"Detective Inspector Lestrade."

Lestrade jerks from a light doze to find a man in front of him. Tall, just on the wrong side of overweight, middle-aged, dark expensive suit. Cold, sharp eyes. Not a doctor. Lestrade has never seen him before, but there's something vaguely familiar about those eyes.

Of course. "Brother?" Lestrade says.

The man lifts his eyebrows fractionally, as though impressed by a performing dog or an unexpectedly bright child. He gives Lestrade a slight nod and continues along the hall. There are several men with him, one of whom Lestrade recognises as the medical director.

So. Time to go home? Lestrade checks his watch. 04:23. He peers down the hall.

A woman standing by the other side of the corridor says, "Mr Holmes passes his regards." Lestrade looks at her, eyes narrowed. She's using some kind of PDA, and hasn't bothered to look up. "Sherlock Holmes' condition has stabilised."

"Has it," Lestrade says. "And who is Mr Holmes, exactly?"

She looks up and smiles, bright and unrevealing. Her act is carefully judged, Lestrade thinks. He imagines a Sherlock who functions well enough to pretend to integrate, imagines what he could do, and is disinclined to question further. He's not entirely unfamiliar with the shadowy world of Special Forces and MI6 and the faceless realms behind them, but the more distance the better.

He picks up his jacket and goes to get a taxi.

He visits the hospital a day later. Sherlock has a private room (courtesy of the enigmatic brother, presumably) with large laced windows and a wall-set television. Lestrade taps on the door, which is ajar, and enters. He hasn't brought anything, because he didn't know what to bring.

Sherlock is sitting in the bed. He doesn't look at Lestrade as he enters. His gaze is on the ceiling, that intense stare that repels all contact.

"Sherlock," Lestrade says in greeting anyway, remaining standing.

No response. A nurse comes in with a bundle of white linen, fixes Sherlock with a glare, places it on the cabinet under the television and leaves. Lestrade watches in bemusement and not a little amount of sympathy. Clearly the medical staff have been subjected to an unprovoked campaign of aggressive deduction.

He transfers his gaze back to Sherlock. He's looking – terrible, actually. Yellowish skin tone, bones sharp in his face, eyes bruised. Without the formality of coat and suit and scarf wrapping him off from the world he looks oddly exposed. The green pyjamas are too large. His right hand is fidgeting, rubbing on the bedsheet as though trouble by an itch, only persistent.

Lestrade experiences another twinge, an unpleasant one that sits low in his gut.

He sits gingerly on the chair by the bed. Casts around for something to discuss. "I met your brother, briefly. Works in government, does he?"

Sherlock's gaze lowers, but only to stare ahead. He wears a slight frown, unchanged. His hand rubs at the bedsheet, rubs and rubs. It's distracting.

Lestrade stands. "I'll come see you when you're discharged," he says. "We need to discuss a few things."

Sherlock, if he's listening, doesn't respond. Lestrade leaves.

It's a blustering day when he pulls out outside the block of flats, almost exactly in the same place he parked the other night. He gets out of the car. Looks up at the flats. Lights a cigarette, cupping his hand to block out the wind.

It's been three days since Sherlock was discharged. He's heard nothing from the man, though he didn't expect to.

He finishes his cigarette, grinds it under his boot. Heads up the outside staircase to Sherlock's flat.

Sherlock opens the door, looks narrowly at Lestrade and past him, then wordlessly turns and heads back down the hall, leaving the door open.

Lestrade sighs and enters.

Wonder of wonders, it looks like the sitting room has been tidied somewhat. Paper and books still litter every surface and most of the floor, but all traces of the other night have been eliminated.

Sherlock sits in the chair. He's dressed, dark suit immaculate. He looks a bit tired, but nowhere near as deathly as he did in hospital.

"How are you?" Lestrade asks.

Sherlock scowls. "Irrelevant."

Lestrade pushes his hands into the pockets of his jacket and looks around. There are clippings pinned all over the walls, papers and manuscripts and pages with torn edges. Mortification of the liver. Rate of decomposition of body parts in water. An article about pigeons in Hyde Park. He shakes his head.

"Is this a social call?" Sherlock says suddenly, with deep suspicion.

"No." Lestrade turns and regards him.

Sherlock's fingers are moving restlessly on the arm of the chair; he clasps his hands and gazes at Lestrade. "What do you have?"

"Nothing for you." Lestrade holds up a hand, cutting off the response he knows is coming. "Here's how it goes, Sherlock. The drugs are a liability. The make you unstable. As long as you're using, you don't work with me."

