A/N: Valentines edition. Okay, so... hm... there's this "thing", called johnlock by some... Yes, I'm giving it a try. Beware.

I know I'll get told off in nasty ways for posting this, because it's way off my usual repertoire, but this is an addendum to the very experimental collection of "Just drop it, John" plots. So, I'm keeping it in line with that experimental spirit. If it's not your metaphorical cup of tea, make sure to skip this one.

Disclaimer: I suck at romantic entanglements in real life, so... don't expect much as a way of celebrating the day created by the postcard industry and such, to annually mark my shortcomings. -csf

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Baker Street. We just solved another high adrenaline, neck-breaking speed case, where Sherlock and I worked in a synergetic bond, the two acting like one.

Now I told him I must go. Return to my empty flat, my empty life, that is.

It's been a year since Mary and my child have joined a witness protection scheme. We gave it all we could, Mary and I, but by then the arguments were permanent and painful. I'd have endured it, never the less. For my little child, because she was innocent and bore none of her parents sins. But when Mary's old enemies came to town... I wasn't enough to keep her safe, nor was Sherlock Holmes. We tried, desperately clawing at the threatening shadows, but keeping her tied down to London and to me was to keep her in high risk. We had to accept Mary's wish to depart, so to keep ahead of the bad guys. So she did, one day, unannounced to me. The world now thinks I'm a widower.

Sherlock told me I am. Some days, when the pain is too big to bear, I fancy thinking that maybe - just maybe - the car didn't go off the road, and Mary and my little one are smiling somewhere distant, with new names and new lifes in a secretive witness protection scheme, not disclosed even to me. Like Irene Adler.

Sherlock has been unwilling to admit that. He looks at me with such a broken stance... It took months before I could face his brokenness, as I still worked on mine.

He's lied to me before, you see. About Miss Adler.

Today marked our first case together since I lost it all. I returned to a past I once had, to a life of what could have been.

It's been both painful and healing. Now the case has come to its natural end.

'Sherlock?...' I look up at my friend after my announcement that I'm off and I didn't expect his reaction. There's a moment of unconcealed disgust in Sherlock's expression and it takes the breath out of my lungs, that I'd be the object of such hatred. It's earth shattering, it's heart breaking, and it jolts something deep inside me, ready to spill out. 'Is this because I'm leaving?' I ask, dumbfounded.

'I won't stop you', he tells me, and it sounds ominous.

'I'm going home.' Home; there's that empty word I fake every day.

'You're leaving again', he accuses, as if he had just read in me thoughts I daren't recognise myself.

'Sherlock, you left me first', I spill out, and regret it immediately, ashamed of myself. 'You came back, but you weren't the same. Nothing was the same anymore.' A life time ago, when Sherlock came back to life.

Only Sherlock can spin me off control so easily, all the while I want to scream at him and hug him sweetly, hold him in my arms, till he loses that edge of vulnerability I hate seeing in his eyes.

Right here, right now, at the privacy of Baker Street, home to us.

'You were going to let me marry Janine!' he accuses me; all is in the open now, there's no turning back. No binding ropes, no safety net, or connection to the ground. We're high and never coming back down.

I'm a widower and we're still discussing events from a distant past. When he came back. For me?

Janine... Human error; whose error, I doubt now.

'I wanted what was best for you.' I swear it. His happiness has always been my elemental goal, an urge stronger than my own survival instinct at times.

'You weren't available', he deadpans, telling me he thinks I was the best for him. But no, not me, I'm too messed up, I'll only ever drag him down.

I realise that I'm shaking now. On top of my anger, I'm actually shaking because I feel lost, hurt, and scared.

He might have read me, because he's Sherlock and he does that. Slouching his shoulders only a slight touch, as if in a caring way trying to look less imposing in his towering height, he steps closer, too close - damn his lack of social borders. He's so close now that I can smell his posh aftershave, and it has a cinnamon and ginger lingering tinge to it that promises the same exotic dreams his impossibly jade-green eyes fixed on me do.

'Am I your next experiment?' I demand to know, bitterly. He shakes his head, not startled at all by the question. 'Your charity case?' He frowns honestly, as if he can't make the link, he genuinely doesn't see me as I am, does he? 'A distraction?' He nods, in the same old honesty.

'Every day', he mutters in a deep promising voice. 'But the answer you are looking for is another, John.' He won't tell me more, and walks away for the moment. The cold air between us is suddenly making me shiver. I'm at a loss, in all the possible senses, to this.

He turns around and confides briefly. 'I'll wait for you, John. I'll always will. I'm proud to have become rather good at it. I've had quite the experience, you see', he comments sadly. 'Think it through.' And with this he gently escorts me to the door, silent and persuasive, throwing me out of 221B's safety and into the vortex of my own confused mind.

I watch the dark green door closes after me as if I'm walking in a dreamlike state.

A part of me isn't sure of what has just happened. Another wonders if I've finally become delusional - and, if so, how come I'm not scared?

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'You actually let me marry Mary', I tell Sherlock out of the blue. I don't know what I expect to get out of this. It's a conversation doomed from the start and I must be mad to persist on it.

The detective that drives me mad every time doesn't have the decency to fake surprise at my comeback.

Literal comeback, I suppose, since I came back to Baker Street in the middle of the night. Pouring rain outside, I'm drenched to the bone and shivering in cold - couldn't care less.

Sherlock is the only sight, sound and smell in my narrow world right now. And how much I long for his taste and feel, in ways that have been forbidden and off-limits thus far.

I must be mad. What am I doing? This is wrong, and Sherlock can't possibly want this - and even I don't know if I want this - and he'll break away in horror once he realises that I'm desperate to have him near me, as close me as two vulnerable creatures of this world can ever merge into another and find strength together.

