Hey everyone! Did you miss me? :P

This won't make any sense unless you've read the first two stories, which are on my profile. Go check them out then head back here! And be prepared for erratic posting, because that's what I'm known for :D

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If he hadn't been so angry, John might have actually been happy. Sherlock was alive. After all these years, his best friend, the father of the baby girl he'd helped to raise, was back and alive and their wishes had been granted. Why wouldn't be happy?

Because he was fucking furious! Sherlock had been alive all this time and he'd let none of them know! He'd lied to them, let them mourn, let them believe they'd lost someone so important in their lives and then had the gall to complain about his bloody moustache.

"I'm going to kill him!" he raged, pacing forwards and backwards on the well-worn carpet of 221B's living room. "I'm going to strangle him!"

"John, calm down," Mary replied calmly.

"Calm down?!" he shouted in reply. "He-He thinks he can just waltz back in here with no warning, no word, and expect everything to just be okay? It's not okay!"

"Of course it's not okay," Mary replied, keeping calm. "But you'll wake up Bella."

The mention of the man's daughter reminded him of the third occupant in the room. Faye, Sherlock's girlfriend, the mother of his child, who hadn't moved since he'd told her that he had been alive all along. In fact, now that his attention had focused in more on his friend, he started to realise just how still she was. He took a step closer, wondering for the first time if maybe just blurting it out had been the best idea.

"Faye?" he asked and she jumped, as if startled. John was looking at her in concern, but her mind was reeling too much to be able to reply. Her mouth moved up and down a couple of times before she turned from him, heading to the stairs that had once led up to John's room, and where her daughter now slept.

"I'm going to check on Bella," she rambled, brushing him aside as she all but ran up the stairs. There was no chance that John had actually woken up her, but Faye still looked into the crib, making sure she was fast asleep, meerkat by her head.

Sherlock had told John he was alive?! He could have, at least, given her a heads up about it, surely?! The last thing she'd expected John to tell her that night had been that her husband was back from the dead. She'd expected Mary to have said yes to his proposal and they'd be around to celebrate. Or, at least, a text to let her know everything had gone without a hitch. Not that Sherlock had gate-crashed their date!

His timing had always been impeccable.

She crossed her arms on the top of the crib, leaning her head on them as she squeezed her eyes shut. What was she going to do? Did she tell John she'd known all along? Did she act innocent? It didn't seem like Sherlock had dropped her in it, which was something, she supposed. Maybe he was giving her the chance to lie her way out of it. Start crying, chuck them out of the flat, demand to know where he was. Act as hurt and as angry as John was right now.

Trouble was that she'd already been through those emotions. They'd been both draining and the making of her. The anger brought on by him appearing that night in the living room had forced her to retaliate by becoming a mother, and a good one at that. Sure she still struggled, but those days were becoming few and far between now that Bella wasn't so small and completely helpless. She was a troublesome toddler and Faye was enjoying her a lot more because of it.

But she couldn't fake it, she knew she couldn't. No one could fake being that hurt, could they? And she would be, she'd been so hurt knowing what he'd let them all go through. It was still so hard for her.

The door opened but she couldn't look up, couldn't stand the thought of looking at John's guilty face – and he would feel guilty for breaking it to her in such a terrible way. He didn't deserve that, he'd not done anything wrong, but he still walked over to her side.

"Sorry," he told her, sounding genuinely apologetic. "I probably could have broken that better." Faye shook her head in her arms before lifting it up, turning on the spot and leaning against the crib. But she couldn't find the words to reply to him, so she kept silent as Mary appeared in the doorway.

"I just- How can he be alive?" John continued. "We buried him. We were there. He was put in the ground and we both begged him to come back. I don't understand how he could be standing there."

Faye didn't reply again, because these were all thoughts she'd had. Not just the moral 'how could he lie to me?', but other thoughts, like how he managed to actually pull it off. There had been a body, she'd seen it fall. John had checked him over. They'd buried him in the ground. Did that mean there was someone else's body in that grave?

She'd never really managed to pull a proper answer from Sherlock about exactly how he had pulled it off, but she wasn't sure she wanted to know how he was successful in lying to them. Who would want to know how they were taken in so completely by someone who was supposed to love them? Even after all this time it still hurt her, it still made her so angry.

"You knew." Faye and John turned to look at Mary at the same time. She was staring at Faye, not looking like she was accusing her of anything, but like she'd suddenly just come to that conclusion.

"What?" John asked, a laugh in his voice because it was ludicrous. Of course she hadn't known. He'd watched her grieved, he'd lived with her throughout her pregnancy, right up to and passed Bella's first Christmas. He'd watched he go from strength to strength, but only after being at the lowest of lows.

And above all else, she was his friend. His closest friend, even above Mary. Just like he had done, if she had found out Sherlock was alive, then she would have come straight to him. He turned to his best friend – because that definitely wasn't Sherlock anymore – to look for her protest. The proof that Mary had just misread the situation, because that's what it had to be, right?

