd become angrier. Bitter. Occasionally, in his head, biting and cruel. But, mostly, he'd turned into a shell of himself. Not that anyone would really notice much, but he knew. He knew that he wasn't John Watson the soldier, he wasn't John Watson the doctor, he wasn't John Watson the detective.

No, please, there's just one more thing, mate. One more thing, one more miracle, Sherlock, for me. Don't… be… dead. Would you do…? Just for me. Stop it. Stop this.

John threw the soaked teabag into the bin, and ignored the mug's handle as he clasped it in his chilled hands. There was a window open somewhere in the flat, but he couldn't be bothered to go and find it. He could keep his coat on—just like Sherlock used to. There was no point in trying to stop himself from thinking it, after all. It wasn't like it was just Baker Street that reminded him of Sherlock… it was the whole of bloody London.

Another day finished. Well, almost. Not quite; he still had to sit through the interim between clocking out at work and climbing into bed. If he included the time it took him to finally fall asleep, the wait was even longer. That's what he was doing, now—waiting. John didn't know what he was waiting for, exactly, but it hadn't arrived. He'd know if it had. So he kept waiting and kept making cups of tea. He habitually made two, even now, and he always seemed to use Sherlock's mugs. It didn't offer him any comfort. He wished that he'd stop doing it, in fact, but he was already on autopilot after a long day of patients and didn't want to think anymore.

Most evenings, John sat alone in Baker Street. Occasionally, he met Lestrade for drinks, even though they'd never been that close before Sherlock had become nothing more than a figurehead of their memories. Sometimes he had dinner with Mrs Hudson, but John couldn't bear to see his own grief staring back at him too often. On the very rare occasions when he went out, he invariably came home unsatisfied (regardless of whether or not he'd had a shag). But, on the majority of all the calendar dates between that fifteenth of July and the current February evening, he sat in Baker Street and tried desperately to feel okay.

He never did.

He could watch whatever telly he wanted, now, too. QI, Come Dine With Me, Mock the Week, even Doctor-fucking-Who. Sherlock had never liked Doctor Who—but what a Pyrrhic victory that was. He felt like a royal bastard for even thinking it. Sherlock would've just called him an idiot. Either way, he generally kept the television on—even if just for the background noise. If there was enough background noise, he didn't have to think too much.

Wouldn't Sherlock have been proud?

He glanced around the flat's empty, half-alive living room as he gently eased himself into what had become his armchair, and almost resented the fact that wherever he looked, the evidence that Sherlock had once lived there lay before him. He hadn't moved the detective's laptop, and even left Irene Adler's phone where he'd found it. A book still lay on Sherlock's bedside table, the spine stretched and bent as its own weight held the page. His coat and scarf were still hung on the back of the door, as if he was somewhere in the flat and may burst forth with inspiration at any moment. The bloody leather armchair lay consistently empty, as if one day John hoped to return home and find him sitting in it. Sometimes, very occasionally, John thought he actually did see him—but only ever for a split second. There seemed to be something inherently wrong with removing Sherlock from Baker Street; even Mrs Hudson had found it difficult. It was as if she was removing all traces of a son from the one place he'd felt safe, the one place he'd ever let his guard down. It was a violation of consecrated ground. It was the removal of a heart. Without Sherlock, everything fell apart.

The only things that they'd managed to remove from the flat were the assorted body parts in the fridge (Molly had come around to dispose of them properly, and even stopped by a couple times after that, but she never stayed long) and some of the more extraneous bits of scientific equipment. All of Sherlock's books, all of his case files, all of his suits and shirts—all of them were still there, lingering behind almost closed doors. John couldn't even bear to move Sherlock's toothpaste. If a bystander glanced through the flat, they would have guessed that there were still two inhabitants. In a way, it was true. You couldn't remove Sherlock from the flat; he'd been a part of the structure, as important as the floorboards and the beams. It was like they were always waiting for Sherlock to walk through the door.

But that was never going to happen. Sherlock was dead. There was no place for hope anymore. John tried not to think of what residue could have been in the test tubes that made it to a nearby sixth form college. There hadn't been any reports of large chemical explosions on the news, though, so he reckoned it was safe enough. The whole bloody city seemed safe enough, but he knew that it wasn't. He'd been immersed in the capital's crime for eighteen months, and no matter how far away from it he was now, he knew it was there.

He wasn't, though. He wasn't really sure where he was or where he was even supposed to be.

John gulped at the milky tea in his cup, even though he found himself wanting it less and less. That was his constant condition, now. Never sure, never really wanting, but never really not wanting, either. It was limbo, this. Purgatory. But then again, it'd only been eight months. Not long enough, really. But when was long enough—ten months? A year? Five years? There were no guidebooks for this, no helpful blog posts, no one else to ask for advice—because who the hell could offer help? He and Sherlock were normally the ones everyone turned to for answers. Now John couldn't even find comfort in memories, because his best friend was dead and no one understood exactly how much that affected his life.

