"Don't look now, but we've got a weird one," Olive Snook sings out of the corner of her mouth as she enters the kitchen. She keeps glancing back to the tables just surreptitiously enough to be completely conspicuous, but Chuck is elbow-deep in flour and sugar and busily filling a batch of cup-pies, and so doesn't notice. Doesn't even look up.

"Weird, huh? Why, what's his order? You did tell him it would be a wait of . . . seven minutes more for the rhubarb to be ready, right?"

"That's the thing," Olive says with relish. "He didn't order anything. Or, well, he did, but not a pie."

"Huh?" Chuck straightens up from the counter with a quizzical look. "Then what did he say?"

"His exact words? 'I'm not here for the pies. I've come for the piemaker.'"

Chuck's hands on the filling bowl she's holding slip abruptly, spilling dregs of cherry filling all over the counter. Olive nods slowly.

"Yep. I was thinking just the same thing."

When Ned comes out to meet the stranger he's bemused and nervous. People asking for him personally and not his pies has in the past tended to not mean good things, and while he wouldn't consider himself a pessimist, he couldn't really call himself an optimist either.

It isn't hard to identify the stranger. He's the only patron in the whole dining room, an empty black shape hunched forward on its elbows at one of the window booths, softened and blurred by the white blaze of light through the slatted window-blinds. As Ned gets closer he can see the man's square hands slowly clenching and unclenching on the tabletop.

"Hi," he says as he reaches the table, trying to act as casual as though he hadn't been accosted by two frantic women as soon as he walked through the back kitchen door a minute previously and been told a conglomerate, confused story about some strange foreign man waiting for him with a purpose unknown but probably nefarious. "Sorry about the wait but I was outside, walking my dog. Business was slow this morning and I've been needing some time out of the kitchen, so . . ."

He trails off when he realizes that the man at the booth is not so much listening to him attentively as he is waiting for him to shut up.

Olive was right; when the man does speak his words are strongly accented. He doesn't bother with pleasantries.

"You're Ned? The piemaker?"

"Erm-yes, that's me. I make the . . . yes. Look, is there anything I can help you with?"

"I hope so. I've come a long way." The man looks exhausted, his voice for the barest moment shivering and failing, the fibres of a thread frayed beyond bearing and wrenching apart. But he swallows and looks up, hollow-eyed and hollow-cheeked, and his jaw is set so hard a tiny, flickering muscle pulses in the side of his neck.

"I'm told that you . . . with a single touch of your hand . . . you can bring the dead back to life."

If Ned was expecting anything it wasn't that. He staggers backwards a pace before he can catch himself, wondering if Olive was watching, if the sudden blaze of panic choking him was palpable enough to be felt where she was skulking in the kitchen and if she would have the sense to warn Chuck that-oh, no, Chuck-

"That's . . . insane," he manages at last, weakly, and with a shiver of high-pitched nerves that somehow manifests as laughter he drops into the seat opposite the stranger. The man regards him steadily, showing nothing-no disappointment, no anger, no suspicion-except the brief, self-flagellating twist of a bitter, bitter smile.

"I know. But I can't help it, I can't help but keep hoping for a miracle."

"Who told you I could, uh, raise the dead?"

"Does it matter?"

"Well, if someone's out there spreading stories about me I'd like to-"

"Oh, you don't need to worry about that. He isn't the type to share stories. Generally." His gaze darkens. "In fact," he adds with a steely glint sparking in his eye and a barest twitch of his lips and a minute straightening of his shoulders that seems to offer a momentary glimpse of quite another man, 'the only reason why he even told me was because I pulled a gun on him and he decided he'd rather spill what he knew than have me carted away and anonymously locked in a maximum-security prison somewhere. And besides," -This with a grimmer cast to his smile that is, in its way, just as terrible as the bitter-"He owed me."

"Did he?'

"Yes."

"And why were you so interested in getting information about me, anyway?"

"I was not interested in you specifically. I was just as I said looking for a miracle. And your name is what my dear friend came up with when pressed."

"And why exactly are you looking for this miracle of yours? . . . You-You aren't a detective by any chance, are you?' He asks with some trepidation, Emerson's face flashing briefly across his mind. The stranger stares a moment and then, he laughs.

It's a sharp, surprised laugh, so completely surprised that the pain takes a moment to catch up to it and Ned is treated, for just the barest moment, with the warm, breathless laughter of a man transformed. As he laughs he ducks his head slightly in an endearing, disbelieving sort of way and with the change in angle and that brief change that comes over his own self Ned realizes he knows this man's face from a photograph. And in the space between one heartbeat and the next, he knows who this man is.

