John couldn't remember the last time he'd been so tired. By the time they had tracked down the correct cab and reclaimed the laptop, they had barely made it to Sherlock's preferred Chinese before it closed at 2:00. Because of the hour, they had brought the food back to Baker Street and John collapsed into the comfortable red chair with a container of chow mein clutched in his hands, trying to find the energy to open it. "I can't remember the last time I was this tired," he said out loud.

"And you an army man?"

"Let's just say I'm out of practice, then," John replied. "It's been a full day—and all I really planned to do was look at a flat." He looked at his watch. "Over seven hours ago."

He leaned his head back, fighting his eyelids. He really should eat something, he told himself. He wondered if it would be okay to just sit here and not move until daylight, if Sherlock would mind him not heading back to his bedsit.

"You should at least take your jacket off," came an amused baritone.

John pried his eyes open. Right. That would probably be more comfortable. He looked at his hands, full of Chinese food, and wearily tried to think what to do with it. It would definitely make it hard to pull the sleeves off. Okay, fine. He propped the food between his legs (see? It was good he hadn't opened it yet) and leaned forward, trying to shrug his shoulders out of the jacket, but, well, his left shoulder wasn't as agile as it used to be.

"Oh, here," Sherlock still sounded amused, but also slightly exasperated, as if watching such inefficiency pained him. He came over to help pull the jacket off John's left arm, then his right, and then pulled it out from behind him to drape it on the wooden chair by the desk. As he did, the notebook fell out of the pocket.

John winced a bit. He hoped Sherlock wasn't going to make a fuss and start teasing. He didn't want to talk about writing/not-writing and, at any rate, was far too tired at the moment.

He didn't expect the way Sherlock's face froze, the friendly warmth suddenly iced over. "I thought you said no."

"What?" John's brow creased as he tried to figure out what Sherlock was talking about, and then realized—the notebook was identical to the one Umbrella Man had used. It was also obviously new, and … oh. "No, no. It's not what you think."

"And what exactly do you suppose I think, Dr Watson?"

Christ, he'd been busted back to Dr Watson instead of John now? That quickly? This was going wrong far too fast.

"You think I took Umbrella Man's … Mycroft's … offer, and then lied to you. That he gave me that notebook to keep tabs on you. But it's not true," John said quickly, not liking the hint of betrayal in Sherlock's pale eyes.

Sherlock didn't look convinced.

"Look at it," John told him. "It's true that he gave me the notebook, but it's because I write. Or at least, I used to."

He watched Sherlock open the book, skimming over his no doubt pathetic attempts at prose as John told him the rest, trying not to blather. He told him how he'd been writing his whole life, constantly, but that he'd somehow lost the gift when he was shot. "I don't know why, but suddenly I couldn't put two words together. It … it was awful," he tried to explain. "Worse than the limp, worse than the tremor in my hand. It was like … I don't know. Like a musician who suddenly can't find an instrument, or an artist without paints. I'd spent my whole life channelling … everything … into words and suddenly, there was nothing."

The ice in Sherlock's expression had thawed now, but he still didn't say a word.

"I don't know how your brother found out. He had my therapist's notes—which I'm trying not to think about—but he didn't get it from her. She never knew about the writing. Your brother, though … somehow he knew, and somehow he saw that, tonight, I was starting to … to get some of that back. He handed me the notebook as I left and said 'welcome back,' I still don't know why. But, Sherlock, it was never because I agreed to spy on you. I didn't. I wouldn't."

Please let this work, he thought, all thoughts of fatigue gone. This was more important than being tired, and just like in the army when he'd had to work punishing shifts to save lives, he pushed his exhaustion back and just worked around it. He'd deal with that later.

Sherlock didn't say anything for a long moment, but just looked through the few pages John had written on. "Umbrella Man?" he finally said, a trace of amusement in his voice. "How enigmatic. And comparing the police lights to fairy lights, John? Isn't that rather mundane?"

John took a breath, relieved. "I did say I was out of practice. Bad though that is, it's the first unnecessary thing I've written in months, other than a blog post."

Sherlock lifted an eyebrow. "Blog post?"

Oh. John hadn't meant to point that out. "You didn't know? Yeah, I've got a blog. It's my therapist's idea. She thinks it will help me get over my PTSD."

