Sherlock dragged the cardboard box out of the corner and lifted it to the top of the stack of moving boxes. He brushed away a layer of dust from the surface, making a small cloud that floated across the mostly empty room. There were rows of boxes up against the wall waiting for the removers to come. Some were going to his new home in the country, some old equipment such as his microscope had been donated to a school, and some papers and supplies to a museum of crime. The proprietor of said museum was an acknowledged fan of his work. She had come to the flat and marveled over the entire room asking to take photographs and begging for donations for an exhibit that she had planned. Some of his more memorable pieces had already been sent to her such as Moran's gun, Moriarty's pocket knife, and even his old deerstalker hat. He was now labeling the last of the boxes, his old case files. These had been wedged in the corner beside the bookcase for so long that he had almost forgotten them, but now that all of his books were gone, they had been exposed. He had already decided to take them to the country with him, but he was checking the boxes physical integrity to see if they would stay intact for the trip.

Two twenty one B Baker street had been his home for so long that it was almost a part of himself. When he closed his eyes, his mind palace had the same layout as this flat, with the burning fireplace and the skull on the mantle, and of course the two chairs, one for him and one for John. In the decades that they had lived here, the flat had always looked this way. With the loud wallpaper, the writing desk, the curtains on the window, a couch, and two comfortable chairs. They had changed the chairs a few times over the years, but they were always in the same place. So much so that they had worn dents into the rug. Evidence that even someone without his miraculous powers of observation could see.

Curiosity overtook him, and he opened the box to reveal a plethora of paper file folders filled with newspaper clippings. He pulled out one and read the title, "Bank Hero apprehends African General's Assassins." One side of Sherlock's mouth twitched up into a smile. He pulled out the file and sat down on the rug, opening it to get a clearer view.

He stared at the fading photo. It showed John standing on the steps of the courthouse. Sherlock stood behind, gazing at him with an expression that he knew was one of fondness, but very few other people would recognize it as that. Mycroft would, and of course John.

There was a noise on the landing and Sherlock turned to see John enter. His hair was completely white now, not the dirty blond tending to brown that it had been in his youth. He still liked it cut short above his ears. He had more wrinkles now, but his features were still pleasingly symmetric. He tilted his head and put a hand on his hip. "Sherlock, we are never going to get moved if you keep stopping to read things. Are we even going to be able to fit this into our new house? It's not much more than a cabin after all."

"John, come look at this."

John gave a brief sigh, and then walked across the room to stand behind Sherlock. He placed his hands on his shoulders and looked down at the page. "Why that was a long time ago. Look how young we were," he said, "And there you are in your coat. Do you remember? You used to wear that coat everywhere. I could always find you in a crowd."

"Well, It was a good coat."

"I remember that case. It was The Case of the Poisoned General. I got a lot of complements for that story. It still gets hits you know, even though its in archive. There's this college professor in Leeds who uses it for an assignment in his introductory criminal science class. Those were the days, weren't they? Now we're just old fossils good for nothing but writing our memoirs and tooling about in the countryside."

"Oh come now, John," Sherlock said patting John's hand with his own, "We're not quite done yet. We are just taking a long deserved rest."

"You bet it's deserved," John said, "Sometimes I think that you are personally responsible for catching half of the criminals in the London jails."

"Hardly John," Sherlock said, "And if I remember correctly, in this case, you were the hero of the day. You got shot apprehending the assassins?"

"Did I?"

"You can't remember getting shot?"

"It's not like it was the first time...or the last."

"I never liked it when you got hurt. I told you so then. Now that I think about it, that was when I first told you. You were going to move out, and you got shot and decided to stay."