"No," the man gasps at last, and he presses the pads of his fingers and thumb hard against his closed eyelids as though to push away a headache or fight back tears. "No, I'm here because I've a friend. And he . . . I mean, he's . . . gone. And I need him back. Please God I need him back." He lowers his hand and opens his eyes again and Ned isn't sure what he had been expecting exactly but they're completely dry. And he is suddenly struck not by how weak and worn this man is but how very, very strong.

"I have money,' the man offers, the hope and the fear naked in his voice.

Ned clears his throat and crosses his arms over his chest. He tilts his face slightly towards the kitchens, never taking his eyes from those of the man sitting in front of him.

"Olive," he calls. "That rhubarb should be ready to take out of the oven now. I'd like a slice, if you don't mind. A large slice.' He raises an eyebrow at the stranger. "Care for one too? My treat."

For a moment the man seems taken aback; for the next moment he seems ready to refuse. But then he clamps his mouth shut, and nods.

"Make it two, Olive,' Ned yells, and smiles hearing the immediate, simultaneous sounds of the oven door opening and the pie being drawn out and plates and forks clattering onto the countertop. So both girls are in there. And listening, too.

"I didn't know you at first," Ned says, slowly, his fork cutting through the pie crust and hitting the ceramic plate with a sharp clack. "You look different without the hat."

What little color there was in the man's face drains away, and the fork he had been using to listlessly prod at his food slips from his suddenly shaking fingers. When he speaks, however, his voice remains unchanged.

"Yes, well. I should have expected that. You read the blog, then?"

"And the papers. Or, well, actually Olive reads the tabloids and then talks about them each evening as we close up shop and mop the floors and wipe the tables and things. And for a few weeks she might have had a clipping of the newspaper photo of you two taped up on the kitchen wall-for 'a distraction', she said, but she refused to tell me what she needed distracting from-And that sounds much more creepy and suspicious now that I've said it out loud than it ever seemed to me before-But the point is, I both know who you are and I know why you're here. And I'm sorry, but I can't do it. What you want me to do. I can't."

"Well, I wasn't very hopeful, of course." The man has not picked up his fork again. He is not smiling. He is very, very serious. "But at the risk of sounding like even more of an idiot . . . is that 'can' not, or 'will' not?"

"Both," Ned answers, honestly. He lifts another bite of rhubarb to his mouth, chews slowly, and swallows. Then, with the tangy sweetness still tingling on his tongue, he continues.

"The way this . . . power, this gift would work, is that there has to be an exchange. A life for a life. If one person were to come back to life, another would have to die, to balance the scales. Theoretically."

The man says nothing, just looks at him. He swallows.

"And from what I know about you, you're not the sort of man who would make that bargain."

"Depends. If I could choose, if I could know that it'd be Donovan or Anderson taking the fall for him, well then . . ." That's what he says, but Ned can see the hard grief in his eyes and knows. He'd not do it, even then. Maybe especially not then.

"I would give my own life to save him," is what he says, quietly. And Ned can't keep from glancing towards the seemingly empty kitchen, to the place at the wall behind which he knows, as sure as he knows where the beating of his heart resides, Chuck is hiding.

"I know you would," he says in reply. "But he would not thank you for that, would he. To come back only to find you gone. Would you demand that of him? Would you demand that of me?'

The stranger is silent a long, long time. Ned feels that if he only leaned close enough he could see the man's thoughts flashing across the irises of his eyes, like pictures rewound upon a screen. Joy and grief. Anger and pain. Love and hate and love again.

"Collateral damage," is what he gasps at last, harsh and through clenched teeth. He presses his fingers to his eyes again, and manages to strangle down a convulsive sob. "Lives at stake, right. Right." He opens his eyes. "Sorry."

Slowly, he slides out of the booth and stands up, arms stiff at his sides, jaw jutting forward. He stands like a soldier, very straight and very steady. He starts to walk towards the door. He stops.

"I have to ask you," he says abruptly, turning back to the table. Ned, still seated, looks up at him, waiting. It strikes him how very rare it is that he has to look up when speaking to anyone.

"If you had the choice. What would you do."

Memories rise up like smoke: Chuck in a coffin, Chuck in a grave, Chuck in his car, Chuck in his bed . . . the wrenching, helpless loneliness when you realize that you are going to be alone forever, and the guilty, terrifying joy when you make the worst mistake of your life.

"I would make a mistake. I would be weak."

The man nods bluntly.

"That's what I thought. But you would live with it? I mean, you'd be happy."

"Yes," he answers honestly. "But that doesn't stop it being a mistake. And it doesn't change what I did."

"No," he says, very quietly. "No, it wouldn't." And he turns and walks out of the doors.

