Author's Note: Yet another piece that came virtually out of nowhere. I found myself in less than a good place, mentally, and I desperately needed an outlet for those feelings; therefore, I decided to use John as that outlet.

I believe this is my first story written from Lestrade's point of view, so I dearly hope my interpretation comes across as in-character and all that. I think for this piece more than any of my previous ones I've been heavily influenced by StillWaters1's style of writing and her ability to show so much insight just through simple words and seemingly simple body language. Tip o' the hat to you, my friend. Your Lestrade is still the best I've read.

Hope you all enjoy this, especially as it's a semi-Christmas fic and we're fast approaching the season!

A Place Left Unfilled

Christmas parties weren't normally Lestrade's cup of tea, but he found himself relenting this year when he realised how much it meant to his wife. They were getting on better now than they had in months, and rather than let something as petty as a social life—or lack thereof—be the thorn that came between them, he had given in with only minimal fuss, on the condition that she make the arrangements. Being the woman she was, she was only too happy to do this, and Lestrade was left with mixed feelings of relief that this might be the final hurdle, and wariness that he was going to botch the whole thing at the last moment.

That, he concluded glumly, would be only too typical.

To his great surprise, however, the event seemed to be coming off without a hitch; it was a week before Christmas, and the sitting room was virtually swimming with his wife's friends, dressed in their festive best (the note about 'casual' had clearly been ignored when the invitations were sent out), holding long-stemmed glasses in their hands, and moving cautiously around the furniture that really hadn't been pushed back far enough, now that he thought about it. There was some old-time holiday music permeating the air from the speakers of his entertainment deck in the far corner—one of his few contributions to the party.

Some people from the Yard were there, too—Lestrade had been very insistent that they come, if only to give him some conversational opportunities when he was tired of being accosted for the umpteenth time by presumed friends that he'd only met once in his life, or not at all. From where he was leaning against the wall, he could see Donovan talking with one of his wife's old university friends, Anderson hovering near her elbow, and when he craned his neck, he caught a brief glimpse of Dimmock chatting up a woman whose name he couldn't remember.

But the real reason why Lestrade had been keen on the party in the first place was standing by the window in the adjoining kitchen, and if the DI had to be completely honest with himself, it was probably much more motivation than a possible reunion with his wife.

Frowning slightly, Lestrade pushed himself away from the wall, tilting his head so as to better see into the other room. The corners of his lips tightened in resignation; he had hoped for better than this.

Not that John was looking exactly unhappy, but it was clear that he had become uncomfortable in the close, jovial atmosphere around him. He had chosen a position as far away from the festivities as possible without actually being out of sight, and though he glanced every once in a while back into the sitting room, his posture and his expression showed no inclination to return to the centre of activity.

Lestrade had seen that stance many times before: the planted, slightly offset shoes, the ruler-straight back, the arms folded tightly and precisely over the chest, the chin lifted ever so slightly in a motion that was more warding than most other people's upheld hand or curt spoken phrase. He had used to see it every once in a while in the days before the world turned upside down, but now he was seeing it a whole lot more than that.

The Christmas-coloured jumper and the tumbler of punch gripped in John's left hand did very little to ease the tension of the image; as a matter of fact, Lestrade thought, they seemed distinctly out of place the longer he looked, and for a moment he had the very odd sensation that if he kept watching, he would be able to see the room and the party and the lights dissolve around them, leaving something bleak and iron in its wake, and John Watson in the middle of it.

He shook himself, and glanced purposefully away—but before he managed it, he was dead sure he had inadvertently caught John's eye, and had received the barest, humourless smile in return.

After another obligatory round of the room to make sure glasses were full and that they hadn't run out of biscuits yet, Lestrade threaded his way back into the kitchen. Immediately he could see why John had retreated here; there was a noticeable drop in temperature from one room to the next, and the sound of party became quickly muffled—background noise that he was quite sure John had no problem tuning out.

He paused, though, just in the doorway. John was staring absently at a spot a few feet to his right, as though his eyes had had some trouble finding something to look at and had finally settled on a place at random. It was a bit unnerving, somehow, and Lestrade cleared his throat pointedly before he moved any further.

"Alright?" he asked easily, walking over to the far counter while simultaneously making sure that he left the doctor enough room to feel comfortable.

John glanced sideways, and there was a look of faint surprise on his face that didn't seem quite genuine. "Yeah, fine," he answered, half-raising the glass in his hand.

Again, Lestrade was privy to that bare smile, the one that turned John's lips in the right motions and yet was accompanied by a few unconscious blinks—minute signs that they were both having to force this conversation a little bit.

"Want me to top that up?" Lestrade jerked his chin toward the punch glass, making the offer even though he could see it was still mostly full.

John's response was a quick and matter-of-fact "No, thanks" and a brief yet knowing shaking of his head. He didn't want pity or false cheerfulness, and he would probably go right on being stubborn about that even though what Lestrade was offering wasn't actually some sort of sympathy.

