One Tuesday, a long while later, the dark-haired girl did not get out of the black car and ask him questions. It was someone unfamiliar, a man with short blond hair and a grim expression on his face. He had no grey package with him.

"Dr. Watson?"

"That would be me."

"I regret to inform you that PHENICS has been discontinued. We have reason to believe that the law found us and we must evacuate everything as soon as possible."

"Are you relocating?"

"If possible, yes. However, the new headquarters would be very far away. We could not deliver the drug to you."

"No, that's not- That's not okay. What about when you start selling it?"

"If it ever gets to that stage, we'll let you know. The founders want to continue the project but there are a multitude of kinks to be worked out. We don't know how long it will take, and that's if we get the chance to continue."

John's throat went dry. "What about Sherlock? Is he just going to disappear?"

"You probably have one or two more days with him. That's all."

Panic. Don't panic.

"I'm truly sorry, Dr. Watson. If there were any other options, we would take them."

"I'm sure you would."

"Thank you for everything. Your feedback has been of invaluable help."

As the car drove away, John felt himself being crushed by utter helplessness. One day. Two was wishful thinking. He couldn't handle losing Sherlock. Not again.

The addiction had reached its height and he knew that he would only fall back worse than before.

He opened the front door of the flat to see Sherlock bounding toward him down the stairs, obviously in a hurry to go somewhere.

"Please stay home today," John said, not moving from the doorway, though his tone was already one of defeat.

"Now is not the time for dramatics or libido, John, whichever this is. Sometimes I can't tell with you."

"This is important, Sherlock, please."

"This is more important. Move."

"Whatever it is, it can wait. I-"

"No, actually, a man's life depends on this," Sherlock responded, pushing past forcefully now. John put up no fight.

A man's life might very well depend on this, he thought, against his conscious will. Though not an imaginary man's life.

He went inside cursing. Sherlock was gone. Mrs. Hudson happened to be in the other room, and she emerged looking as concerned as she always did these days. "John, dear, do you need help?" she inquired, with extra emphasis on the final word as if she meant something further by it. She must have overheard him talking to himself again.

"Yes, I do need help, damn it, I need-" he started, evoking a jump from the frail lady with his choice of language. It wasn't that that stopped him though. He hadn't even noticed that. It was the statement of confidentiality he had signed a long time ago. He forced a deep breath, fists clenched, and lowered his voice as far as he could manage. "You know what, it's alright. Nevermind. I'll be fine." Then he stalked into his room, slammed the door, and stood back against it genuinely wondering if he could survive a third withdrawal.

When Sherlock returned late that night John met him with open arms. No explanation, just silent desperation. Thank god he'd come back unharmed. Thank god he'd come back at all.

"Come to bed," he ordered, stepping back to view the man in full measure. By this time he was no longer thinking of what an incredible reproduction his subconscious mind had created. He was thinking of what an incredible man Sherlock Holmes was, in every aspect, even the parts that bothered him the most. "Promise me you won't leave. I want you to be there when I wake up."

"What's happened to you, John?"

"Nothing's happened. Just do this favor for me, alright?"

Sherlock paused, pursing his lips. Something he was afraid to say, or didn't like to say. Maybe both. "Something has happened. I can deduce that, John, but I cannot deduce what you're thinking. Do you understand how infuriating that is?" His fingers curled but John's hand reached them before they could become a fist, and pulled him to bed.

"Yes, it's what the rest of the human race has to deal with."

"What's happened?"

"I'm going to lose you again."

"What are you talking about?"

"Figure it out, genius. Something to entertain you for the night, since you never sleep anyway."

They lay facing each other, arms and legs entwined, and John did not close his eyes. Neither did Sherlock, but he wasn't looking. He was already in a distant place, pretending to stay in touch with reality and forgetting after a while, sifting through evidence that was there but didn't make sense.

An hour later, when John was finally giving in to the grips of sleep, he snapped back and asked, "What did you mean when you said I wasn't real?"

"...What?"

"Was it really a dream, or...was I wrong?" There was a long pause. "Who died?"

John did not answer. When he opened his eyes they were filled with tears that he never shed.

The next morning, Sherlock was there and John was gripping his shirt so tight that his fingers hurt when he became conscious. The cotton felt paper-thin. The blue irises gleamed paler than usual. He himself appeared as stolid as he always did, even knowing he wasn't real.

"How did they do it?" was the first thing he asked.

"They?"

"The makers of the drug you've been taking every Tuesday. I had always assumed it was some innovative cure for stress or middle-age aches that Mycroft had offered you in return for taking care of his intolerable little brother. It would explain the expensive car, the mysterious couriers."