That had been what Sherlock was, of course. His best friend. Colleague, too. Flatmate—obviously.

And then, of course, there was the fact that John had loved him.

John didn't know exactly when he had fallen in love with Sherlock. Or, really, the better expression was that he didn't know when he started to love him. There was no way for him to objectively say that he was 'in love' with him, and after all, he was bloody well dead and six foot under, so what was the point, really? But he'd known, he'd known when Sherlock had said take my hand, and he had, and he knew. At the same time, he felt that at that moment he was the closest he could possibly be to the grand, illustrious Sherlock Holmes, but also the furthest away. He knew, then, that he was losing him. Perhaps that's why he held onto his coat sleeve long after the detective had let go of his fingers.

Sometimes, just as he was drifting into fitful sleep, he would swear he could still feel the fabric under his fingertips, and Sherlock's incredible warmth beside him.

Valentine's Day. There was always an influx of STI patients around the fourteenth of February. What a fucking fabulous present.

Either way, John found it easier to work through the holidays that other people normally enjoyed. Not that he and Sherlock had ever bothered with Valentine's on any level, but he didn't want to have to spend the day wandering around a city where the population was so obviously and so blatantly enjoying each other's company. It had been even worse around Christmastime, when John could so easily conjure up the image of Sherlock playing Christmas carols on his violin. Actually, forget just images; he could virtually hear him.

Mrs. Hudson had brought him a chocolate orange cake last year, which he was normally exceedingly fond of. The problem was that whenever he opened the fridge and caught a whiff of the scent, all he could remember was walking to Mrs Hudson's flat one day after work and finding Sherlock standing in her kitchen, licking the batter from one of the detachable beaters while muttering about one of his deductions. It seemed that even geniuses couldn't resist cake batter. John couldn't bear it; he'd ended up giving it—untouched—to Greg so he could share it with his kids. He'd subsisted on tea and biscuits, like he always did. No reason to change anything for Christmas when it didn't feel like Christmas should.

No, he needed distractions, and good ones. Oozing rashes and complaints of 'a burning when I take a piss' seemed to do the job, even if he could have done without some of the more uninhibited stories that he'd been subjected to. There was never a shortage of locum positions, of course, and John took advantage of it. For a while it was as if he had a proper day-to-day, nine-to-five job; for once, he hadn't needed to put anything on hold in order to run after Sherlock. Of course, he was still chasing Sherlock, somehow; the man kept popping up in his head, but staying just out of reach. It wouldn't have hurt so much if the detective's spectre would stay in his head, linger with his thoughts and lounge in his imagination. But John had to put up with glimpses instead, momentary illusions of intense feeling and connectivity that were almost immediately severed. Then again, he was a doctor, and he probably should have been worried about his mental health. Hell, Ella was worried. But he didn't mind; this was grief, and it didn't have to make sense.

He took each day as they came, now. Yesterday always felt like a distant existence, and the consideration of tomorrow was ultimately irrelevant. Days were divided between being at Baker Street and being at work, and John wasn't completely comfortable in either of the locations. At the end of the day, he was always both mildly satisfied and miserable. Like anyone else, he was tired, he'd been at work all day, and he just wanted to be able to pick up a takeaway, watch some crap telly and fall asleep in order to start it all again tomorrow. But when he stepped out of Baker Street station, there was little that could pick up his mood-because Sherlock wouldn't be in the flat waiting for him, and he never would be, anymore. He always used to be a constant presence, somehow there even when he was in the other side of London; the vacant feeling that haunted John's footsteps wouldn't leave his mind alone. It was wrong, Baker Street without Sherlock. Broken, compromised. The man was virtually a part of the building itself, an integral part of its character. He would never have left voluntarily. Hell, the bloody man hadn't moved when the apartment across the street exploded.

But that didn't matter when he was at work—most of the time. The problem was that, like most doctor's surgeries throughout the entire country, it seemed that each and every clinic in which he worked cared little for whether or not the reading material they supplied to their patients was relevant. The majority of the newspapers strewn about in the waiting room were terribly out of date, still brandishing headlines that everyone had forgotten months ago. The worst part, however, was that each evening, John had to walk past Sherlock again.