And that in itself was what Lestrade was noticing now, more than anything else—that he and John were no longer on the same plane of communication. There had been a time, months ago, when they had needed only to exchange a glance to know that they were on the same wavelength—one that usually involved a mutual annoyance or exasperation, given the circumstances that tended to bring them into one room—and that words were quite unnecessary. Now, however, it was as though their understanding had hit a slight bump in the transmission that skewed its final message, and it was with some sadness that Lestrade had come to realise that the bump was not a mutual thing.

That bump was a wall, and it was a wall that John had built.

Not that Lestrade blamed him in the slightest, of course. He'd had enough experience in the force working with trauma and its victims to know that there were a hell of a lot of different coping mechanisms out there, and that persuading distance was one of the most common. He knew it wasn't aimed at him personally. All the same, it was not easy to sit by and watch the friend that was John slowly turn in on himself, and it was even harder in those moments when he saw John come out a little stronger as a result, because he knew in a very personal way the kind of pain you had to put a man through to make him that strong when he emerged on the other side.

And it wasn't that he and John were an odd pair of kindred spirits floating about—there had been and would only ever be one man who fit that category , for John, and even that didn't quite make sense—but they were in many ways the same type of man. If Lestrade had to put a name to it, he rather liked the sound of guardian; they were keepers of loyalty, of justice, of morality in the face of something easier.

Even in his grief, though, John had not fallen by the wayside. Not yet.

Lestrade offered the doctor a slow nod in return, again looking towards the cabinets and the countertops so that John wouldn't feel the need to maintain eye contact. "You don't have to stay if you don't feel like it, you know," he said. "No one's looking for politeness—well, 'cept from me and the missus," he amended, with a wry twist of his mouth.

"It's fine," John said quickly.

"No, I'm serious," Lestrade said, and this time his expression mirrored it, though he tried not to look overly concerned. "Just—leave when you really want to, okay?"

John nodded, but the DI noticed that he did it with as little movement as possible. "If it's alright, then, I'm just going to pop outside for some air—not leaving, just—"

"That's fine, John. Really."

He watched as John quickly unfolded his arms, set the glass down on the counter behind him, and turned towards the door. There was still that stiffness about it, that strange caution of movement, and alarm bells began clanging very faintly in the back of Lestrade's head, as though something in his mind recognised a danger signal that his conscious awareness was still missing. He suddenly wondered just how long John had been standing there, on his own.

Half an hour? At least. Probably more, actually.

And then there was the one thing he had time to notice before John disappeared from view: that the doctor's hands were clenched, fingertips digging deeply into his palms.

Lestrade drew a sharp breath. Not good.

Someone else might have wavered at that point, caught in the choice between giving John his space and making sure that space was in fact what he needed, but Lestrade had too much experience in split-second decision making and needed less than five seconds to make up his mind. He was already pulling his coat on as he called a brief and very vague explanation to his wife over the heads of their guests, and then he was jerking open the door, fingers fumbling with his buttons as he hurried down the steps.

The cold hit him in an unexpected rush of wind; his breath caught again, and with one hand he shielded his eyes from the snow swirling gently around his form. He didn't think that John could have gone very far in such a short space of time, but then again, the DI had learned never to take anything about John Watson for granted.

His eyes narrowed, scanning the lamp-lit, snow-dusted street for one figure amidst a number of other pedestrians—there.

It began to all come together as he quickened his pace, once again throwing his mind back to the first time he had noticed John in the kitchen. What had he been seeing? The stiff posture, the un-drunk punch, the vacant sort of stare...

Oh, no.

He'd misread something. That look hadn't been vacant at all. It had been much, much more than that—and Lestrade had a sudden hunch that he knew exactly what John had been staring at.

He found John in an alleyway five doors down, where the streetlights barely reached and the snow had settled more thickly because there was no one to sweep it back against the walls. He came to a quiet halt, suddenly reluctant.

John's head was bowed, his palms pressed hard against the bricks of the wall in front of him, taking all the weight of his body that sagged so far forward that it seemed about to drop at any moment. Snowflakes had begun to cling to the back of his jumper, and Lestrade could see them trembling violently in time with the doctor's shaking shoulders.

Lestrade bit his lip, moving neither forward nor backward, wishing he could pretend he couldn't hear the soft, gasping breaths coming from John's lips. This was what he had been afraid of—the underlying struggle that was slowly making John stronger; only now he was seeing what lay beneath the seeming triumph, and he couldn't help wondering if it was still worth the sum of its parts, in the end.

It was all wrong. John Watson should never be this vulnerable.

Inhaling cautiously, Lestrade took a step forward, then another, hunching his own shoulders against the cold. "I shouldn't have made you come," he said quietly.

John stiffened, but even his instinctive reaction to the sudden voice could not overcome the tremors still wracking his form. As though it cost him a lot of effort, he slowly pushed himself back away from the wall, and Lestrade was not surprised when he lifted his chin and took a deep, shuddering breath.