Sherlock stares at nothing. "Do you know the bees are vanishing?" he says.

"Sherlock," Lestrade says dangerously.

"Hive numbers are diminishing worldwide, a phenomenon not…"

"Sherlock."

Sherlock breathes out slowly. His eyes dart to Lestrade and away. They narrow. "You are being emotional and imprudent."

"I am not."

"This is unnecessary."

"It's not a debate."

"You don't understand." Lestrade lifts his eyebrows. Sherlock leans forward in the chair, eyes fixed on Lestrade. "My mind is superior. The needs of the body are easily overruled with mental discipline and a little concentration." He leans back. "There is no problem, Lestrade. I am in control."

An addict who says he's not an addict; what an unusual circumstance. Lestrade's heard it all before, knows the lines in and out and backwards. "Yeah? Tell me what happened here the other night, then."

Sherlock's eyes flicker. "An aberration," he says coldly, but he doesn't quite look at Lestrade.

Lestrade shakes his head. "No good," he says. "Come see me when you're clean."

Sherlock inhales through his nose, glaring at Lestrade. "I have other clients, you know. I'm the only consulting detective in existence. People come begging for my assistance. They seek me out from all over the world. I do not consult merely to shore up the pitiful inadequacies of incompetent police."

"Fine," Lestrade crosses his arms. "You'll hardly notice then, will you?"

Sherlock's eyes narrow further as he regards Lestrade. "You're not the only so-called detective in the Met."

"So?"

Sherlock's lips curve slightly, condescending. "There are plenty of others who would beg for the opportunity to take credit for my success."

Lestrade snorts at that. "Sherlock, if you find someone else willing to deal with you on a frequent basis, then by all means—" he opens his hands, "go right ahead."

Sherlock presses his fingers together, expressionless. "It is immaterial to me."

"Fine."

Sherlock sits forward abruptly, expression twisting. "You need me," he snarls. "What are you going to do the next time you're out of your depth? Are you going to let killers escape just to salve your pathetically ordinary little conscience?"

Lestrade crosses to him, lifts a finger, points it in Sherlock's face. He has to swallow his first instinct, his first words, instead telling him with tightly-reined control, "I am a Detective Inspector, Holmes. They don't give those away for nothing. I earned it because I'm good, and I'll solve cases whether you're there or not. Maybe not as fast as you, but I'll get the job done. Don't you worry."

Sherlock looks away. Lestrade straightens. "I'll have my warrant cards, thanks."

"What?" Sherlock feigns confusion.

"I'm not stupid, whatever you may think. You think I don't notice they go missing when you're around? Hand them over."

Sherlock gives him a dark look. He gets up with a flourish, vanishing into a room to the left. He returns with a stack of black envelopes and Lestrade carefully conceals his surprise at the number. Christ, he'll have to figure out how Sherlock does that. He can't just have his warrant cards wandering around the city being used for God-knows-what.

"Emotional, imprudent, irresponsible," Sherlock sneers as he's leaving.

"Clean yourself up, Sherlock."

Sherlock stares at him flatly. Lestade lets himself out.

The major cases over the next month are standard investigations: two homicides, several serious assaults, a batch of credit card fraud. He doesn't hear from Sherlock until the following month, when there's a double homicide. He does his texting trick at the press conference, and Donovan, running the thing, looks like she's going to explode. Lestrade ignores the text on his phone.

They manage to close it without Sherlock's help.

It's another month before he sees Sherlock. Following up on a murder investigation, he calls around to the victim's address and finds Sherlock in the landlady's sitting room drinking her tea. Calm as you like, looking pale and tired and half-starved, dressed in customary coat and scarf.

"Mr Dobbs here is Walter's nephew," the landlady says to Lestrade, stopped in surprise in the doorway. "He's just been looking through his room."

"Thank you for the chance," Sherlock says waveringly. "It's been such a terrible shock. I wish we'd talked, before…" He swallows. The landlady tuts and pats his hand. He's doing the thing where he plays at being human, and as always it's downright disturbing. Sherlock doesn't just affect roles; he absorbs them, voice and mannerism and expression, like flipping a switch and swapping out a soul. He would have been a fantastic operative for covert work, in another life.

"Tea, Inspector?" The landlady smiles at him.

"No, thank you." Lestrade's gaze hasn't left Sherlock. "Might I have a word?"

"Oh, with me? Inspector, was it? – oh. All right." Sherlock puts down his tea and offers a limp smile to the landlady.