John chuckled. Of course he would still be seeking information in the final hours before he disappeared. He couldn't leave a mystery unsolved.

"I don't know how they did it. I asked for a list of ingredients and they told me it was classified."

He crinkled his nose in annoyance.

"I think I can direct you to the place they were making it. I remember. Just don't leave until it's time."

"Until it's..." He trailed off, his lips forming a silent 'ah' of realization. Until it was his time to fade away forever. "How did I die in the first place?"

"Suicide. You called me from the rooftop of Barts and confessed to being a fraud. Then you jumped. Right in front of my eyes."

"A fraud?"

John smiled sadly. "You're not a genius. Never were. Everything you knew about everyone was research. You hired an actor to be your villain and solved invented crimes."

The imaginary Sherlock, who was a genius, furrowed his brows in confusion. "I randomly confessed this and committed suicide?"

"No, they were on to you. The press. You couldn't hide it anymore."

He was silent for a long while with that same expression on his face. Eventually John couldn't stand it anymore. "What is it?" he asked.

"That doesn't sound right. Even if I was an ordinary person and I was found out, I don't think it would have driven me to suicide. You all seem to love yourselves too much to have the nerve, especially for such an inferior reason."

"An inferior reason? Your entire career was ruined. You once said you were married to your work; now I don't know how much of that was you and how much of that was...the genius, but, it makes sense."

"No. I would have had to be driven by something much more powerful."

"Like what?"

His gaze returned from the distant place past John's shoulder and became soft as it settled on the eyes of the man he loved.

"Me?" John breathed tentatively, shocked and then indignant. "No, I had nothing to do with it. I never talked to you about it, never- I believed in you right until the very end, right until you said it yourself. And even for a while afterward I didn't believe it. I couldn't. It was too- impossible."

"Impossible," Sherlock repeated softly to himself.

"Too impossible to be true, after all the time I'd known you. That's what I thought at first. Of course I was distraught. But your suicide had nothing to do with me, either way."

"You wouldn't have known it did."

"Are you really trying to figure out the story of your own death? I've told you nothing but the truth."

Sherlock seemed frustrated. "If I was there I would be able to figure it out."

"You were there. You called me, confessed, and made me watch as you leaped to your death."

John wasn't sure if the expression that flashed through Sherlock's eyes just then was realization or concession. He decided not to ask.

"I don't want to spend our last day like this," John said. "Forget about it. Be the Sherlock you've always been." He kissed Sherlock's chin and held him close, savouring the sensation of tangibility as it almost imperceptibly faded away.

By the time Sherlock decided it was time to go, there was nothing left to touch. John could only see him. He gave directions to the warehouse where he'd met Langdon Faust, not knowing just how accurately he'd recounted them, and let go of a pale hand thin as air.

"Enjoy yourself," he said indifferently.

"I love you," Sherlock replied. "No matter where I am, I love you. Do you understand?"

As ridiculous as it was, John felt as though the message had come from the real one. He couldn't say anything else or he would have broken.

When Sherlock seemed sure that John had decided against killing himself immediately after his departure, he turned and left the flat.

John turned around. He went up the stairs. The place was empty. It looked the same but it was empty. His bed through the open door was empty. He went to the window. Sherlock should have still been visible, walking into the distant streets, but he wasn't. London was empty.

Grey. Empty. Nothing.

"It's been awhile. Again."

"It has."

"How have you been?"

"Terrible."

"No change, then? What kept you away so long?"

"Nothing."

That would have been an appropriate time for Ella Thompson to sigh in frustration, but for the sake of her job she remained perfectly composed. She had dealt with worse. John Watson acting like a reticent child was just inconvenience.

"Your landlady has been emailing me," she said, sitting back her chair as she skimmed the printouts. "She seems rather worried. Says you've been talking to yourself."

"Not to myself."

"Talking to Sherlock."

John opened his mouth and closed it back up again. He had walked himself right into that one.

"Sherlock has been dead for two years," Ella reminded him gently, and then waited a moment for it to sink in. "It's time to let go."

How horrible that sounded, yet it was the instruction he had been waiting for all along. He was always subconsciously dreading and hoping that someone would force him through the cycle of acceptance, because he couldn't do it himself.

"It won't be happening any longer," he said.

"That's good," she responded, watching him as if to gauge his honesty. She thought he seemed sad; not the constant, monochrome depression she had grown so used to seeing him with, but the sort of peaked sadness that occurred immediately after tragedy. "Do you know what happens next, then?"

