He sat as far away from John as he could get in the cramped hospital room. It was a private room, at least – Mycroft was good for something. He was certain that John was awake; the regular rhythm of his breathing had changed some time ago, but John knew he was here, and Sherlock could not stand to invite another conversation where every word was a blow. He would have given anything to be the one in the hospital bed, for physical pain to etch upon his body the things he felt right now. It would have been a release, but now, instead, again, he had hurt someone else.

If he were in John's place, would John be here now, in his?

He shook his head to clear it. That wasn't what had happened, and maybe he didn't deserve to ask.

Clara had come to see John. He hadn't wanted Harry, especially not after a few drinks (to steady her nerves, after all, it wasn't every day one's little brother was hit by a car), but he and Clara had always gotten on well. And who else was there, after all? He couldn't think of a single friend he had made in the three years since Sherlock's disappearance, and a few pints with Lestrade on particularly difficult nights hardly forged a friendship that warranted a bedside visit in the hospital.

Sherlock was still curled in the corner of the room, silent. He had not said a word, and John had not even met his eyes since he had been forced to admit he was awake so that the attending physician could check his neurological responses. Still, he was there. He hadn't left, not once. Was that enough to tell John that he loved him? Sherlock didn't know anymore. Nothing had worked the way he thought it should since his return to London, to…

Not to John. John hadn't let him.

"So he isn't dead."
"No, even I can deduce that much, thanks."

Sherlock snapped to attention. Without appearing to, he strained to capture every word of the quiet conversation between Clara and John.

"So why – ?"
"He said if I knew he was alive, we'd both be in danger."
"So he did it to keep you safe."
"No, he didn't. He did it to win, to beat Moriarty at his own game. And it doesn't matter."
"He still loves you, though."

She knew? Did that mean John knew, too?

"What? Clara, I don't even know if he's my friend anymore. He left, don't you understand? He lied and he left and then he lied some more. What would you call that? Worse than idiocy. Perversion, maybe. Betrayal. Not love."

White horror bloomed before Sherlock's eyes and he stood, mute pain washing over him because of – what? Something he could not name. Because, after all, it wasn't love. John had said so. From his hospital bed, where he lay because of Sherlock, John had said so.

He rose, eyes veiled so that they would not see what roiled within him, and left without a word.

The next day, John was well enough to walk up and down the hospital corridors. Good for his recovery, they said, good for his body. The sooner he was able to walk alone, climb stairs, eat, drink, the sooner he could go home.
Clara came to visit again. Even without looking up, Sherlock recognized her footsteps from the elevator to John's room. Perhaps she hadn't noticed him. If only he could get her to stay with John until the soldier was ready to move his recovery to Baker Street, it would be all right, but Sherlock couldn't ask.

It was some time later when he heard those footsteps again, slower this time and accompanied by a shuffling, hesitant footfall that seemed a debasement of the strong soldier's gait he was accustomed to in John. He hurt to hear it. The limp, he noticed, had not returned.
They walked down the corridor away from him. Was John's step getting surer? He couldn't tell from this distance. Maybe he could go home soon.

It suddenly occurred to him that he didn't know where that was.

Yes. Definitely a surer step. John had not been badly injured, they'd said, only the blow to his head. He would be fine in a few days. Despite their reassurances, though, Sherlock had needed to see for himself. Doctors had been wrong about John before.
He had heard them returning down the hallway, but had been too absorbed to really notice until he heard John say, "Is that – ?"
From the nurse's station (they must be nearly back to John's room by now, Sherlock thought, but still didn't look up), he heard a voice say, "He's been there all night."
"All night?"
"Yes, he's been saying he won't leave until John's all right… Does he mean you?"

Stupid, Sherlock thought. John was her patient; she must know his name. How many possibilities could there be? But it was the voice of the overweight nurse in the lurid pink scrubs, and he suspected that she had probably paid more attention to the night nurses' gossip than to the patients whose care she was taking over from them.

Clara was murmuring something to John now, softly enough that Sherlock couldn't tell what she was saying. A heavy sigh, and John's footsteps, more rhythmic now, across the wide, textured linoleum of the corridor to where Sherlock sat, curled into a corner, his face buried in the rough fabric of his coat sleeve.

The footsteps stopped just inches from Sherlock's shoes. He still didn't look up.

"Sherlock."