Lestrade holds the door open and jerks his head. Sherlock steps outside. The stooped shoulders and blinking harmlessness slide off like an invisible sheet as he does so, leaving him straight-backed and supercilious as he turns to stare at Lestrade. His eyes are red-rimmed.

Lestrade says, "Are you clean?"

"Clearly you require my assistance with this investigation. It's well above your capabilities." Sherlock casts a desultory eye around the garden. "And that's merely taking the murder into consideration."

Merely the murder? "Answer the question."

Sherlock tilts his head as though fascinated by the unlit streetlight, then his gaze flicks down, running compulsively over the edge of the path before lifting again, staring ahead into the distance. "There have been unanticipated exigencies."

Mostly to piss him off, Lestrade says, "You what?"

Sherlock glares. "Complications."

Meaning, more an addict than not. Lestrade pushes his hands into the pockets of his coat, rocks back on his heels. The garden is small, neatly tended, short grass trimmed from the edges. It's going to rain soon. "Clean is clean," he says.

Sherlock gives him a sidelong look of loathing.

Lestrade ignores it. "Hand over what you have, Sherlock. Then you're done here."

Sherlock smiles, sharp and cold. He takes a pair of gloves from his pocket and pulls them on calmly. Lestrade narrows his eyes, but before he can speak, the landlady comes out.

"Mr Dobbs, I've found that album I was telling you about. Oh, Walter loved it. We used to sit and have tea and listen. I thought you might like to have it as a memento, seeing as you didn't… talk…" She trails off, dogeared handwritten CD sleeve hanging in her hand, staring at Sherlock's face.

He curls a lip. "Execrable," he says, and stalks away.

Her gaze slips to Lestrade, her expression dumbstruck. Drawing deeply on his reserves of patience or calm or something, he smiles and guides her inside.

Donovan's at her desk when he gets back to the Yard, typing away with the slight frown she gets whenever forced to grapple reports. "With me," Lestrade says as he passes.

"We have something?"

"Drug raid."

"Ah," he can hear her trying to work it out as she catches up to him. "Related to the Farshaw case? Did we get a tip-off?"

"Not exactly. The opposite, as a matter of fact."

"What?"

He taps the files he's holding against his palm and smiles at her exasperated look. "Oh, I think you'll like this one."

"I think we should be looking out the back for where the bodies are buried," she says in the car on the way over. "I mean, really."

"Steady," he warns. "I want to play this carefully."

She rolls her eyes, but lifts her hands in acquiescence. "D'you think we'll actually find anything?"

"Don't know," Lestrade says. "Just so long as he thinks we might."

"Do you want to find anything?"

He glances over. Her tone is within the bounds, but there's a hint of challenge underneath, a hint of genuine inquisitiveness. She's a good officer, and she's committed to her job. He's wondered before if the violence of her dislike for Sherlock lies with her conviction in the police, in her sense that every success of his is an assault against Lestrade's competence and the integrity of the force.

You're the best copper I've met, she told him once. Thrown at him, actually. They were both exhausted at the end of an investigation where Sherlock had run rings around them again, and he didn't think she'd meant to be so forthright. You don't need him. Why let him make a mockery of you? Of us all?

She didn't get it. Whether he was good was irrelevant, as was how good. Because he wasn't Sherlock Holmes. None of them were. No one was, because there wasn't anyone else like the man in the world. Damn him.

Lestrade watches the road. "I want to do my job, Sergeant," he says. "The best way I can."

She scowls and looks away.

The flat is empty. He checks his watch, nods at his people. The light comes on when he flips the switch, spilling artificial illumination into the gloom.

"This place is a tip," Donovan says.

"Mm," Lestrade agrees. He checks his watch again. Donovan lifts an eyebrow, which he ignores. "Someone check that table by the chair."

Nothing illegal there. He didn't think there would be, really. He suspects that such an obvious place is a last refuge only in times of chemical desperation. He wanders to the window, where dusty gauze filters out the dreary London afternoon. He watches a dark figure walk rapidly across the path, head down. The figure turns and walks backwards as it passes the police vehicles. Lestrade smiles grimly to himself and steps away from the window.

"Forget looking out the back," Donovan mutters. "Bodies could be in here."

Lestrade crosses to the table by the chair. Pushing aside what looks like a page of chemical analysis with gloved fingers, he checks the paperwork below. An old newspaper with a headline about Blair's WMD and a byline about a trade deal in China. A note scribbled in what looks like some form of hieroglyphic. A monograph on pollination in Wessex.