"I need to let go."

He buried his face in his hands and let the waves of shame and guilt and regret and pure agony wash over him. He remembered every part of Sherlock - the body, the mind, the persona - and imagined each intangible segment drifting away into a field of white nothing, where they dissolved into idyllic permanence. Then there was only white left behind by the torrent that had passed over, and he wasn't sure how much time had gone by, but he felt clean. Clean to the point of emptiness.

"Feel any better?"

John spent a moment trying to figure out what he was feeling. "No, not really."

"Soon you will. You should be proud of yourself. Many people don't make it this far, or they take much longer."

John didn't feel proud at all. He felt like a traitor, but he was too beyond everything to care.

"I don't know what to do," he said.

"Go home and write a blog entry. Start with that. Get everything out once and for all."

He thought of all the drafts. He thought of all the times with the imaginary Sherlock, the realizations he had come to. Finally, he was free to finish the sentence and let the world think what they would.

It took less than five minutes. He deleted everything he'd tried to write before and started from scratch. The title was Letting Go. The body went as follows:

It's time I settle some things with myself. I've neglected reality for far too long. I've been depressed, acted terrible, and done regrettable things. I'll be honest now. I loved Sherlock Holmes and always will, no matter who he truly was. He is irreplaceable. Recovering from loss is a long and agonizing process, but from what I hear, it is doable.

Bear with me. He's gone and I'm only just accepting it.

The same day he posted it, he received an overwhelming number of comment notifications and a dozen phone calls. Half of them were a drunken Harry trying to be sympathetic and coming out practically incoherent. All of them John left unanswered. It was funny, really, how nobody cared until something potentially scandalous had come to light.

Maybe they did care. Maybe they just didn't know how to reach out to someone who locked himself out of the outside world, if not physically, then mentally. For god's sake, John didn't even know how to reach out to himself.

He came home each evening to sit in front of a television screen and take in not a square inch of what played out. He slept and he dreamed of Sherlock, and it was not mournful, not the common reminiscent masquerade; it was an idealized Sherlock bursting forth from the white to gallivant in circles around John's picture of reality, all the while perfectly aware of its transience. In the mornings John was angry, and he got into the habit of making himself breakfast to leave it on the table untouched. On the phone he told his now-acquaintances that he would see them and never called back. He was only pretending to live.

For a long time, pretending was all he could manage. Pretending was enough.

One day he came home in the evening to see Sherlock Holmes sitting in front of the television screen.

This Sherlock had not gallivanted through the white. This Sherlock had never rightfully been there at all. In John's mind, there was a gruesome silhouette of a live man trying to break through the elastic screen of heaven, as he'd been imprisoned there against his will and hidden himself all this time.

"I know what you're thinking. I know all about the drug. I am not a product of the drug. I am real," Sherlock said. Through the elastic screen the words came out as muffled screams which John could not comprehend.

"Damn it," he whispered. "Damn it. Not this again. Not this- I had just-" In desperation, the whispers diverged into whimpers. Not of joy, not of pain, but of fear. Panic. True panic. Loss of self-control. "Damn it!"

Sherlock rose to his feet and reached his hand out, terror and concern in his eyes just the same as that first night when the imaginary him had returned. This time, John did not see it. He could not see it, not through the white screen. He was stumbling backwards as the silhouette reached ever further toward him.

It reached far enough to tear a small corner of the screen from its fastenings. The spirits of the afterlife spilled out through the rift. When they passed through him, their ethereal cells pushed past his with all the impudence of invincibility, knocking the delicate human framework out of balance. The mind lost some of its order. John assessed the events as they happened and realized, with a doctor's acuity, that these were the beginnings of insanity.

He scrambled to his bedroom door and locked himself in just in time to miss Sherlock's reach. John could hear his voice clearly now, through the tear.

"John! John, please don't do anything stupid. I am real. I am real!" The frustration was evident. With the final word came four violent assaults on the door. "I never died. It was a trick, John; let me explain."

John ran to the bathroom and vomited. Then he passed out against the side of the tub.

When John awoke he was comfortably in bed, and Sherlock was waiting. The bedroom door was lying in two jagged pieces on the side of the room. Mrs. Hudson could be heard crying somewhere in the hall. Oddly enough, John didn't care about either.

Without any greeting or introduction, Sherlock explained the trick. He explained where he'd been for the past three years, what he'd been doing, how he'd been watching over John 'where necessary to confirm his safety'. He paced around the room. He apologized. He demanded a response.

"I suppose, then, if you're real," John said, "You have no recollection of what happened between you and me."