His face stared back at him from the flat, two-dimensional ink of a newspaper. Except he didn't look at John; the face was always staring just past him, just over his shoulder or through him as if he didn't exist. It was generally the photo of him in that hat, the 'death frisbee.' Sherlock had always hated it. John had rather liked it… once. Now it just invited an uncomfortable turning in his stomach when, for the umpteenth time, reality reminded his mind that this was the only way John would ever see Sherlock's face again. He'd always be scowling, or smiling unconvincingly, or desperately trying to hide; never again would that languid half-smile shoot across the room and meet John's smirking grin, never again would a giggle at a crime scene exist anywhere except in John's precious memory. Sherlock's humanity had been stripped away from him, hidden in ink and archived photographs and headlines.

Not that many people knew of Sherlock's humanity. Even John had only seen it in glimpses: when Sherlock had torn the Semtex away from him, when Sherlock had wordlessly asked for John's permission to call Moriarty's bluff, when Sherlock had honestly been betrayed by that woman, when Sherlock had panicked and become someone that John hadn't known, when Sherlock's voice had hitched and John had known there had been tears on Sherlock's face before he'd before jumped to his death. So no, he'd never remember to pick up the milk, or remembered John's girlfriends' names, or been particularly kind to anyone in his entire life, but he'd been human. More human than most.

And now, he wasn't. Sherlock wasn't. He was a memory, a wonderfully dreadful apparition in the tortured minds of people who'd known him. Well, to people who'd loved him—and there were more of those than Mycroft had ever imagined.

You've met him. How many 'friends' do you imagine he has?

Enough. He'd had enough, enough for him to have known that he was admired, valued for more than just being a remarkably efficient brain, loved enough to be missed. He'd had enough people who would have stood by him; hell, he had enough people who were standing by him, even if he was dead.

I believe in Sherlock Holmes. That had starting popping up all over the city, even before it had come out that Sherlock was as honest as he'd always claimed. The first time John had seen it, his heart almost swelled out of his chest.

But, still, to most people who hadn't known him, he was just a picture, a collection of pixels and a momentary movement imprinted on film. He wasn't a man, he wasn't a person; he was a celebrity, a figure who was always an imagined personage. For them, him being dead was no different from him being alive. Whenever John thought about it enough, he had to fight back the tears that welled up in his eyes. How could someone so alive, so vibrant, with so much fucking heart be reduced to so little?

Though that was everybody's fate in the end, wasn't it?

John looked away pointedly whenever he had to pass the coffee table in the waiting room. He could move them, shove them into the nearest bin and replace them with some of Mrs Hudson's issues of Good Housekeeping, but there was little point. He was in a lot of the photos, standing next to the towering figure of the world's only consulting detective, but the name John Watson didn't generally ring any bells. He preferred it that way; he didn't want to talk about it, really, with anyone who wouldn't understand. He frustrated his therapist to no end, seeing as he never had anything to tell her. (She wouldn't understand.) There was no point: to them, Sherlock Holmes was the man in the papers, scowling and obviously ungracious. To John, he was the man in the dressing gown shooting at the wall, the man who had attached a Cluedo board to their mantelpiece with a kitchen knife in a fit of frustration, the man he'd eaten breakfast with everyday, and the man he'd been willing to die for.

And no one—no one—knew that Sherlock Holmes except John. Even Mycroft, his own brother, didn't know him. Oh, he know of him all right, and knew how to play him. Sherlock was little more than his profession, little more than the ability of his mind. Mycroft cared little for the rest of Sherlock's mind, or of Sherlock's life. He never even tried—or, at least, from what John had seen, he'd never expressed a wish to understand his brother the way most siblings understood each other. But then again, no one ever tried. No one except John.

In a way, he should have been glad to see Sherlock's face on the front of the dailies again. Mycroft had turned out to be much more intelligent than John had bargained for (and why he had assumed that the man would have been so stupid escaped him to this day). The truth in which Moriarty had wrapped his lie turned out to be as much of a lie as Father Christmas. The version of Sherlock's life story that Moriarty had fed to the papers was, to put it bluntly, a load of bullshit. Palatable bullshit, of course, and all of it entirely feasible—but none of it true enough to keep Kitty Riley's article from being blown to pieces. John was pretty sure she was still being held up in the courts for libel; it was one of the few things that John still found to smile about. Hollow smiles, mind you—they never reached his eyes, and they never offered him any comfort. They felt like betrayal, and tasted bitter.

It had turned out that Moriarty actually was Richard Brook. John should have known; he'd been the one that had looked through the man's folder of proof. There was little sense in listing himself as a recurring character on a long-time soap opera if he wasn't actually in it. At the time, though, panic had been creeping over John's skin and he couldn't think of anything apart from Sherlock. Anyway, Moriarty had been born Richard Brook. He'd grown up as Richard Brook and he'd killed Colin Powers as Richard Brook. He'd become Jim Moriarty at some point, and assumed a false identity that was remarkably secure (John wasn't quite sure when, he'd been a bit in shock when Lestrade was explaining it to him) and operated criminally under that name while continuing to pad out his real, legal life, the one he could easily fall back on if anything went too wrong. Somehow, the line between Moriarty and Brook seemed smeared away; where did one begin and the other end?