The door to the flat slams open. Sherlock strides in, all angry drama, eyes narrow and expression cold. His gaze runs over the officers who haven't broken off their slow, careful search, travels the chaotic edges of the room, comes to rest on Lestrade. "What," Sherlock demands, his tone tight, "is this?"

"Drug raid," Lestrade says.

Sherlock gives him a look of contempt.

Lestrade tilts his head, shrugs. "We have reason to suspect the presence of Class A controlled substances on the premises."

"You—" There's a clatter from the bedroom. Sherlock turns, then swings back to glare at Lestrade. "You can't do this."

"Oh, you'll find I can."

Another clatter. Sherlock looks agitated.

"Are these bees?" Donovan's emerges from the kitchen, holding a Tupperware dish in her gloved hands. "Dead bees?"

"I'm working on a theory," Sherlock says tersely.

"A theory involving bees. Kept in your fridge."

"I need to simulate a steady temperature to monitor leakage from the aculeus. It may restore the inheritance of a count in Bulgaria." He strides across and snatches the container out of her hands. "An experiment which you are disturbing."

She glares. "Liar."

He maintains eye contact with her until she looks away. "How is your sister?" he says. "Due soon, I think. Her husband will have left her by then, of course." He turns away with his container of bees. "Do not disturb that," he barks at Williams, who is picking up the skull on the mantle.

Donovan looks close to exploding again; Lestrade catches her eye. She controls herself with visible effort, spitting "Freak," at Sherlock's back.

He doesn't seem to notice. "This is a farce," he says to Lestrade. "Control them."

"They're police officers, not dogs," Lestrade says, annoyed for a second before he marshals himself. It's a mistake to lose control around Sherlock, however much his treatment of Lestrade's officers rankles. "And it is certainly not a farce."

"You won't find anything," Sherlock says.

"Won't we?" Lestrade says. "Then you have nothing to worry about."

Sherlock doesn't move.

Lestrade steps closer. Sherlock remains unmoving, but Lestrade can see the tension in how he's holding himself, like he's barely restraining himself from pulling away. Interesting. "We find something, on the other hand," Lestrade says, "well, then I would have to arrest you. Take you down to the station. Put you in a cell. It's Saturday afternoon. Cells will be full. Might be a wait. Drunks and partygoers, Saturday night. Always a busy time. Lots of delays. Could be hours and hours. Then, depending on quantity, we do you for possession or intent to supply. But you know how it works, right, Sherlock? Been there before."

There's a slight flicker in Sherlock's gaze.

"Or," Lestrade says, "you could give me what you have on the Farshaw case."

Sherlock glares at him. He's silent for a long time, as something clatters in the next room. Williams has put the skull down and is checking the underside of the mantle. "He was a member of a counterfeiting group," Sherlock says abruptly. "The Red Hand. Check the scars on his left hand. There will be a panel in the back right side of his wardrobe. He was planning on leaving, taking his share of the profit. Had evidence accumulated as surety. It was what killed him."

"All right," says Lestrade. Counterfeiting? He'd been way off. "That's better."

"The Red Hand has ties all over Europe," Sherlock says. "Handle it with something close to competence and you could bring down several smuggling organisations and three gunrunning groups. Call off your dogs."

Lestrade shakes his head, but turns and addresses his officers. "All right, people. We're done here."

As Sherlock goes to turn away, Lestrade says, "What would you have done with it?"

"I would have given it to you eventually. I wanted to see how long it took you on your own." Sherlock looks at him with narrowed eyes, and then smiles a thin smile of satisfaction at whatever he sees in Lestrade's face.

Lestrade exhales.

"Next time, freak," Donovan says as she passes Sherlock on the way out. "If we don't see you sooner. Try not to dismember anybody to see how the parts work in the meantime, okay?"

He narrows his eyes but she's already gone.

Lestrade's the last to leave. He says, "Stay away until you have authority, Sherlock. Next time I don't stop until I find something."

Sherlock's answer is to slam the door in his face.

Lestrade thinks he's made his point.

Sherlock shows up at his office five weeks later.

"I'm clean," he says. "Let me in on the Doherty scam."

Lestrade nods at the PC who has shown Sherlock up and she leaves. Only then does he narrow his eyes at Sherlock.