"Between you and the PHENICS-induced resurrection of me? No. There would be no way for me to have witnessed the personal proceedings between you two."

"Clever," he muttered, laughing. "Very clever, Mr. Faust."

"Mr. Faust?"

"The drug's inventor. As far as I know." He slid out of bed and traveled to the window. Even with Sherlock here, London remained empty, just as he had expected.

"What's clever?"

"They've improved the drug like they said they would. I'm still a test subject. This time they just didn't offer me the courtesy of inform-"

Sherlock's hands were on his shoulders, fingers tight, the blue gaze demanding requital. "I am real, John. I don't know how else to prove it to you. That Sherlock..." He shook his head slightly, lips trembling as though his placid mind quaked inside with envy. "You speak of him as though he existed, actually existed, and you must understand that he was a product of your mind. What he did and said was imaginary. He does not and never did exist. John. I do. I need you to believe in me like you used to, before he poisoned your mind. I need you to believe in me the way you did when you thought I died."

Out of love, even though his heart was breaking, John tried. He remembered the feeling but could not call it back. It had been buried in false memories and confusion. "I'm sorry," he said. "I can't."

Sherlock dropped his hands and stepped back. Though he stood up straight he seemed to shrink into something small and fragile, a ghost of his past self. A child void of companionship, a prodigy lacking encouragement. A genius without anyone to believe in him, left to wither in the ruins of his own creation.

"You will," Sherlock said, and there was hope in his voice, but it must have come out much weaker than he had intended it to. "You must." Then he went into the other room, and throughout the morning John could hear the soundtrack of tragedy playing out, note by somber note.

In the morning, Mrs. Hudson served tea for three and sat in the armchair blowing her nose as Sherlock recounted his story a second time. The scene of reunion might have been pleasant, if not for the unnerving fact that Mrs. Hudson could see Sherlock too, making it impossible for him to exist only in John's imagination.

Unless, of course, Mrs. Hudson was a product of his mind as well now.

"Stop zoning out like that. It's disturbing me."

It took several seconds for John to realize that someone was trying to talk to him. "What?"

Sherlock stared at him with concern and an undercurrent of irritation. He didn't repeat himself. Once he had John's attention, he simply turned back to Mrs. Hudson and continued where he'd left off.

If this Mrs. Hudson was fake, where was the real one? Was John having a conversation with an empty living room? Or was the real Mrs. Hudson there, trying to wake him from an overpowering daydream, and failing, and panicking, and...?

"Your thoughts are exceedingly boring, John. What could possibly be going on in there that is so captivating?"

Sherlock was staring straight at him again, searching for answers, because it was beyond frustrating for anything to happen around him that he didn't understand. In these moments it was like Mrs. Hudson didn't even exist. There was just John and Sherlock in an empty world, trying to figure each other out when all the answers were right in front of them.

John glanced at the inanimate outline of Mrs. Hudson, and that was all it took.

"The drug worked by recreating the thing you had lost that was most important to you," Sherlock said. "It altered your perception of reality only enough to make you believe that I was physically there, that my actions existed. It had no effect on the actions of others. I always made way for them. Correct?"

John nodded, and then he wondered just how much time this Sherlock had supposedly spent watching him during his three-year absence.

"You suspect that the drug has been reinserted into your systems unaware, and that it is now creating its own version of Mrs. Hudson, because that's the only way this scene would be possible if I were dead. A drug that powerful cannot exist effectively. It would have to be capable of creating an entire world of its own - a separate dimension, if you will, that your mind singlehandedly designs and lives in, second by second. An undertaking like that would overload your insufficient little brain. At the very least, you would have an inconceivable migraine and pass out every five minutes."

"I think you underestimate the average human brain," John responded.

"I think my brain is more capable of knowing what is true than yours is," Sherlock snapped back, eyes narrowing ever so slightly.

That was true, John admitted to himself. Even the fake Sherlock had figured out and accepted that he was fake, in the end.

However, an improved version of the drug would not allow for such a mishap. An improved version of the drug would truly bring Sherlock back to life, even if it meant destroying John's entire reality. It was a terrifying thought - so terrifying that John did not register his terror at the time.

It was perfectly possible for the PHENICS crew to have slipped in and hidden their chemicals in John's food or drinks. They had no misgivings when it came to breaking the law. It was even possible for them to have hidden a chemical which would keep him knocked out cold during the night while they performed another injection.

They were experimenting, and perhaps secrecy was the only way to determine certain results.