"She thinks you have…? And she didn't even realize that you used to write? Get rid of her."

John just lifted an eyebrow. "Really? Why?"

"She's obviously useless. She couldn't even get rid of your psychosomatic limp."

John leaned back in his chair again and pried open the Chinese container as Sherlock started typing on his computer—looking for John's blog, no doubt. "That's what your brother said—just before he thoughtfully got rid of my hand tremor."

He grinned at the pout on Sherlock's face. Christ, these were two of the most competitive brothers he'd ever seen. "He did nothing for my limp, though. And he's not the one who got me writing again—however badly."

"True," Sherlock said, not glancing up from the screen. "This is bad."

"Out of practice, I told you," said John taking a bite of food with a sigh. "I used to be better?"

Sherlock peered over the laptop and lifted an eyebrow. "Good?"

"Very good," John told him firmly. "Had a couple stories published before medicine and the army took up all my time."

Sherlock's head was already bent to the computer screen again, and John wondered if those stories were out there on the internet somewhere. He had copies of the magazines … somewhere … but he hadn't read the stories in years. He wondered if they were as good as he remembered.

He heard Sherlock make a small noise of triumph and sighed. This could be … bad. He couldn't imagine that Sherlock was anything less than a stringent critic, and he wasn't sure he could bear hearing it right now. He wasn't the most thin-skinned writer in terms of critique and edits, but, well, he was still feeling … fragile … where writing was concerned. He could just feel the urge to write stirring and spreading tentative feelers, but he was convinced one, cold blast of disdain would kill it dead, and he wasn't sure he could survive that. Not again. Not so soon.

He absently ate the (really excellent) chow mein, thinking idly over his frankly unbelievable night. If he'd read it in a book, he wouldn't have believed it. Serial suicides. A murderous cabbie. A case hinging on a pink suitcase and a phone's GPS tracking password scratched into the floor. Why, he wondered, had she gouged the password, when any normal investigator would have stopped looking when he'd found her dead baby's name had been Rachel? Wouldn't "Mobile" or "Phone" have been a more logical clue? Wouldn't the police have been able to trace the phone, then, given due cause? What if she really had been thinking about her daughter, and Sherlock was just making it more complicated …though he'd been right.

No, an ordinary investigator wouldn't have figured this out, certainly not so quickly. He glanced sideways at Sherlock, engrossed with his reading. The man really was extraordinary, in the truest sense of the word—outside, beyond ordinary. How had he done it? How was it possible to observe and deduce so much from so little?

It was fascinating. Unbelievable and fascinating. No wonder the officers from NSY were sceptical—though Sherlock hadn't exactly tried to win any of them over with his charm.

His fork dropped into the container as he started toward the window. No wonder he kept thinking of Sherlock as a larger-than-life character from a book—he could be one, with his brains and his looks. Written well, he'd be a character for the ages, solving crimes that were unsolvable, not by intimidation or force, but by using his wits.

He thought about the constellation of great, fictional detectives—Miss Marple, Hercule Poirot, all the rest—and none of them compared to what he had witnessed tonight.

He found himself thinking about how he would shape the night's events, if he were writing them as a story. Sherlock's vibrant personality would certainly take over the story, he thought, not because he was bold so much as because he was complex. Childish and cynical and wise. Demanding. Generous. He thought about how the same man who'd mortified Sgt Donovan at the crime scene had smiled like a boy when Angelo showed up with John's no-longer-necessary cane. How the man so brilliant at deducing a crime scene had been foolish enough to get in the car with a killer—and had almost taken the damn pill.

No, it was the contradictions that made him a fascinating, great character …but not one that anyone would believe.

John himself, meanwhile, had not shown to great effect throughout the night at all. He had floundered along behind with a no doubt bewildered expression on his face the whole time. He'd just been swept along in Sherlock's wake. There solely to be a listening board for the necessary exposition of the case. Practically useless.

Well, it was better than being the comic relief, he supposed. That would be Anderson.

No, his own role, had this been a story, would have been as the blundering sidekick, too dumb to know what was going on. Morosely, he stared down at the container of food and forced himself to take another bite of the cooling mess.

"This," Sherlock said suddenly, not looking up from the computer screen, "This story is…"

"You don't have to say it, Sherlock," said John. "Trite. Amateurish. Banal. I'm sure it's not up to your standards."