The man looks healthier than he has as long as Lestrade has known him, which is a point in his favour. Is he telling the truth? Maybe. Being off the drugs for five weeks certainly isn't clean, but Lestrade never really expected he'd kick the habit completely. But if he knows the man – which he privately thinks he doesn't, he really, really doesn't, but it's probably closer than anyone has come for a long time – then the shock of the overdose and the insult of having a visible, exploitable weakness is enough to ensure that his use will never again run to excess.

It's not good enough, but what can he do? At least he doesn't have a junkie's fingerprints all over his case files.

"How clean is clean?" Lestrade asks.

"That," Sherlock says, "is an inexcusably facile question, even for you."

Lestrade smiles and waits.

"It's clean enough," Sherlock says. "I'm clean."

Does he hear an edge of something, there in that assertion? Is Sherlock as invested in having him believe it as he is in wanting to think it's true?

"All right," Lestrade says. "I don't want to see otherwise. Doesn't look good for police consultants."

"Yes, yes," Sherlock says. "Doherty. Give me the data."

"Why do you care? Doherty's just a domestic."

Sherlock smiles, and Lestrade recognises with a familiar mixture of relief and resignation the glittering exhilaration lurking at the back of his eyes. Sherlock casts himself into the chair before Lestrade's desk, extending his legs.

"That's what you think," he says smugly.

Lestrade sighs and wipes the afternoon's meetings out of his calendar.

Things fall back to normal, or as close to normal as anything ever is around Sherlock. There are stretches where Lestrade can't find him anywhere and there's no answer to his knock on the door of the flat. When he cracks the door it doesn't look like there's been anyone inside for weeks. He shrugs and turns to his own devices and Sherlock shows up months later as though no time has passed at all, probably fresh from securing an execution in America or locating a missing person in Australia or a government contact in Tibet or doing God knows what somewhere else.

Lestrade keeps a vague tab on information concerning Sherlock's activities, if only to be forewarned. Scraps tend to show up in strange places: a contact he has down at the wharves, an itinerant who lets slip that Sherlock is well known on the streets, the commissioner's assistant. He knows that Sherlock knows he's aware of the contacts, knows that probably means they're unimportant or expendable. Still, they're better than nothing. For a man of such devotedly isolated and isolating habits, Sherlock seems to be everywhere, connected to London through invisible threads running under the grime of the streets and in the fog of the evening. As if he's as much a creature of the city as it – Lestrade suspects, only in his more paranoid moments – is entwined around him.

Too much exposure to Sherlock does his head in, Lestrade thinks. Sherlock doesn't function on that level. They'd all be very severely screwed if he did.

(Lestrade does wonder about that mysterious brother, from time to time.)

There's his website as well, which seems to alternate between long periods of indifferent idleness and furious scathing activity. Sometimes it's useful. More often not, but Lestrade will use whatever he can get. He skims the case files and instructional guff and mostly avoids the forum, because he can get Sherlock being a condescending prick firsthand.

Sherlock moves. Montague Street now. Lestrade asks why and Sherlock replies something about a hole in the wall. "Accident?" Lestrade enquires.

This gets him a stare. "Of course not." Sherlock goes back to examining a patch of mud he's found on their corpse's sleeve. "The experiment was entirely successful."

Lestrade squints at the dismal playground in the distance and decides not to ask.

He gathers Montague Street isn't working out when he goes around some times later on a thorny identity problem. The man who answers the door looks he's swallowed something unpleasant at the sight of Lestrade. "You'll be for the nutter upstairs," he informs Lestrade.

"Probably," Lestrade agrees.

The man – landlord? – jerks a thumb upwards with a mutter that sounds like tell him to pay the damage. Lestrade finds a red-eyed Sherlock who seems to be sitting in a darkened flat, and manages to wheedle enough to get him to come along. For once, Sherlock doesn't insist on taking a separate taxi.

"Problem with the flat?" Lestrade asks.

"What?" Sherlock looks at him blankly.

"Landlord troubles?" Lestrade says, patiently.

"Utterly tedious," Sherlock dismisses, staring through the window at London passing.

Sherlock solves the case in an afternoon (it involves an illegitimate brother and a grandfather's inheritance). Heseems to be in a worse mood than usual, testily labelled it as excruciatingly boring and refusing Lestrade's offer of a car home. He wraps his scarf tighter as he strides out.

Lestrade shakes his head and turns his attention to the case paperwork.

Then, suddenly, there's John Watson. Lestrade doesn't understand John Watson; can't make hide nor heel of his existence. It doesn't make sense. Sherlock doesn't do people. People, to him, are walking clusters of data waiting to be analysed and compartmentalised. Interesting for the results, perhaps, and occasionally a useful tool; otherwise of no real value. This, Lestrade is certain of.