When Sherlock tried once more to continue where he'd left off, Mrs. Hudson was wide-eyed in confused turmoil. "Drugs...? What are you boys talking about? John, did you...?" She seemed so distraught that she might have fainted.

"About a year after my presumed death, John agreed to participate in an experiment done by a group of Oxford scientists. He started taking a drug which would alter his perception of reality in such a way that I was brought back to life. Though not the real me. His mental image of me."

She shrunk back into the chair, letting relief swallow her, though puzzlement still surrounded the banks. "Oh John, that means... All those times I thought you'd gone bonkers... You were just..." She blew her nose and proceeded to sob into the wrinkled folds of the tissue. When Sherlock realized that his audience was lost, he looked toward John with the same conflicted expression.

His lips said, "Don't be stupid, John."

His eyes said, "You will believe in me, because I won't fare well if you can't."

And John wanted to believe. He wanted to believe more than anything. It was his mind that refused reason; after all the toying, all the torture, it wanted peace and nothing more. Not even happiness. It had lost what it held most dear, regained it, and lost it again. It rejected another renewal for the sake of normality. For the sake of sanity, which it was losing despite itself.

This Sherlock - this bright-eyed god sitting in the living room, asking acceptance from the one person that mattered, while hiding it from everyone else - this was too real.

While John's heart reached out to what it knew was the truth, his mind yanked in terror the opposite direction.

"You haven't slept."

"I cannot."

"Sherlock, you haven't slept in nearly a week now-"

"I cannot," he repeated, meeting John's eyes with a violent turn. The neck of the violin was clenched in one hand so tightly it looked as though it would break. "I cannot sleep knowing that you think I am an electric spark in your brain, a neural impulse, a reprocessed memory."

So he was thinking. Thinking of how to make John believe.

"They've already taken down my gravestone; go and see for yourself." He turned back to the window and played a soft, drawn-out note.

John looked down. "I have."

And it made no difference.

"Why...didn't you come back sooner?" John asked. Through all the time spent on explanations, that point had been skipped over entirely. Perhaps John hadn't bothered to ask because he didn't think the explanations were real.

"Your life was in danger."

"And I suppose that's all sorted now?"

It took a moment for him to respond, through gritted teeth. "Yes."

Frustration was the one emotion that Sherlock was always obvious about. He was frustrated because all had not gone according to plan; frustrated because he had expected everything to return to the way it had been before. The situation was much worse than that and he could see it, because for once, feeling had guided his perception past the external.

He was frustrated because he had been wrong when he witnessed John under the effects of the drug and did nothing, thinking its effects would not be long-term.

It was a fatal act of underestimation. He had never once considered that he might be as important to John as John was to him. His ability to assess others' emotions had always been weak in comparison to the other skills, and now he was paying the price for it.

"We always worked together before," John began, in an attempt to appease him. "I understand why you left me out of this one. I'm not happy about it, but I do. I'm still willing to stand by your side. I always have and always will."

"There's a hole in that statement."

"What is it?"

"You do not believe that I am me."

And John realized that, try as he might to truly believe, he was already treating Sherlock differently. In speaking, he was forgetting the key aspects of a conversation with Sherlock Holmes, such as the fact that honesty is impossible to fake. He was talking to Sherlock as though he were a stranger.

If the real Sherlock was here and it still wasn't enough, what could distinguish him? What could trigger assurance strong enough to trump delusion?

John turned to the solution that fake Sherlock himself had come up with. He moved close enough to lower the violin from Sherlock's face and replace its caress with his fingertips, taking the detective by surprise. "Let me try something," he said simply, and then he kissed him, and Sherlock received it but did not move a muscle in return.

When there was space between them again, the first thing Sherlock said was, "How did it happen?"

He recognized that John would not have been daring enough to kiss him if he had never done it before. He was brave enough to run into an open war-zone, to operate on a wound that took one mistake to become fatal, to point a gun at a man's head in the middle of the city and not even tremble; but he was not brave enough to try to kiss Sherlock Holmes out of the blue. Not many would be, even in relative terms. People were most afraid of losing what they cared about.

"I told you I loved you. The next day you bloodied yourself up working on a case, but I was too busy fretting over the fact that you weren't real to take proper care of you, so you kissed me to get me to focus. You did it whenever I was having obvious doubts, and then more and more."

For a moment, Sherlock simply stared at him. Then a momentary expression of fury overtook his features and he surged into the center of the room. Before John had a chance to react to the metal device that was being pulled out from beneath the couch cushions, there was a flurry of gunshots and half a dozen more holes in the wall.