There was a pause, then, "What happened to believing you're 'very good'?"

John just shook his head. "I obviously miss too much, don't spend enough time on detail… You don't have to tell me."

"I wasn't going to."

John looked over warily. "No?"

"No, in fact, while some of the observations may be trite, this is … good. You need not be ashamed of it."

John almost laughed. That might actually be high praise from Sherlock Holmes. "I'm not," he said. "I just …"

"You miss writing," said Sherlock, following his eyes to the blank book Mycroft had given earlier. "You've lost faith in your current skill, but until I started reading, you were confident in your earlier abilities. What changed? Ah, of course. You started thinking and second-guessing yourself."

Sherlock's head tipped to the side as he considered and now John stared firmly at the chow mein container, unwilling to look up. "You're thinking about the events of the last seven hours and feel … inferior? And are therefore translating that to your writing ability as well. But why?"

John's eyebrows lifted. "Why? I was useless tonight. All I did was trail around behind you asking stupid questions."

"And firing a very well-timed gun," Sherlock corrected.

"So I'm the brawn, then? Because if so, we're both in trouble."

"Not at all," Sherlock said, face serious as he studied John. "You held your own remarkably well tonight. Not many people do as well keeping up with me. And I don't mean physically. Your questions weren't stupid, but helpful."

John would have scoffed at the conceit of the statement, but couldn't argue with it. Sherlock was very definitely in a class of his own. "I'll blame the obsessive reading—I'm always looking for the juicy plot twist."

Sherlock just shook his head. "I shudder to think of the kind of books you read."

John just levelled his own look at him. "You'd probably be surprised. We're just lucky that I rely more on the library than on owning my own books, because we'd be seriously short on space. I'd get one of those e-readers if I could afford one, if only to make collecting books easier. But, like I said, I don't own as many as I'd like, the army made that tricky. But I read a lot."

He glanced over to see Sherlock watching him, looking almost confused. "I pictured you as a mystery thriller reader."

"Yeah, those, sure," John said with a nod. "Also medicine, history, classics, science fact, science fiction, literary fiction, popular, esoteric … I'll read almost anything. I might not have your impressive power of recall, but my tastes are wide-ranging. I used to wear out my library card every summer, and my mother finally put a limit on how many books I was allowed to own… But reading, well … I loved it, even if reading took second place to writing."

To his surprise, though, Sherlock looked interested. "So how did you end up in medicine? In the army?"

John scratched at his temple, trying to find the words. "I wanted to help people, and needed a career I could count on." He glanced down at his left hand and gave a short laugh. "Well, I thought I could. But writing? That was never going to be something I could rely on to put bread on the table. Besides, I enjoyed it too much. I didn't want to kill it by turning it into something I had to do."

He was relieved when Sherlock nodded at that, glancing over to a violin in the corner. "But you still filter events as if they were part of a story?"

"God, no," said John. "Regular life would be the most boring story in the world. Tonight, though? Now that was interesting. I kept thinking what a great story it would make, but unbelievable at the same time. You're … you're rather larger than life, Sherlock. Nobody'd believe it."

Sherlock had turned back to the laptop, but now he glanced over the top, looking at John from beneath his brows. "Isn't that one of the hallmarks of good fiction? It doesn't have to be believable, it just has to make its own internal sense. As long as the writer is good enough, it's the power of the story that moves things along."

That was true, thought John. Readers would buy convoluted plots and extreme, unbelievable events so long as they were introduced right. Look at some of the plots of that Victorian chap, Arthur Conan Doyle—he wrote as if fairies were real, for God's sake, but the fact that he was utterly convinced made his stories of them believable (well, almost). The entire genre of science fiction is founded on impossible events. And murder mysteries? Taken en masse they were utterly unbelievable. How many people would invite Miss Marple to dinner after the third or fourth murder happened in her vicinity?

The point wasn't for fiction to be believable, it was for it to be a good story—to take people out of themselves, to while away the time, or teach a lesson. He could turn tonight's adventure into a story and—unbelievable as it was—people wouldn't care how unlikely it was because it would be a cracking good story.

Fatigue forgotten, his fingers began to itch for a pencil again.

This story was going to be epic.

#

THE END