But then again, he was dead as well, so what was the fucking point?

He left a bunch of daffodils on the grave after work.

Please... for me.

He had another go at casual sex that night.

It didn't do anything for him.

A week and a half later, nothing had changed.

John had just finished convincing the very anxious Mr Leatherbarrow that he did not, in fact, have a serious terminal illness and instead was suffering from an all-too-common, persistent-but-manageable case of the flu when the intercom buzzed.

'John? John, I have a man here who needs some immediate attention. A… um…,' The receptionist paused, and there was a rustling of papers that betrayed the fact that she needed to remind herself of the patient's name. '…Gregory Thomsen. Says he's here to have some chest pain looked at, but he's obviously a bit battered.'

'Oh?' he asked, disheartened. He'd seen enough people come through all sorts of clinics with obvious injuries that they completely denied—or, if not denied, explained away with barely believable stories. He hated the fact that he couldn't help them. Oh, of course he could offer them fixes for what they came in for (a packet of Strepsils here, a brief course of antibiotics there) but he couldn't fix their pain. But then again, he couldn't fix his own, so what good was he for them?

'Well, all right then, Josie. I've just finished with Mr Leatherbarrow, though I suppose we'll be seeing him again soon enough.'

Josie made a small, understanding sound. It was one of those times when everyone knew what was going on, and everyone knew that everyone knew, but no one could act. They were bound on every front, restricted from every side. Too many people were trapped in their own mind, in their own circumstance, in fate. Not that John believed in fate, really, but… the instability and fallibility of humanity astounded him sometimes.

Especially when he remembered Sherlock's crumpled body on concrete.

Josie's voice brought his mind back into the clinic, instead of on the street outside of Barts. 'You'll see when he comes through. I'm sending him back now.'

The intercom crackled back into silence, and the sudden withdrawal of a familiar voice left John alone with his thoughts. He was quick to busy himself with the obligatory paperwork that came with each and every patient; he didn't really want to let his mind wander. That was an activity reserved entirely for the witching hour, and whether or not it kept him from sleeping was irrelevant. He either remained awake, or his sleep was marred with images of that day, of blood and terror and of the best man he'd ever known reduced to a limp and lifeless body. He could try black humour, of course, and say it made a change from sand dunes and bullets, but it just wasn't true. He would have done anything to get Sherlock out of his head; that didn't mean he wasn't in his heart.

John was still messing about with the clinic's patient information program when he heard the door to the exam room creak into motion. He'd only been in the Lambeth clinic for a week, and wasn't quite as smooth with the computerized system as he'd have liked. His fumblings were made all the more difficult due to the fact that Sherlock's voice kept popping into his head, reminding him that his typing skills were offensively subpar.

'Ah, yes, Mr Thomsen? Do take a seat, I'll be with you in just a moment,' he said as he tried to pull up a new window of patient information.

It took him a moment to realize that this Mr Thomsen wouldn't actually have any patient information, since he was most probably an entirely new face in the clinic. They always were, these ones. He changed tactics, clicking on the 'new patient history' button and hesitating as the entirely blank form appeared before him.

'All right then. I'll just need to start with a bit of your background… you know, name, age, date of birth, that sort of thin—'

John had almost reached the end of his sentence when he glanced up, and immediately the words fell away from his mouth. There was no way—there was no way that it could be who he thought it was. But he knew himself, and he knew that he'd never mistake that face. Not when it was offered up to him as openly and cleanly as it was now.

But Sherlock was dead. Dead and buried.

'John,' said the man, slowly and—if John was to use the first adjective that came into mind—unsure. Except, John would know that voice anywhere, and it was never uncertain. Even when he'd last heard it, on a weak mobile signal and through the dread of the apparently inevitable, it was never irresolute. But it was him. It was him, there was no denying it.

And John couldn't seem to wrap his head around the English language anymore.

It wasn't just the fact that it was Sherlock's face staring back at him that made speech impossible. For once, Josie had been entirely right in her use of adjectives. He was battered, his face littered with scrapes and half-healed bruises, and he looked as if he'd been in the wars. Then again, he probably had. And he wasn't the figure that he'd known, for he had no billowing coat or cashmere scarf or quiet, arrogant confidence. If they hadn't been flatmates and partners for eighteen months, he'd look like a regular bloke, with his ratty jeans, scuffed Converse and leather bomber jacket.