By the seventh shot, John had his hands on the gun, and by the eighth had succeeded in wrestling it from him. "Sherlock, for god's sake, what was that for?!" He emptied what remained in the gun and slammed it down on the table. "And of all the places to hide firearms, the sodding couch?!"

Sherlock did not respond. He took his place in front of the window once again, though he left the violin discarded on the sofa, and started thinking again.

"Sherlock," John demanded, laying a hand on his arm which was quickly snatched away.

"I've had something very important stolen from me."

"So you fuss about it right now, something completely unrelated-?"

"Those memories, John. The development," he said quietly, as though he were thinking out loud, but slowing it down enough for John to understand. "If it was ever to be, those experiences were supposed to be shared by the both of us. Now you have them and I'll never have the chance."

At first, the words didn't comprehend. When John realized that this Sherlock had always considered a further relationship between them a possibility, he was so torn by emotion that he could not decipher the rest, and he walked away to give them both a chance to think.

It wasn't until late in the evening that he returned and took Sherlock's hand in his own, snapping him out of his reverie.

"Come with me," he said, tugging inward from the window.

"Why?" It was more of a bothered statement than a question.

"You can think just as well on the couch as you can here."

So Sherlock lay back against the armrest with John's body resting between his legs and arms hugging his waist, and John wasn't sure whether Sherlock was still thinking or not. Only that if he wasn't, he put up a good act to save himself from having to act differently.

"I'm sorry," John said, closing his eyes, and it was the first time in a year that he felt truly comfortable, even with the guilt perforating.

"It's not your fault," Sherlock replied, anger still riding alongside his voice, and by the time John fell asleep he understood half-consciously that Sherlock blamed himself.

Running. Cutting corners, vaulting fences, ducking out of sight. Just like the old days. Almost enough to make John forget his doubts.

Since his most recent return, Sherlock had not taken on a case without John by his side. Even if it was one that he knew beforehand would be solved with a single look, he would not approach the crime scene if his partner refused to tag along.

In this particular instance, much more than a look was required. They were unarmed and running for their lives.

"Down there," Sherlock barked through hasty breaths, pushing John forward as he switched directions. "The door!"

"Locked," John responded, followed by a loud swear as their pursuers caught sight of them again. They sprinted around the side of the building to see brights lights illuminating its front lobby. There was no one present except the receptionist.

As they stormed inside John was kind enough to shout, "Pardon us; armed criminals coming through shortly!" to which the receptionist dropped behind her desk with a startled squeak and did not protest to their trespassing.

Past the 'Employees Only' door, there was a long hallway lined with doors into dim rooms. About halfway down John felt himself being shoved through one of them and was ordered to hide. Sherlock disappeared behind a cabinet, so John, in turn, did the same on the opposite side. There were no exits here. It was hide or fight.

The footsteps down the hallway were accompanied by loud bangs as the criminals threw the doors open one by one. There were three of them in masks, facetious and unafraid. They were aware of Sherlock's reputation and intended, like so many others before, to kill him for kicks.

However, they were much more straightforward with this attempt than any had been before, and the detective had come unprepared. There was a serious danger here; John felt it wracking at his gut, warning him of a repeat of the last three years, nearly driving him past the border of madness with just the thought.

Their door was thrown open and two of the men came in to check. One reached John's side of the room first. John grabbed a metal briefcase from the shelf and slapped him in the head with it, but he was only dazed on the floor for a moment before he tried to retaliate.

"God, how thick is your skull?!" John remarked as he caught the man's arm and let his own assault instinct take over. When the black mask was stained burgundy and there was no further reprisal, he pulled the handgun from the man's belt, but by the time he looked up, Sherlock was being held helpless by the third criminal. He had defeated the second with ease but must have been caught by surprise when the third crashed through the window behind him. From the floor the second raised his gun, a final act of retribution-

John didn't think. He shot. And he killed them both.

Sherlock stood speechless and winded, though unfazed by the bullet that had just passed only inches from his head. He crouched down and pulled the mask off of one of the bodies, making a little noise of recognition at the youthful face found underneath.

John nearly choked. "Wh- What is that?"

"A teenage boy. Hired, probably. The real criminals knew we'd put up a good fight and wanted to test just how good it would be."

John stared at the blood trailing down from the hole in the boy's forehead. When Sherlock uncovered the face of the other, it was clean and pale and...afraid.

"You knew?" he asked.

"Their statures were different when they followed us into the alley. They must have switched off partway... Everything was planned."

"Sherlock, I just killed them."

"I would have told you if I thought you were going to shoot."