No.

"Sherlock, what are you doing here?"

A lance of pain through him at the words, those words, because John had said them to him already once. Yesterday. In their… in John's… flat.
The tone of the words was different this time, gentler somehow, but no less accusing despite it.

John was waiting for an answer, but Sherlock had had no time to come up with one. Instead, he lifted his head and met John's eyes, seeing in them cold flint, cold steel, cold judgment – but then the glare broke, just for a moment, and he saw something else behind it.
Sherlock's face was tear-stained, showing weakness, he hated it, but this was more important.

"I didn't know whom to call. I tried Lestrade, but he didn't answer. I didn't know anyone else."
"What do you mean, 'whom to call?' Call about what?"
"To look after you if I went away. You wanted me to go, but someone had to stay, to make sure you were all right. And there wasn't anyone, so it had to be me."
John stared down at him. Was he waiting for more? What hadn't Sherlock said?
"Why did someone have to stay?"
It was a legitimate question, Sherlock realized. John was not severely injured, and he was in hospital, surrounded by medical professionals. Clara was keeping an eye on him. Why did anyone have to stay?

"For me."
John took a deep breath, then exhaled slowly, rubbing his forehead with one hand. "What does that even mean?"
"I had to know…"
"Know what? That I was 'all right?' Of course I'm not 'all right,' Sherlock. You disappeared for three years. I thought you were dead. As soon as I'd finally started to think about maybe one day having a chance of getting over it, you came back! You left me alone for three years, you never checked if I was 'all right' then! Why the sudden interest?"

Sherlock was stunned, stunned, and the burning behind his eyes threatened more weakness. No, he couldn't.

"I checked every day."

A sudden silence that rang louder than John's shouting, quieter than Sherlock's faltering whisper.

"You…"
"Did you think that Moriarty was the only one watching you? Did you think Mycroft visited every week out of the goodness of his heart?" His eyes stung. "John, did you really think…" but he couldn't say those things, couldn't even give voice to the terrible ideas that John must have believed of him, because now he understood the anger. John thought he had left.

He had left.

But he had thought John knew he would come back. He always came back.

Sherlock dropped his head back to the sleeve of his coat, glad of the chance to hide his traitorous eyes.

"Sherlock…"
"You weren't safe unless I was gone," he started, raising his head again, his words crashing into one another as he tried to explain all at once, before John was angry again. "Moriarty's men… he's dead, John, did you hear? He fell… and they were loyal, and if I was alive, you were in danger, I told you…"
"Sherlock." But it was different now, John's voice. The gentleness was not tinged with accusation. "I'm always in danger when you're around."
He had no words to respond to that. "They're dead now."
"Moriarty's men?"
A nod. "So I came back."
"That's what you were doing."
"I told you yesterday."
"Well, I wasn't exactly paying my best attention yesterday. And I was hit by a car right afterward."
"Why were you following me?"
"Why do you think, you great git? To stop you from leaving. Why didn't you take me with you, hunting Moriarty's men? I'm a better shot than you, you know."
He was. It would have been logical to take him.

I'll burn the heart out of you.

"It was too dangerous."
"That's never bothered you before."
"I couldn't keep you safe."
"You didn't exactly have a perfect record of that before you left, either."
"I needed you out of harm's way so I could focus on the job that needed to be done."
"I'm a distraction."
"Putting you at risk is a distraction."

John was silent for a moment.

"Do you have any idea what it was like?"
"Yes."
"Thinking you were gone, thinking that was the end of it all? That the world would never see another person like you? Do you have any idea how much I hated opening the refrigerator every night and finding only food in there?"
"I could have made a delivery arrangement with a butcher."
"Sherlock…"

Sherlock met his gaze for the first time in long minutes.

"Or I… I could put some fingers in there myself? I have an idea for an experiment, destroying fingerprints…"
"You'd better not. Mrs. Hudson's tiramisu is in there right now; she'd have an absolute fit."

John knelt beside him. "Come on."

"John, are… are we okay?"
"Maybe once I'm out of this godawful place. Have you seen what they're serving us?"

And Sherlock rested his head against the wall behind him in utter relief. He knew it would not be this easy, that John would have questions and that the answers would not always make him happy. But just for now, just for the moment, John was letting him back in, and that was all that mattered.

"John?"
"Mmm?"
"… I missed you."