But he was Sherlock. Fucking Sherlock. And John didn't know whether to laugh or cry… or keel over and vomit.

For a moment, the last choice seemed the most likely, as bile rose in John's throat. And for a brief, ironic moment, he was glad of the fact that if he was going to vomit, it would be in a doctor's office—like the location should matter.

'What… the fuck?' he said, slowly and almost to himself—it was as if he didn't really think Sherlock was standing there, as if he was talking to nothing more than an apparition of his own desperate mind. 'What the fucking hell?'

Sherlock only had to open his mouth to tempt more words out of John's. 'No, no, no. No. Nope! You're dead. You're dead as a fucking dodo. No. No way.'

'John, I—'

'Is this it, then? I've finally cracked, have I? Gone completely bonkers? Everyone always said it was only a matter of time… and for once they were fucking right, weren't they, Sherlock?' John almost spat his friend's name, angry in a matter of seconds. 'For once you weren't there to shove the truth into their bloody smug faces. For once, you weren't there, and I fucking crumbled. Fuck you, then, Sherlock. Fuck. You.'

'Look at me, John! I told you, I tried—'

'No!' shouted John, his hands fisting at his sides. 'Don't you dare say that to me. Don't you dare try and reveal some sort of clever trick. You don't get to say a bloody thing about this! You jumped off a fucking roof and made me watch. You don't get to say a word to me about what you did. You fucked up, Sherlock. You ruined me, Sherlock. And some days, I hate you for it.'

Sherlock's face shifted slightly, but for him it was the equivalent of screaming out his disappointment. It was as if John had actually punched him, as he so itched to do; the thing with Sherlock, though, was that he wouldn't react like that if he was punched. He could probably handle John punching him. He'd shrug it off, make some sort of sardonic comment, and swoop straight out of the clinic with a bleeding nose and stalk away into the London smog. If John was still as adept at reading Sherlock as he used to think he was, then that's exactly what the detective had expected to happen.

John knew what he said. He knew that he meant it and he knew everything else that he wanted to say. Blaming was easy… but, then again, he also knew that he never wanted to let Sherlock out of his sight ever again.

'Oh, Christ…' he said, trailing off and aimlessly glancing around the exam room. Is this what they'd been reduced to, two strangers staring at each other from opposite corners of a battleground? When his gaze fell back on Sherlock's strange and unfamiliar form, he exhaled heavily. 'Sherlock, you bloody idiot!'

There was silence, and it hung in the air with a sense of victory. John had somehow made his way out from behind his desk, with his fists still balled at his sides and he stood in front of Sherlock, squarely opposite him. Sherlock looked as if he'd tried to take a step forward, a step back towards the life he once had, but words had halted him in his tracks. They looked at each other, and as he met Sherlock's bright, slate eyes, John knew. John understood. Exactly what he understood was unclear, as it always was with Sherlock, but he knew and he understood and that was all they needed from one another. The anger was still there, bubbling under the surface—but then again, when wasn't he on the verge of rage when Sherlock was around? It was almost comforting.

And then, in a blur of movement, he closed the distance between them in a few determined steps and John's arms wrapped their way around Sherlock's shoulders. He pulled him close into the embrace, pressing so close to the taller man's torso that he could feel his hard, hammering heartbeat in his own chest. He didn't care anymore, he didn't want to hate Sherlock. He didn't want to shout at him, not when he stood there, intact and so very much alive. He never really hated Sherlock; no, he hated the way his life had gone without him. He blamed him, yes (and who wouldn't?), but there wasn't anything in the world that would make John let him go. And now, as he pressed his forehead into the soft fabric of the detective's shirt, he was home. He'd even go as far to guess that, from the way Sherlock's hands were fisting in the loose fabric of his cable-knit jumper, the detective felt the same way, too.

John kept holding on for as long as he could. He knew eventually that Sherlock's incredulously low threshold for genuine human emotive outbursts and saccharine sentimentality would be exceeded, but he couldn't help himself. After all, this was a man that he'd loved, that he'd have died for, that he'd have protected to within an inch of his life and a man that he'd failed… and he was alive, in his arms. Safe and sound. Sherlock would give him that much.

'I never bloody know with you, Sherlock, do I?' murmured John as he stepped away, smoothing down the creases on his jumper. A quick glance at Sherlock's face revealed his confusion; then again, even if you weren't the world's only consulting detective, what had transpired between them moments before made very little sense. 'Do you have any idea?'

Sherlock pulled himself to his full height. 'Sentiment?' he ventured.

'Yes, Sherlock, bloody motherfucking sentiment,' said John, but a smile was playing on his lips.