But Faye didn't protest. She just looked up at him with big, guilty eyes and for the second time that evening it felt like he'd been smacked straight in the chest. She knew. She had known that Sherlock was alive and she hadn't said a word.

He opened his mouth to rant and rave at her, at everyone. Was this just something he didn't know? How could she keep this from him?!

But the little girl asleep behind them helped him hold his anger in check enough from him to push past both women and storm downstairs into the living room. He didn't know what he wanted to do at that point, except that he had to leave. He had no idea where he wanted to go, but it was somewhere other than 221 bloody B!

"John, wait!" Faye called after him and he paused, turning around and she froze in slight fear. John was very rarely angry, but he looked like he never wanted to see her again. He rocked forward like he was going to storm towards her, then stopped, his whole body tense.

He went over every question he wanted to ask her. Demand answers to why he was kept in the dark while, apparently, everyone on the planet knew about it but him! Was everyone just laughing at him? Poor John, who didn't know that one of his two best friends were alive?

"How long?" was what he settled on, the look that he was giving her saying that she he wouldn't accept no answer.

"Since the night you met Mary," she replied softly. He blinked for a moment before laughing harshly.

"That's why you suddenly became such a good mother!" he raged, arms flying out. "Because you knew he was fucking alive!"

She couldn't deny it, the tears in her eyes told him that she wasn't going to deny it either. Her silence just angered him further, because she was supposed to be his friend, "After everything I have done for you," he started quietly, shaking, "after everything, was I not worth telling?"

"No, that's not it!" she quickly insisted, taking a step forward, like she wanted to beg for his forgiveness. "I wanted to tell you, I really did…"

"Then why didn't you?!" he screamed, a moment later the sound of crying floating in from upstairs. They both glanced up, but Mary seemed to be dealing with it. Faye looked back at John, seeing the hurt on his face.

"He said you were in danger," she explained. "And that the less people who knew, the safer he would be. I had to protect my husband, John."

"Your-" he stuttered out. "Your husband?!"

She nodded slowly, berating herself for letting that slip when he was already so angry at them both. "We got married after I got kidnapped."

"Oh, great!" he ranted. "Yet another thing you've kept from me." He looked ready to throttle her, pacing backwards and forwards before pointing at her. "The first thing, the first thing, I thought of when he appeared was telling you. I would never have kept this from you for so long!"

"I know," she replied. "I wanted to tell you…"

"Then why didn't you?" he demanded.

"Because he doesn't deserve you!" she shouted in reply, her own anger and pain coming out in her words and tone. In the same was he pointed at her, she pointed at him, with force behind the violent gesture. "I knew you'd forgive him, and he doesn't deserve it!" she snapped. "He doesn't deserve anyone's forgiveness and he doesn't deserve you as a friend."

"Don't worry, I'm never going to forgive him," John swore, "And I'm never going to forgive you." Faye watched him storm out, slamming the front door shut as he did. The tears in Faye's eyes started to fall as she started crying. Her hand ran through her hair, grasping tightly as she tried to work out what to do. She knew John would be angry at her, but having to face that was something completely different. He truly was one of her best friends, only beaten by Mycroft. She didn't want his anger, but she didn't expect anything else. She couldn't chase after him because he'd just be angry and that wouldn't get her anywhere, so why was that all she wanted to do?

Mary slowly came down the stairs with a whining Bella, sensing that the fight was over. "You're married?" she asked. Unlike John she didn't particularly sound angry, just curious. Faye nodded.

"Me, Sherlock and Mycroft in at Mycroft's house," she replied. "Sherlock was worried about me, I thought he was going to die every other moment. It was horrible, but we did it anyway." She reached out and Mary handed her the little girl. "Make sure your wedding is better than that."

"That all depends on him actually asking me," Mary grumbled and the two shared a soft giggle together. "I'm not happy that this was kept from him," Mary told her. "But I understand why you did. If keeping John safe meant you believing he was dead, then you'd never know." She offered the other woman a soft smile, one that Faye returned gratefully. "And you're right, he's going to forgive him."

"I haven't forgiven him," Faye admitted. "I mean, how dare he do this to us? He doesn't deserve our forgiveness, not yet."

Mary pulled both Faye and Bella in for a hug. "He'll come around soon," Mary offered as comfort. "He's never going to be able to stay away from this cutie." She placed a kiss on Bella's head.

"Let me know how he's doing?" Faye replied, trying to make it sound like an order but it came out more like a desperate question.

"Of course," Mary said as she headed out of the door after her almost-fiancé. "Sherlock told him he didn't like the moustache," she offered.

"Oh!" Faye replied, sounding rather excited. "Let me know when he saves it off."

"Will do!" Mary called over her shoulder and Faye giggled. The door shut downstairs and she turned to her daughter, who she was bouncing in her arms. "Let's see how your father tries to talk his way out of this, eh?" she asked the little girl.

"Boring!" she grumbled and Faye nodded.

"Yep, that's probably exactly what he'll say," she murmured before heading back upstairs to put her back to bed.