What I want, I realised, is earth shattering, life changing, there's no turning back. What I want is unspeakable, and yet my whole soul quivers with the mere possibility, intangible as a dream, sweet as honey. My mind is not mine anymore. In my madness it has wondered off and found a new start in another's tight embrace.

I long for his embrace - to know how it feels like.

'Sherlock... Please say something', I urge, tensely. 'Scream at me, insult me, tell me I'm disgusting to have any pretense of being enough to be on your radar. Do what you will, but do it now, do it fast, do it decisively. My soul is in your hands. Tear it apart if you must, but do it soon. I can't... This is all wrong... I'm wrong, torn inside out. I...' My voice falters, and so does my short-lived bravery. Narrowing my eyes, finally I make one sound sensible resolution. 'I'm going, Sherlock. I know I can't ask you to ignore this mistake, but if I could ask you something, it'd be: please don't hate me.'

'John.'

I hold my hand up, as if I could stop his poisoned words or my overwhelming feelings. I must stash these away. Sherlock belongs to the world, no one will ever have him, much less me. 'Don't say any more. Please. I can't bear to listen.'

'John', he insists, atop the loud heartbeats pounding on my chest.

I raise my chin, and square my shoulders. This is it. I deserved this... I brought it upon myself. It's bittersweet pain, my agony coming to a violent ending. My rejection at last. Years wasted. Barriers torn down leaving me painfully exposed. All to find a loophole in my I-love-Sherlock-ballad - he doesn't love me back - and be sent back to the starting point with a broken soul. To go out again, looking for imperfect love, when I found the perfect love already. I just can never have it.

Sherlock leans even closer to me and allows his voice to fall to a mere whisper, shared between the two of us in an empty flat. The man is pure allurement in his thoughtfulness and he's only trying to break my heart more gently. He whispers between us: 'John. I think I'm in love with you.'

I blink.

'John, I'm not terribly sure, because I'm new at this', he confesses his vulnerability with the matter-of-fact tone of someone who is used to a shortcoming. He tilts his head ever so slightly and adds: 'I'd ask you, because you always make sense of my feelings for me, but Molly says I need to give you some time to work your own first.'

I'm hearing things, wishful things, aren't I?

I've forgotten how to breathe. I take a lung full of air and it sounds ragged, torn, as the cold vital air tears its way into my desperate body.

'Sh-Sherlock?'

He anticipates my need for assurance over his spoken words. 'I love you. That's what I said, John. For the first time in my life too; I'm in love. Helplessly. So believe me, I don't use these words lightly. I'm desperately and utterly in love with John H. Watson. You should know, I fought this feeling for a long time, but it's just that strong, that right, that fulfilling. John, I need you, by my side, literally or metaphorically - a phone call away, at most - every day of my life. The time I spent by your side at Baker Street was the happiest of my life, and I want it back, every day, intoxicating me as it was. Only now that's not enough. I want more. I hope I never have to part with you again. John... did you... Were you happy with me?'

I nod, my knees are giving out. I hastily make a beeline for my armchair, Sherlock's piercing gaze boring holes in my back, studying every concealed emotion within me. Reading my innermost emotions and conflicts. I should be upset with the lack of privacy when I'm around this man. Instead, I feel comforted. He's guiding me along my confused emotions as much as I'm leading his tonight. I take a grateful refuge on my armchair. Sherlock just follows quietly, and leans over to me. Then, dissatisfied with his position, he kneels right in front of me. Making himself small, homely, so comfortable around me as I never saw him be around anyone else, even family. Making me that special, that part of him and Baker Street.

'Will you... come back?' he asks me in all seriousness, deep green eyes locked on mine.

I nod again, before I can even tell the full societal impact of what I'm pledging to. A challenge, a war to fight with the rest of the world. It feels right, and oddly fills me with overjoyed tranquillity.

Sherlock must feel it too, because he just snuggles against my knee like an overgrown feline, just about vibrating with smug happiness. He seems to have known all along that I'd say yes. He seems to be so natural in this scenario that I gather he played it in his mind a multitude of times.

It feels so right for me too, and I never really dared to dream this far.

As always, he holds the advantage, and I'm swept by surprise. Adrenaline rush with Sherlock's signature yet again.

'Why would you take me back?' I play my own devil's advocate. 'I didn't wait for you, Sherlock. I moved on when you disappeared out of my life.'

'You believed I was dead. I made sure of that', the detective counterbalances naturally.

'I should have given up love. I should have known I had already found and lost it. Instead, I went looking elsewhere. I'm unworthy of your love, Sherlock.' I take a hand to cup his cheek in a caring gesture. I'm so wrong for him. Why would he only care for what he cannot have?

'Don't ask me to forgive you for what is not your fault, John. I wanted you to be happy. I still do, from the bottom of that heart you assure me I have. And if pain born out of loss and anxious fear of rejection are anything to go by, I seem to have a fully functional heart... Just drop it, John, that last barrier of reticence. You and I both know this has been on the making for a very long time. You and I both want this.'

I nod at last, and lean in forwards to taste that happy smug smile fresh out of his lips.

It tastes like home, and a million starts bursting to life, exploding supernovas aligning in the pitch dark universe just for us. With a hint of coffee, tobacco and gunpowder. I mean, I'm sure I'm imagining the gunpowder. The kiss feels phenomenal, it tastes of danger and opportunity, wrapped up in a warm smile. Sherlock's smiling into our kiss and I melt in his arms, and he worms himself into mine. Somehow it feels like we fit into each other perfectly.

I sigh, content, like a soldier returning home. I could stay in this moment forever. I could stop fighting now.

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