For a moment he considered spouting some nonsense that would give him an excuse to touch Sherlock, but the thought quickly left his head. he was a doctor, after all, and that was all the sodding reason he needed. He knew that Sherlock didn't want any fussing, and he probably had already forgotten that he'd been obviously injured, but it didn't matter. He wasn't about to let the man walk away with no retribution.

'Bastard,' he said as his fingers hovered over the angry-looking scrape on the side of the detective's temple, 'wanker... ' as he brushed across the cut at the edge of Sherlock's full mouth, and '...you absolute tosser,' as his light touch grazed an inflamed cheekbone. John wished he could do something, cleanse the wound or offer some antiseptic or bandages, but it was past that point. He couldn't help him, not with these. They were a part of Sherlock's life in which John had no part, no say, no association.

That should have hurt, but it didn't. Or, at least, John didn't feel it. It was a small price to pay if it meant that Sherlock Holmes was alive and standing in front of John Watson in (mostly) one piece.

He didn't give Sherlock a chance to flinch away from his hands, and ran them into the dark hair that was once only a memory. His trained fingers looked for anything that would indicate a head injury; not only had the man jumped off a roof eight months ago, but the injuries to his face indicated a struggle that would have invariably aggravated any lingering issues. But John couldn't find a thing that would give him reason to worry. He'd worry anyway, obviously, but at least that was a change from mourning.

'Go on then,' he said, gesturing to the exam table that was loitering against the wall behind Sherlock. 'Sit down.'

'Why?' asked Sherlock, obviously anxious to get out of the clinic now that he had John back.

'This is probably the one and only time I'll be able to get you into a doctor's surgery, Sherlock, so you're going to bloody well sit down!' he said, exasperatedly. 'And after all, someone once told me that if you wrap a lie in a truth it makes it easier to swallow.'

Sherlock did that little half-smile then, the one that John had remembered all too vividly whenever he'd overheard something that would have made Sherlock laugh. He seemed more real then, more alive; the mask with which he'd entered had been the mask that he wore for the public and the one that never broke; the smile was John's.

John smiled back, although he couldn't maintain the expression for long. He only needed to see the cuts and bruises that were littered over the detective's face and hands to know that there were more. You didn't get into scuffles and fights that would give you those without picking up a few more painful mementos. He checked everything that he could think of: he ran his hands over joints, checked all the open wounds for swelling or infection, listened to Sherlock's heartbeat and breathing pattern, but it was only when he checked the detective's ribcage that John had reason for alarm.

Even Sherlock couldn't hide the wince that flittered over his face when John's gentle hands brushed over the sore, swollen skin on his abdomen. 'Feels like a cracked rib,' said John, quietly. 'Come on, I need a better look.'

The detective seemed to be reluctant to give anything else away, but John shot him a stern warning glance. There was very little with which to bargain on Sherlock's side: he'd faked his own death and disappeared for eight months. The least he could do was let John take care of some of his more serious injuries, no matter how displeasing the idea might sound to him. John had often wondered in the past if the pain gave Sherlock a sort of distraction, if they always acted like a case in the wave of boredom. Maybe he could shut off when there was a crushing weight on his chest, or a massive headache behind his closed eyes. If he could feel pain, if he could hurt, then maybe his mind set itself aside for a moment.

And, under the coercive eyes of the man who he'd left behind, Sherlock relented. He shrugged off his jacket with a shadow of pain, and from the expression on his face when he pulled the t-shirt over his head John reckoned that the wound was going to be a fair bit worse than the scrapes and bruises that were already visible.

The fair skin of Sherlock's slim but sturdy chest was mottled black and blue, marked with the clear outline of his fragile ribcage. 'Shit, Sherlock,' breathed John, swallowing heavily. 'How the hell have you been walking around with this?'

Sherlock grunted in reply, but his intake of breath was distinctly laboured. It was as if, for the first time, he was able to show that he wasn't entirely all right. John tried to ignore the other half-healed injuries that were scattered over the detective's chest; he didn't really want to know how many of them were the result of the fall. 'I can bandage this for you,' started John, 'but it'd need changing often. And painkillers—I can get you with codeine. I doubt you'd be able to get any from the chemist's, judging by your history.' He paused, looking up to catch Sherlock's eye. 'Plus… you're supposed to be dead.'

The detective looked indignant. 'I'm not wearing the hat. No one ever recognizes me if I'm not wearing the hat.'

'Only you would still be bothered by that,' muttered John, with a slight smile.

John could feel Sherlock try to chuckle, but the shuddering movement of his friend's chest produced nothing but wheezing. 'Shut it, and sit still while I wrap this. Should ease some of the pain, at least temporarily.'

Sherlock didn't even as much as whimper as John pressed on the injury, taping each damaged rib from the bone to the centre of the detective's back. He worked as quickly as he could, desperate both to ease Sherlock's pain and to fix all the pressing problems so that they could work out exactly what they were going to do.