John crouched down to check the pulse of the one he had pummeled down. He was alive. And also a teenager - likely a rugby player, by his stature. "I wouldn't have shot if you weren't about to get shot."

"That boy wasn't as strong as he looked to be. I was waiting for the opportune moment to break free. The one on the floor was bluffing; he could hardly threaten me, let alone hold a gun straight enough to pull the trigger."

"Sherlock, I just killed two teenage boys."

Sherlock stood up, not registering the panic in John's voice. "Not much different from Afghanistan, is it?"

"Sherlock-" John started again, but he stopped, because the longer he looked at Sherlock, the less sure he was that it was the real thing. That was why he had shot in the first place. He'd doubted Sherlock Holmes.

"John?"

The sirens suddenly became audible outside. The receptionist must have called.

"I just...killed...two boys...to save you. I didn't even think about it."

"I'll explain everything to Lestrade. You won't be held accountable."

"Don't you understand? That doesn't matter! It's the fact that these boys had nothing to do with the crime, and I killed them, for you."

"They are accomplices."

"They could have easily been blackmailed," John stammered, making his way to the door. He felt dizzy, and sick. The way one might feel if their world had been turned inside-out so many times that they weren't sure where imagination and reality disconnected, where memory ended and life began.

"John, where are you going?"

He was sprinting down the hallway toward the back door, crashing against walls and making repeated acquaintance with the floor, but even when Sherlock caught him by the arms his confusion lashed out hard enough to help him escape alone.

He was running through the streets of London, hearing shouting at his back but not understanding it, using pedestrians as bumpers in a kaleidoscopic pinball machine.

He was walking a darkened road, finally forsaken, following a path he thought he would have never needed to use. His throat burned and his brain felt like it had unraveled and taught his intestines how to tie knots. Yet he had control of his senses, and his thoughts were clear as day.

He was standing at the front counter of the Bethlem Royal Hospital, checking himself in as an inpatient for psychosis, and it only took an outline of his military services and a recount of what had happened earlier that evening for them to admit him willingly.

He was sitting on a bed in a locked room, trying to regain touch with reality, but all he could see was Sherlock standing over the dead body of a teenage boy, and soon enough he had his back to the wall and his knees up against his chest, and he was terrified that Sherlock would appear in that very room and claim to be real.

Life at Bethlem Royal Hospital was incessant and menial. It was exactly what John thought he needed. By request, he spent most of his time in that locked room, unbothered by people. There was a bed, a table and chair by the window, and a bookcase filled with guides and stories thought to be uplifting. He had to push a button by the door to be escorted to the bathroom down the hallway, which was one of the main reasons they had been inclined not to lock him in. The modern era looked down upon treating mental patients as prisoners.

They delivered three meals a day to that room, though almost every day the nurse tried to convince him to eat supper with the other patients. His doctor carried out treatments, both chemical and psychological, which had no effect. John was going nowhere by staying in the hospital, and life was peaceful that way for the first time in years. He was alone, and thus, had nothing to fear. Nothing to figure out. Nothing to accidentally kill.

He had two weeks of peace. Then the nurse informed him that he would be having a visitor who, for his own sake, he was not allowed to reject. He supposed he had known it would happen eventually, but he was still frustrated. He knew of the unavoidable fact that when Sherlock Holmes walked into the room, the stillness shattered.

The detective made a short round to the window, assessing the cell. As he gazed outside he stuck his nose up haughtily, almost as if in disgust. "Why do you submit yourself to this?"

"It's peaceful here."

"Saying that is almost as good as saying that you've lost who you are." He turned to John, and through the thin facade of distaste John could see the concern stronger than he ever could before.

He chuckled. "I am in a mental hospital, aren't I?"

"You must come home."

"I don't want to."

"The treatments haven't had any effect, have they?"

"None at all."

"Do you know why that is?"

"Not a clue."

"It's because you're not sick, John; there's nothing to treat. They keep you here because they have an unoccupied cell which they can use to suck the money out of a perfectly well patient. I want to help you, John, and I've done all I can, but for god's sake, I cannot war against a mental disease that doesn't exist."

John stared at the coat fabric bunched up in a fist at Sherlock's side. He remembered the nights spent wide awake trying to conceive a plan and for the first time failing entirely. Now that he bothered noticing, there were dark shadows under wide and vacant eyes, and hair that hadn't been brushed in days, or had been turned wild by relentless scratching and pacing and burying head in pillows and screaming in frustration.