He would have bet his warrant card that Sherlock Holmes would never willingly associate himself with another human being on a regular basis. It's a given.

And yet. There's John Watson. Improbable, inexplicable, calmly unflappable.

Lestrade doesn't pay him much heed the first time beyond annoyance at his presence. He's has tolerated a lot of eccentricities from Sherlock over the years, to the point that he barely blinks at being told to breathe with more regularity or less wetly or stand absolutely still, no, still. But bringing a tagalong to view a recently deceased corpse surpasses even Sherlock's usual standard.

"Who is this?" Lestrade demands, to little effect. The unknown man is pulling on crime scene gear, while Sherlock waits with little patience. He never wears regulation gear himself, of course: like housekeeping and politeness, it's for other people. The great unwashed masses, Lestrade can only imagine.

The unidentified man doesn't say much; he's reserved, but there's enough uncertainty about him that Lestrade suspects he's as unsure of why he's there as Lestrade is. Sherlock says he's with me, as though that means anything at all.

He'd been at the flat when Lestrade had gone around, hadn't he? Could be a client Sherlock doesn't want to lose. Or an experiment. Or just proving a point.

Lestrade's bending enough protocols allowing Sherlock to be there it hardly seems worth protesting another unauthorised person. And – unfortunately – he can't afford to lose Sherlock's assistance on this one.

Who's heard of serial suicides, anyway? Copycat, yeah, except for the fact that they've been very careful about withholding the details and yet all four have been identical. And now he's got the Daily Mail clamouring about serial killers one day and murder-suicide cults the next and the DCI's breathing down his neck for a result.

The man with Sherlock doesn't react with any evident shock to the body. He's more uncomfortable with Sherlock's usual game of casual insults, if Lestrade is any judge. Sherlock calls him Doctor Watson, which explains the lack of response.

The interloper spends most of his time staring at Sherlock, who's in fine dramatic form today. Lestrade's forgotten, maybe a little, just how remarkable Sherlock's feats are. Easy to take them for granted after a while. Easy to start to expect them, even. Demand them. What have you got for me, Sherlock? What else? And? Lucky thing Sherlock always delivers.

Sherlock doesn't preen under the admiration as much as Lestrade might have (would have) expected, and thank God for that; he seems surprised, oddly enough, maybe even slightly unsure how to take it. Maybe it is weird for him. Watson seems entirely genuine, whereas Sherlock would be used to – what? Most people react like Anderson, resentment and aversion coating something close to fear. The rest are after something, Lestrade not excluded.

Sherlock latches onto the missing suitcase, rushes out as they follow, does his thing on the stairs, everyone stopping, staring, as attention bends around him. Lestrade's gripping the banister because he'd like to grab Sherlock's coat and shake a straight answer out of him, but Sherlock's down a few levels, all flying gestures, flying words, his head somewhere else. Then he's gone and reality flows back, the world the rest of them have no choice but to inhabit, a place of paperwork and slow, methodical analysis where things are fragmentary and the unknown is an everyday part of life.

Sherlock's gone to find the luggage, of course. Lestrade will give him time.

He forgets about Watson completely until an hour later, downstairs, when Donovan makes passing reference to Sherlock's 'colleague'. "Seemed a bit put out to be left behind," she says. "Who the hell was he, anyway?"

"Search me," Lestrade says.

"Psychopaths do that," Anderson says knowingly. "They draw others with unbalanced tendencies. It's a fascination. Can be very charming on a superficial level, you know. They know how to manipulate even if they don't feel emotion."

Lestrade passes a hand over his face. "Doesn't sound like Sherlock, then," he says. "The man's about the furthest from charming I've ever seen. Come on, let's get this scene done. I want to be finished before ten."

"What for?" Donavan asks.

"Oh, you'll see."

It's been a while since that last drugs raid. But then, Sherlock hasn't been screwing him around lately. Time to remind him who runs the case.

Watson, it turns out, is the flatmate. Poor sod.

He's there behind Sherlock as Sherlock storms in, probably warned by the woman who's been floating in and out worriedly. Watson seems bemused with the fact they're raiding for drugs, which is… well, interesting. Lestrade keeps his gaze on Sherlock, who is as close to visibly agitated as Lestrade's seen him in a long time.

Clean is clean, except when it's not entirely clean. Lestrade doesn't know, but he suspects.