'Look, can you meet me somewhere?' he asked as he handed Sherlock his shirt a few minutes later. 'My shift's over in three quarters of an hour. I'll find you. Victoria Tower Gardens?' John had eaten a sandwich during his lunch hour there once, and struck up a friendship with a particularly persistent pigeon. 'I know you know where it is, for God's sake I could ask you to meet me in a building that was demolished a century and a half ago and you'd know where I was talking about. But will you be there?'

Sherlock looked at him as if the question posed was the most idiotic thing he'd ever heard in his life.

Of course he'd be there.

John had just finished disentangling himself from a particularly sticky toddler when his phone buzzed in his pocket.

26-02-2013 15:36
I'm here. –SH

26-02-2013 15:37
Still breathing. In case you wondered. –SH

And just before his shift finished, it vibrated against his hand as he was picking up his coat:

26-02-2013 17:54
It's cold. Hurry up. –SH

It didn't take John long to find him, even though he'd decided on walking instead of taking the Tube. He could have found a cab rather easily, as well, but he hadn't been in once since Sherlock jumped, and he wasn't about to start that now. He needed some time to think—after all, how the hell were you supposed to act when your best friend shows up in the middle of the day when he's supposed to be dead? Even with his feeble hopes that Sherlock could perform some miracle and not… be… dead, never for a second had he ever thought that it could be reality. He hadn't spent any time thinking about how he'd feel if Sherlock was alive. Because, hell, he'd been there. He'd seen the bastard jump. He hadn't held up much hope for miracles.

And yet, there he was. Standing there, leaning on the mossy stone wall that separated the park from the river.

It was terribly strange for him to be there. Everything else was just so damn ordinary. He'd walked back through this park often enough after work to know what was ordinary. There were still students in the park, even though it was nearing twilight, and they gathered in groups around picnic rugs and large textbooks. Even with John's limited observational skill, he could tell that the books seemed to be neglected for more raucous conversation, with laughter and cigarettes and brief exclamations of excitement. Dogs ran to-and-fro around the humans, returning thrown toys back to their doting owners and wagging their tails with intense, insatiable delight. There were couples on the benches looking out over the river, one or two with bundled up babies who, from the safety of their prams, gurgled and pointed at the fat pigeons that loitered on the stone boundary.

And then there was Sherlock. He'd picked somewhere quiet to stand, away from all the signs of life that characterized a London evening. Quiet, alone. Alone is what I have. Alone protects me.

John refused to let that be true anymore.

He still didn't look right, in those clothes and with a cigarette dangling from his fingers. John could tell as he walked towards him that he wasn't quite all right. His breathing was much too quick and much too shallow, judging by the puffs of condensed breath that appeared before him. He was moving one hand gingerly, as if it had been broken, once. No, that wasn't quite right: if he squinted and rotated his head a little he could see that it was badly scraped, with bruises and scabs lining his knuckles—as if he'd fallen? No, that would be on his palms, especially if he'd scrabbled to keep his grip. This was on the back of his hands, as if someone had struck them, or inflicted pain in order to make him release his grip. How had he not noticed that before? Still, it wasn't like he could do anything about it.

John came to a stop next to the taller man, and pushed his hands into his coat pockets. Neither of them said anything, at first, as they stood side-by-side looking out over the river that divided their city. John spoke first, his words prefaced by a deep breath that betrayed his emotion. 'I didn't know you smoked.'

'Yes, you did,' was the reply, dry and almost infuriatingly sarcastic. It was true, too, but John wasn't in the mood for that.

'You know what I mean.'

Sherlock nodded sharply, and took another drag on the cigarette, as if that was the answer to all of John's questions. Of course things were different; John knew that, John expected that. Sherlock's smoking wasn't exactly the end of the world, or the signalling of a different man. Sherlock was Sherlock, John was John… and yet, they weren't, not yet and not anymore. The wind was stronger by the water, and as the cool air buffeted his face, John wanted nothing more than to be able to push himself into Sherlock's side and wrap his arms around him. But there they stood, both alone and both desperately lonely.

Yes, Sherlock was lonely. He'd known that, too, for a while, and now that he was back, it seemed so much more obvious.

John watched him through the corner of his eye and with a slight tilt of the head, and the cool breeze ruffled the dark curls that he'd missed seeing so much. Sherlock seemed to try and give it a look that would shrivel even the bravest of men, and puffed on his cigarette with renewed vigour. It was as if he was allergic to (relatively, for London) clean air. With a rustle of cheap clothing, Sherlock shifted his weight onto one leg. John had never seen him look so uncomfortable, but he couldn't tell if it was his fault, or the pain.