Then Sherlock was against the bedside where he sat and holding his hand, and he said, "What happened that night with those teenagers - I can assure you I will never let it happen again. It was my fault; it was avoidable. And the memories that were taken from me by the other Sherlock..." He pulled John into his arms, clutching dark blond hair with clear desperation, and pressing cheek against head in what might have been a brief kiss. "They don't matter. Nothing matters if I lose you completely."

In these arms which somehow felt more tangible than he remembered, John noticed his heart quickening its pace, and he breathed in a scent that was much too potent to belong to the fake Sherlock he had known. The scent he had somehow forgotten, that was brisk and welcoming and dangerous all at the same time.

He tried to remember why he didn't believe in the first place. PHENICS had been plausible because it didn't seek to hide the fact that the reincarnation it brought about was only imitation. This Sherlock would not doubt himself for a second. He was completely certain of how he'd almost died and escaped from it while everyone thought otherwise. John still thought it was impossible.

Though Sherlock - the real Sherlock - had always done impossible things, hadn't he?

"Please come home."

John thought of the ineffective treatments he'd been going through. Here it would be even easier to administer the new version of PHENICS without him knowing. If the scientists were already making sales on the black market - which they very well could be, with a drug this capable - they had the money to pay off a willing doctor or two. For the advance of science.

If that was the case, though, staying here would not help him. Peace would become boring after a couple of months, or his money would run out. He needed to return to work, and to the friend that had once brought a spiritless veteran back to the adventure he couldn't live without. Even if he wasn't real.

This was reality now. This was John's reality, whether he wanted to see it otherwise or not.

"Okay," he said. Something about the sigh of relief that fluttered through Sherlock's body convinced John that he had been silently crying.

When they came through the front door of the flat together, Mrs. Hudson had a paroxysm of joy and likely nearly fainted again. John almost wondered if this experience had been worse on her than it had been on him, especially considering her age. He was thankful for her health.

It was late, so they lay in John's bed together, and while Sherlock remained bewildered by the prospect of anything sentimental, John smiled and guided him with the patience he'd already learned, and things went much smoother this time around.

In the morning he leaned over breakfast and stole their second kiss, to which Sherlock stared at him in barren stupefaction. John scooted his chair closer and leaned in. "Like this," he murmured, and tried again, and this time Sherlock returned the movement with near-perfect imitation of an on-screen romance, because that was the only source he'd had to learn these types of things from.

"Too much," John said, pressing a finger to Sherlock's lips. "Stop thinking. Feel."

The next few times he couldn't quite get it right.

Then they were on a hotel balcony in Paris, and Sherlock was thinking about the case while John wondered at the attraction of the lights and sounds below them.

"While we're here, I want to visit a few places. The Eiffel Tower, the Louvre. Who knows when we'll ever be back."

"Waste of time."

"Maybe to you," John responded simply, expanding the list in his head. Luxembourg Gardens, Basilica, Notre Dame. Though he suspected the case would take them sprawling illegally through half the places anyway. "Paris is considered one of the most beautiful cities in the world, you know. And one of the most romantic."

Sherlock glanced over at him but said nothing.

"You're quite the gentleman," John said with a quiet chuckle as he turned to go inside, but Sherlock caught his hand.

"I don't see how those places enhance the experience. This is enough."

"This?"

He paused as if he wasn't sure exactly what he was trying to say, only that he knew it. "You."

You, who follows me anywhere without question, and makes me the priority no matter what the surroundings hold. You, who observes my thoughts and finds them fascinating, while everyone else is filled with jealousy and disgust. You, who will get frustrated but never push me beyond my own wants and needs, who will accept my cold indifference and inscrutability and love me all the same.

John smiled, understanding from a single word. "Best wishes to your mind palace. I'm going to sle-"

Sherlock pulled him in and kissed him and did not try to copy anyone. He was in love and expressing it purely, and suddenly he understood, but he was too caught up in the feeling of John to notice that he understood.

That night, he learned from instinct how to say 'I love you' without saying a thing, and in the morning he woke with John's bare skin against his chest. The solution he'd been searching his mind for on the balcony had long since eluded him, but he felt happier than he had in a long time. Everything was okay.

When John awoke he turned to face Sherlock, who kissed him properly this time, and he almost completely believed.

Perhaps John was content with believing perpetually in an unsure thing. He could live happily in a world where everything was right again, even if it was all in his imagination. Perhaps.

Though the nagging doubt still existed. Like an undetected virus. In the brightest moments and the darkest hours, the possibility was there, itching for validation, that in everyone else's reality he was still sitting in the bleak asylum cell.

That everything he knew, including Sherlock, was a lie.