The luggage was there, of course. He warns Sherlock about playing by his rules, again. And he tells everyone to shut up when Sherlock abruptly goes still, because he knows that look, knows when it's Sherlock saying shut up to be a patronizing bastard and knows when it's Sherlock genuinely clawing after space and silence because it's all overflowing in his head.

But all he gets in reward is Sherlock vanishing. Again.

"He just drove off in a cab," Watson says, turning from the window. He looks at Lestrade, as though he's somehow got answers for Sherlock bloody Holmes.

And why would he just skip out like that? Because of his complete disregard for Lestrade, that's why. Lestrade's trying not to be frustrated, not to be disappointed – God, he should know better by now – but it's there. Damn the man.

Donovan's furious, has been all night. Lestrade's not sure what Sherlock's done this time, but he suspects it has something to do with the way she and Anderson are so fastidiously avoiding one another's gaze. He prefers not to know, but he'll hear before long anyway. Lestrade calls off the raid.

Watson's still trying, muttering about the mobile. There's something about him Lestrade can't quite pinpoint, something that's out of place. Something about his manner doesn't fit.

Lestrade's the last one out. "Why did he do that?" he asks, on a whim, addressing Watson, standing on his own in the empty sitting room as they all leave.

Watson has no answer, of course. Lestrade isn't sure why he thought he would. Maybe because in the half hour he's been here, he's seen Sherlock treat Watson with something closer to respect than anything he's witnessed in the years he's know him. Of course, Watson doesn't know that; Sherlock's respect looks not all that different to the average person's basic level of courtesy.

"Why do you put up with him?" Watson asks.

Why does he? Times like this, Lestrade wonders. But what choice does he have? There is, quite literally, no one like Sherlock in the world.

And there's little doubt he's fool for believing it, but he does think there's something worth the effort in Sherlock. Much as Sherlock himself would deny it.

He could be wrong.

Lestrade takes his people and heads back to the Yard.

He receives a text from Sherlock before they've reached the Yard. "He's screwing you around," Donovan says, annoyed. "Just ignore it."

"Call it in," Lestrade says wearily, looking for somewhere to turn. "Check for reports, see if anything's come in. It's not like we have anything else to go on."

"Gunshots in the vicinity," Donovan says after a few minutes. "Call to 999."

He flips his phone to her. "Text back, tell him we're on our way. Ask if he's injured."

She doesn't argue. After a few minutes, she says, "He says he's not, but the serial killer is dead. And – okay. How did he know it was me texting?"

"Did you call him freak?"

"No!"

"Dunno, then."

Sherlock's waiting when they pull up. "Who hunts in the middle of a crowd?" is how he greets Lestrade.

"You what?" Lestrade can't see any injuries. Sherlock has a strange energy about him, though, that sets off old alarm bells, but there's no blood, no evident trauma. Hard to see his eyes properly in the gloom. "Did he give you something?"

"No, no. Think. God, I was stupid. Should have seen it sooner. So obvious. Taxi drivers, Lestrade. This way."

Lestrade beckons to Donovan. She calls something to uniform, just pulling in behind them, and follows as Lestrade sets off after Sherlock.

"Well," Lestrade says, as he stares down at the body. "This is a new one." The taxi driver looks like somebody's grandfather, lying in a congealing dark pool.

"You say he had a fake gun?" Donovan asks.

"Convincing. Not convincing enough to fool me, of course." Sherlock kneels. "Pen." He holds up a hand, not looking up. Lestrade rolls his eyes and hands it over. Sherlock pushes back the cardigan to reveal what looks like a handgun.

Lestrade eyes something on the floor by the dead man's face. Pulling on the plastic gloves he'd grabbed from the glove compartment of his car, he kneels and picks up a white capsule. "This is one of them, then," he says.

Sherlock's gaze seems to be caught by the pill for a moment, held there, entranced. Then he blinks and looks at Lestrade. "Yes."

Lestrade eyes his face. "You think you chose the right one?"

Sherlock looks away. "I was buying time," he says. "Obviously."

"Clearly." Lestrade drops the pill in an evidence bag. "Well, we'll soon find out."

"And someone just – shot him?" Donovan's over at the window. "You really didn't see who it was?"

"I was somewhat occupied at the time," Sherlock says irritably.

"So he used this fake gun on you, then," Lestrade says."Yeah?"

"He tried," Sherlock says.

"Back at the flat?" Lestrade is watching him closely.

Sherlock's gaze flicks along the dead man's form, over the shape of a footprint in blood by his shoulder. "No."