Somehow, he doubted that it was the pain.

'Give me those,' John said suddenly, as he removed his hand from his pocket. He held it aloft, outstretched and palm upward. Sherlock looked at him intently for a moment, before pushing his own hand into his pocket and pulling out a nondescript box of cigarettes and placing it on John's hand. John wasted no time, and took no chances: before Sherlock could stop him, he strode over to the nearest bin and chucked the packet in. 'No more smoking. That's your last one. Enjoy it.'

Sherlock didn't acknowledge the ultimatum. John turned back to the anonymous city skyline and smiled to nothing in particular, shaking his head slightly to himself. 'There's still a box of nicotine patches at the flat. Might be out of date, though…' he said, trailing off as the breeze picked up again.

He didn't see the brief half-smile that sparked on Sherlock's face, and he removed his hand from his other pocket. He held out a plastic bag wrapped around a small cardboard box to Sherlock. 'Picked this up on the way here. Paracetamol and codeine, Boots' own. It should take the edge off.'

Sherlock took it from him, and pushed it into his own too-small pockets. John could have chuckled, seeing Sherlock so far removed from his usual look. If Greg had been here, he'd have wanted a picture; it would have completed the collection.

Almost as soon as John thought it, he realized that everything that had been going through his mind completely negated the enormity of what had happened. Sherlock had been dead, and he'd come back. He'd faked his own death, and just wandered on back into his life as if it was entirely normal. It probably was normal for Sherlock.

The detective's voice sounded rusty and hoarse when he finally spoke, breaking the silence that had descended over them both. 'He was going to kill you.'

'Who?'

'Moriarty.'

'Oh,' said John as shifted his gaze towards the opposite embankment. 'Bit repetitive, don't you think?'

Sherlock's mouth twisted into its characteristic half-smile, but it died away quickly. He tapped the ash from his cigarette into the murky water of the Thames. 'Not just you,' he paused, allowing for a drag on the cigarette. 'Mrs. Hudson and Lestrade, too. Three snipers ready to shoot if I didn't jump.'

'Fucking hell.'

'You are as eloquent as ever, John.'

'Piss off.'

'You're just proving my point.'

John bristled, suddenly angry. 'I think I've been doing just that for eight fucking months.'

Sherlock was, for once, silent. John felt a creeping sense of victory that he promptly beat down with a metaphorical stick. Now was not the time to be cataloguing the moments where he'd been able to shame Sherlock into silence. Now was not the time to be proud of that. Was there ever a time to be proud of that?

No. There wasn't. Not when they were like this, standing out in the cold like stray tomcats. They were both obviously bedraggled and a little bit unhinged, but there was no reason that they couldn't go home. In fact, there was nothing that John wanted more in that moment than to go home with Sherlock, crank up the heating and settle into the life he'd thought he'd left behind.

But it wasn't that easy, was it?

'Look, John,' started Sherlock in the same strangled voice he'd used before; it was as if he was speaking to the cigarette rather than John, seeing as he started at it much more intently. 'I—I needed time, and—well, there were things—'

John interrupted him. 'I don't want to know.'

The detective's gaze swiftly from cigarette to John's face, and he seemed to be searching for the reason why anybody would not want to know anything. The phrase I don't want to know was anathema to Sherlock; it didn't exist in his mind. But John pressed on. 'Not now. Later, maybe. Probably. Anyway, if you tell me now then I won't take any of it in and you'll just have to explain again later. You hate having to do that, don't you?'

Sherlock didn't reply. He didn't have to. John knew that he was right. For once.

It was now or never, then. John knew that Sherlock wasn't just going to come out and ask, even if it would have broken his heart not to.

'So, are you going to come home or not?'

Sherlock seemed to pause for thought (although John doubted that he actually needed time to think), and the left side of his mouth twitched into a smile. 'No flatmate, then?'

John humoured him; after all, this was Sherlock. Of course he already knew that he had no flatmate. He probably could tell everything that had happened to him in the last eight months from the way he pronounced Sherlock's name.

'You're an idiot,' he said with a reluctant, bittersweet smile, and he turned his back to Sherlock in order to walk towards the main road. They were, after all, going to need a cab. 'I shot a man to save your life the day after I met you. It's going to take more than you faking your own death for me to kick you out of the flat.'

For a moment, John wondered. He wondered if it really was all right, because if he thought about it for too long then, yes, it was enough. Anyone else would just cut all ties with the madman that was Sherlock Holmes. But he couldn't, not really, not when he'd been given a chance that no one else ever got.

That would just be spiteful.

He glanced back towards Sherlock, and grinned. 'The name's John Watson, and the address is 221B Baker Street.''