Only once he is gone does Ned turn back to the table and see the slice of pie still untouched upon the man's plate. He hesitates only an instant before scrambling to his feet and pelting to the counter where the single-slice take-out boxes are stacked, snatching one out and racing back to the table. It is the practiced work of only a few seconds to pop the box into shape and slide the slice of pie, plate, fork, and all, into it. After hastily securing the lid he holds the box securely and carefully to his chest and pelts out the front doors, scanning the street up and down.

He catches sight of a bright yellow taxi cab parked at the side of the road further up the sidewalk, and a small, erect figure pulling open the passenger door. He breaks into a run.

"Doctor Watson!" he calls, skidding precariously to a stop behind the man, breathing hard at the unexpected sprint. The man turns back around to face him, one hand still resting on the roof of the taxi idling at the curbside, waiting. Ned suddenly finds that words fail him. There was so much he wanted to say. So many important things.

He steps forward and holds out the cardboard box.

"You forgot your pie."

They stand there, frozen and simply looking at each other, reading each other, understanding each other. Then the cab driver clears his throat in a pointed fashion and John Watson steps forward a pace to take the box with a weary, faint, but genuine smile of gratitude.

"Thanks," he says.

"The fork's in there too. No charge. Anytime you happen to be in the area, we'd be happy to see you again."

"I'll remember that," the doctor says, and then hesitates. The words come out of him so quietly Ned would not even be sure he had heard them if not for that look on the man's face, the earnest compassion and weary pain. It is barely a whisper.

"Be happy," he says. "For me."

Then with a last farewell nod he ducks down into the back seat of the cab. Ned sees him briefly, seated with the colorful box held on his lap, and then the door slams shut and the taxi trundles away, back down the road and around the corner, and Ned watches it go.

Olive had vanished upstairs with a restless Digby by the time Ned goes back inside, but Chuck is waiting for him. Her lips are slightly parted in that humorous, quizzical way she has, a smile crimping at the edges of her eyes, expectant and curious and entirely oblivious to the single strand of hair that has come out of her ponytail and which is now curling dangerously close to the corner of her mouth. The desperate desire to reach out and tuck that hair safely back behind her ear hits him so suddenly he has to shove both fists deep within his trouser pockets, clenching his fingers so tightly he can feel the little crescent shapes of his nails biting into his palms. She sees the movement and understands it instantly, just as she sees and understands everything about him.

"So," she grins, the sweetness of her smile slightly tempered with concern. "Who was that? A friend of yours?"

He smiles, and he shrugs, his sadness sticking like honey in his throat.

"No . . . no, he was just some guy. Looking for a miracle. Chuck, what do you say we close early today and go out for . . . a walk, or something?"

"You just went for a walk!" She points out, looking amused and not a little skeptical as she tries to read what he's not telling her. "With Digby."

"Walks aren't a limited resource," he says. "Just because I went on one doesn't mean I can't go on another one. Just get a hat or something. Gloves. I want to hold your hand."

She rolls her eyes but she's smiling.

"Digby will be jealous. But. I would love to go on a walk with you. Wait right here until I get back, okay?" She turns away and darts off for her scarves and gloves, her hair swirling around her shoulders like the skirt of her dress swirls around her knees. Ned leans up against the wall and watches her go, and waits for her to come back.

In the back of the taxi, John watches the airport draw closer with a strange emotion he can't identify curled up in the hollow of his throat. He didn't bother going back to collect his bags from the small, peach-colored hotel-room he had been staying in during his search for the piemaker. He figures Mycroft will probably have them waiting for him at Baker Street before his plane even touches down at Heathrow anyway, and if he's wrong . . . well, he doesn't care.

He had barely closed the door of the cab before his phone spasmed in his pocket and he drew it out to see a single anonymous text from a blocked number.

Did you find what you were looking for?

Yes was all he typed back, a single word filled somehow with meaning drawn from the emptiness hollowing him out. He wasn't expecting a reply, but he got one anyway.

I'm sorry.

"Of course you are, Mycroft," he says aloud, tiredly. Too tired for anger now. He hands over his fare without looking after the cab rolls to a stop at the airport and he walks slowly towards the ticket counter, a slightly squashed box of dessert still clutched in his hands. He holds tight, the man who found his miracle and then had the strength to walk away from it, not even sure why except he knows somehow that a man with a slice of pie is a man not quite as alone as a man with nothing, and he can't stand to be any more alone right now. He knows there's something kind of pathetic about that way of thinking but he can't bring himself to care.

Because it's been four months, two weeks, five days, seven hours, nineteen minutes, and forty-three seconds since Sherlock Holmes fell from the roof of St. Bart's Hospital, and for the first time in all that time John Watson truly knows that he is never coming back.