Lestrade leans forward. "So why'd you go with him?"

Sherlock says nothing. "Did he trick you?" Lestrade asks. "Dupe you somehow? Hoodwink you into getting into the taxi?"

"Don't be absurd."

"You mean you went willingly. You figured it out – hunts in a crowd, all that – taxi driver, right – then he shows up, literally walks to your door, and you go with him."

Sherlock is examining his fingers, which have spots of blood on them. "Correct."

"I was right there," Lestrade grits through his teeth.

He receives a cold stare from Sherlock. "He would neverhave revealed how he did it. Not under any amount of questioning. He had nothing to lose."

Lestrade closes his eyes briefly. "And that's the most important thing, of course."

Sherlock's answering look is wary and vaguely puzzled, like he doesn't understand. God help them all, maybe he really doesn't.

"He really had your number, didn't he?" Lestrade says. "Lined you right up, one two three. Didn't have to use his gun on you, Sherlock."

Sherlock's expressionless. He knows it's true, though. He must do.

"You really are a lunatic," Donovan says from over by the window. "Aren't you? This guy's right up your alley."

Lestrade grimaces and stands. Sherlock says to Donovan, without looking at her, "Oh, go and find Anderson, why don't you. You can discuss asinine theories of psychological profiling, if you can't find something else to do."

Donovan narrows her eyes. Lestrade clears his throat, and she crosses her arms and looks at him – cool, controlled, belied only by an angry jerk of her chin. "Okay if I coordinate below?"

"Yeah, good."

She strides out, shoulders set, fists clenched. "Come on," Lestrade says to Sherlock. "There's an ambulance on the way."

"I don't think so."

"My scene, Sherlock. You go nowhere until they've looked you over."

Sherlock submits, very grudgingly, and the paramedics declare him physically fit, though they're concerned about some indications of shock. Sherlock seems fine to him; Lestrade suspects adrenaline, but Sherlock's so hard to read he's not ready to dismiss the shock thing entirely. He was standing less than a metre from a man who was shot through the heart.

Lestrade's paying attention as Sherlock starts to list the qualities of the shooter, but Sherlock abruptly cuts himself off. Lestrade follows his gaze, but there's only the police vehicles at the edge of the cordon, some PCs, the usual onlookers. Oh, and John Watson. When did he turn up?

"Forget that," Sherlock says. He seems a bit distracted, which isn't like him. Maybe the shock thing wasn't so far off base.

Lestrade lets him go, watching as he wanders over and joins Watson. Sherlock tosses the blanket at a police car – someone else's job to pick up after him, of course – and they walk off.

"That's just strange," Donovan says as she joins him after passing them, further along the cordon. "They were, like, laughing. I've never seen him do that."

Lestrade watches as Sherlock and Watson stop to speak to a man and woman just past the cordon. Even at distance, the man is familiar, even though Lestrade only glimpsed him the once, and he was much heavier at the time. Gunshots, he thinks, and Sherlock's name; yes, it's the brother. Come to check.

"Do you think he actually enjoys his company?" Donovan says.

"Mm," Lestrade murmurs, not paying attention. He's just realised, watching them at a distance, in profile, what it is that he couldn't place about Watson. The missing thing that was niggling at him. It's the way the man moves. He's a shade away from a loose sort of parade rest as he's standing now.

Military doctor.

"Huh," Lestrade says under his breath. Strong moral code, Sherlock said. Nerves of steel. It all slots into place. No chance whatsoever he can do anything with it. Watson would know to cover his tracks, and even if he didn't, Sherlock would make sure it was done. Doubtful there'd be a conviction.

He watches as they diminish, Watson walking without a limp, Sherlock more relaxed than Lestrade has seen him for a long time. They turn off between some parked vehicles, swallowed into the gloom of the footpath.

He isn't sure whether he should be relieved or very, very worried.

Shaking his head, Lestrade turns back to his scene. "All right," he says to Donovan. "Let's get this cleaned up. We'll need to schedule the press as soon as possible. I want the Mail off my back, and the DCI will be after a clean close…"

Donovan leaves to check up on forensics. Lestrade regards the scene. There'll be mountains of paperwork. Evidence to gather, bag, label. It'll be a long night.

There's another killer off the streets. Four victims with a little bit of justice, however much of a comfort that is to them now. He'll be joining the last of them down there in the morgue, the grandfatherly killer Sherlock says was murdering them for sport, for money.

It's a good conclusion. As good as they ever get.

Lestrade goes back to work.

(end)