"Oh yes," John said a thoughtful expression crossing his face, "I remember. I was so confused back then, and so stupid about emotions. A prisoner to my own feelings about what a man could say and what he couldn't. I guess that happens to everyone when they are young. They are so rooted in the world that they grew up in, in what other people expect them to do. Of what they expected their own life would look like, that they can't admit to the feelings that they have, even when it's so obvious to everyone else. We get so trapped by morals, by customs, and by labels. Boxed in by them, or should I say tied up in other's expectations like a Victorian woman tied in a corset. Feeling that if the straps were ever loosened, we'd collapse and die. I was so stiff back then. So narrow in my thoughts. It's hard to believe now."

"Do you remember who it was? Which of them shot you?"

"Not really, Sherlock, does it matter? You can't still be upset about that."

"I'm not upset. I wanted to thank the man."

"Thank him, why?"

"Because if you hadn't got shot then, you might have left before I would have worked up the courage to ask you to stay. Luckily, your inability to open your own marmalade jars made me at least marginally useful to you."

John laughed taking a moment to ruffle Sherlock's grey curls. "So that's why I stay with you," he said, "your amazing domestic skills. I knew there had to be some reason. Well, mark that box for the study, and we can sit around the fire and discuss old times to our heart's content." John leaned over and kissed Sherlock on the top of the head. "Come on now. I've already called for a car. Sussex awaits." He patted Sherlock's shoulder and started to walk away, but Sherlock reached out and grabbed his arm. John turned back to face him. He looked down to see the irises in Sherlock's eyes contract to grey.

"I was just wondering what would have happened if you had left me then? Or worse still, what would my life have been like if I had never met you? Simply imagining it...it's disturbing. Who would I be? What kind of person would I have become without you? I was so selfish then. So detached from the world around me. You called me a robot once. You were right. That's what I was. I wouldn't admit to feeling anything, to needing anything from anyone else. If I had never met you, John. What kind of a man would I be now?"

"A dead man, probably. Killed by that cabby's poison pill. But even if you survived that, you were such a reckless git you'd have found some other way to get yourself killed. Heck, sometimes I thought that I might kill you myself."

"You're probably right, although not about the pill." Sherlock said, "I know I chose the correct one." John snorted. "But it was so hard for me then between cases. I could easily have overdosed on cocaine."

"Or died of lung cancer from your awful smoking habit. Thank goodness I cured you of that."

"Yes you did, and you made me eat, and take care of myself. The only reason I've lived this long is because of you."

"Damn right, and you had better keep on living. You're not going to stiff me with paying the taxes on that farm by myself." Sherlock chuckled and rose to his feet. He turned to John whose face had gone suddenly serious. "I probably wouldn't have lived to be this age either," he said, "I was so alone before I met you."

Sherlock reached out and squeezed John's hand. "So was I," he said, "and even when I knew that I would only be happy with you by my side, I still found it hard to say it to you. Why do you suppose that was John?"

"Because you're an idiot," John said and they both started laughing. They laughed so hard that John had to lean over with his hands on his thighs. Sherlock wiped a tear from his eye. Miriam Hudson walked into the room then. Her short brown hair and tight purple body suit reminding them of her great aunt who had given her the place. She smiled, "You two, I swear you act just like children sometimes. The car is here. Are you ready to go?"

Sherlock looked around the room where they had spent so much of their lives. Where he had taken cases and discovered leads. The window that had once exploded from a bomb, and had been shattered by a sniper's bullet. The kitchen that had housed his experiments, and his accidents, and his mornings of toast and coffee with John.

He ran his hand across the mantle. The mirror and the skull having long since been packed away, and turned back to face John and Miriam who stood in the doorway. There were so many memories here, good and bad, but mostly good, because the day that he had moved into this flat, John had moved in as well.

His eyes focused on John who stood in the doorway with his hands behind his back as if he were at parade rest. Sherlock remembered then what he had learned that day, right before they had taken the case with the African general. The thing that would make it easy to hug little Miriam goodbye and walk out of the door for the last time. That this flat wasn't his home anymore than that cabin in Sussex was. For Sherlock, now and forever, his only home was John.