"You didn't make me."

The words were spoken almost as though they didn't matter; it was a tone of resignation and re-established control (or at least a semblance of it), and yet still a soft rebuke reminding the DI that this wasn't his problem.

Lestrade was inclined to disagree.

"I thought it would help a bit," he admitted in a low voice, "you know, being with some other people, good music and passably good food..." He swallowed, shook his head, and reached up to brush some of the snow from his greying hair. "Guess I should've thought that through better."

John had finally turned 'round, but almost immediately fell against the wall again, his head tipped back and his eyes closed. "I said it's not your fault." Lestrade almost didn't catch the words, forced out as they were between long, harsh breaths that sent chilled puffs of vapour into the darkened alleyway.

The doctor's hands were once again clenched tightly at his sides, but as far as Lestrade could tell, the shaking hadn't really subsided, and so he stopped carefully in mid-step and moved back a pace again, without saying anything. Mentally, he had already drawn a light boundary line between himself and John, and knew he would not even think about crossing it until the other man gave some indication that he was okay with physical contact. There was a time and a place, Lestrade reminded himself, and everything about John right now, from his voice to his body language, said the same thing, even more vehemently than it had in the kitchen: Not yet. Just give me space. I'm not ready yet.

And so Lestrade fell quiet, rubbing his numbed hands together and then slipping them into his pockets. He didn't speak, he didn't move, except to flick his eyes at their surroundings with a passing interest as the snow continued to transform the place. Speaking didn't matter right now—in fact, it was better if it didn't come into play again quite yet. He found himself watching John's footprints ahead of him slowly fill with a new layer of white, while his ears gently listened for the sound of John's breathing to soften and regularise.

It was a long time before it did.

For nearly ten minutes, it was as though the world beyond the alley had been walled off, muffled and unimportant. Spouse, party, even Christmas lay forgotten in the back of Lestrade's mind, except for the role they had played in moving the situation to where it was now. The snow continued to fall, and the only sound that mattered was the pained struggle of inhale-exhale and the hiss of breath that denoted a slow regaining of control.

When the DI finally lifted his gaze again, it was a relief to find that John appeared to have relaxed somewhat; he was no longer pressed rigidly against the wall, only leaning into it for support, and with his eyes still closed, he looked more exhausted than anything. Lestrade moved forward without hesitation this time, though the hand that wanted to reach out remained at his side for now.

He looked at John, and John slowly lowered his gaze to look back.

The expression that he read there made him wish for a moment that he hadn't looked, and the only reason he did keep eye contact was because he not only saw, but partially understood, and he needed John to realise that. The look was quiet, anguished, determined, and totally self-aware all at once, and it was perhaps that consciousness—the fact that John knew exactly what had been happening to him over the past few months—that spurred Lestrade to finally reach over and touch the other man's shoulder.

There were a lot of things he could have said to accompany the gesture—a lot of things he did consider saying, like I'm sorry and Alright now? and Don't worry about it—but in the end, he chose something different.

"You forgot your coat," he said.

And he knew by the hesitant twitch of John's lips and the soft sigh that left them that he had said the right thing, and that everything else he could have said was communicated right along with it, and that, this time, it wasn't mistaken for shallow sympathy.

"And," he went on, more briskly now that he knew he wasn't in danger of making a verbal slip-up, "since that's the case, you're gonna put on mine, and you're gonna wear it until we get back to my place, or, if you like, until we find some crappy little late-night café that'll give us both something hot. And I won't take no for an answer, by the way," he added.

If John had been considering a protest (and it honestly didn't look like he had), that last bit ensured that it didn't come out. He managed a resigned and yet grateful half-smile, and Lestrade quirked one back as he pulled off his coat and draped it over John's shoulders. Now, of course, he was feeling the icy weather through his own shirt, and his smile turned rueful.

"God, it's cold."

John glanced up from adjusting the coat. "Your wife's going to be wondering, isn't she?" His voice had steadied now, though it was still on the low end of the scale.

"Yeah, well." Lestrade gave a philosophical shrug. "Let's be honest—even Christmas cheer wasn't gonna change anything between us, not long-term, anyway."

Side by side they walked back out of the alley, onto the softly glowing street, and Lestrade felt another smiling coming on as he watched John's shoulders straighten—not in defence, this time, but in that steady way that declared he was once again master of himself. And, knowing John, it would be quite a while before he allowed himself to succumb to the kind of emotional vulnerability that he had tonight.

Because Lestrade knew now, almost without uncertainty, what it was that the doctor had been looking at so fixedly in the kitchen.

John had felt alone, outcast, unintentionally isolated, driven into a distanced corner by too many people he didn't know and too little space to deal with them, and so he had stood by himself and found himself staring towards that one thing that had no doubt been uppermost in his mind.

It was the place he still needed to be filled: the place where Sherlock Holmes should have been.

Many thanks for taking the time to read, and as always, your thoughts and comments are so very much appreciated. :)