Those few moments after that were a bit of a blur, if he was being honest. Somepne breathed, 'Jesus Christ,' and he realised it was him, and he felt himself being guided to a chair and then Evie was kneeling next to him, concern written across her face. She cast a look at Sherlock (sherlock sherlock sherlock sherlock) and her tender expression turned into a scowl.

'Jesus fucking Christ,' John repeated. 'This is it. I've gone mad. I'm hallucinating.'

'I can assure you,' Sherlock said, stepping toward John, but Evie's murderous look prevented him from coming closer, 'That I am here, and I am alive.'

'You're not crazy,' Evie murmured. 'He's here.'

'Right, yeah, okay,' John nodded, then launched himself at the taller man. Both men fell to the ground in a mess of limbs, John getting his arms around Sherlock's neck. The consulting detective didn't seem to be fighting back, but still he tugged at John's arm, trying to get a breath in.

'John,' he wheezed, 'while I understand that you have every right to be mad, I feel it's important to remember that there is a sniper ready to-'

'SIXTEEN MONTHS,' John bellowed. Sherlock wormed free, and John grabbed his shoulder, turning him around and swinging his fist at the other man's face. Sherlock reeled from the hit, and John lifted his fist to strike again, but didn't follow through with the motion – his tightly clenched fist wavered in the air. He was shaking.

'Hey,' Evie said, scrambling across the flat, and grabbing Johns arm, trying to pull him away. 'Come on, John. That's enough.'

John dropped Sherlock, and shook off Evie. He paced the flat angrily, wiping his hands across his face and muttering to himself. Both his friends watched on.

Eventually, he stopped. He jabbed his finger at Sherlock. 'You were dead,' he said, voice strangled as though he were the one that was choked and not vice versa. 'I saw you. You were – on the ground, you were on the ground -' he stopped talking, pointed finger turning into a fist. 'How,' he demanded.

'Molly-'

'So Molly knew?' John cried. 'Molly got to know that you were alive, but I couldn't?'

'She-'

'Who else knew? Lestrade? Mycroft?'

'Mycroft suspected.' He cast his gaze toward Evie, and she wanted to shrink away. 'As did Miss Blackwood here.'

John turned to her, his expression incredulous.

'Evie?'

She shot a filthy look toward Holmes, then returned her attention to John. 'Mycroft shared his... suspicions with me,' she explained.

'And you didn't tell me?'

'I couldn't!' She reached out to touch him but he took a step back. 'At the time, Mycroft had absolutely no proof. He wasn't sure, himself, if Sherlock was alive or not. It was just blind hope! He left it up to me, whether or not to tell you and-'

'And you didn't,' John finished, disbelief and betrayal evident in his eyes. 'You found out my best friend might be alive and you didn't tell me.'

'But what if Mycroft had been wrong, John?' She pled. 'You were happy! I didn't – You were,' she faltered, then powered through. 'I couldn't let you throw away everything you'd worked so hard for on the off chance that Sherlock was alive!'

'THAT WASN'T YOUR DECISION TO MAKE!' John roared. Evie recoiled.

'Please,' she said, voice shaking but trying to sound soothing, 'I was just trying to do what I thought was best-'

'Nobody asked you to,' he snarled. The doctor turned his back on them, heading toward the door without looking back.

'John - ' Sherlock called after him, ready to pursue him to the front door at least, but a small hand on his elbow stopped him. Evie flinched at the slamming of the door, her expression very, very sad.

'Just give him time,' she said, voice small. 'He'll come back when he's had time to think.' She disappeared into the kitchen, and he sat.

'I don't understand,' he muttered to himself, hunching over, and resting his chin on his steepled hands. He didn't intend for Evie to hear, but she caught his words as she reentered the room.

'He doesn't, either,' she responded. She had an ice bag in her hand. She offered it to him, but he made no move to take it. Sighing, she sat next to him and pressed the ice gently against his already swelling eye. He didn't move away – he didn't acknowledge her at all.

'Why'd you do it?' She asked.

'I fail to see how that concerns you,' he drawled. Her grip on the bag tightened and she removed it from his face.

'Of course it concerns me,' she argued. 'John's my friend.'

She could practically feel the irritation radiating off him. He tilted his head toward her, eyes flashing.

'I want to know why you did it,' she insisted, anger building. The ice pack landed with a thunk on the coffee table. 'I need to know.'

'Why?'

'Because I need to know why you would put your best friend through sixteen months of hell!'

'It's none of your business,' he moved away from the lounge, and Evie followed.

'It is my business!' She fumed. 'You made it my business when you decided to pretend to kill yourself! You made it my business when you left him for dead!' The way his eyes hardened and his muscles tensed told her she'd stepped on a nerve, but instead of treading cautiously as she should have, she kept going. 'You weren't there,' she had to refrain from screaming. 'You weren't there to see how much it killed John, knowing that his best friend was dead, and knowing that he couldn't do a Goddamn thing about it. You weren't there to watch him sink further and further into depression, you weren't there to see how scared and sad and lonely he was! I was. I was the one who picked him up, I was the one who put him back together, after you broke him!'

'Ah.' His icy eyes appraised her, looking her up and down. She hadn't thought it possible to hate someone you had only just met, but Sherlock seemed to have achieved it toward her. 'This is about your brother.'

'What? How did you - '

'Know about your brother, who killed himself after almost destroying your father's business? Simple, really, but let's not get into that. You need to know, as you said, why I faked my suicide, because you are trying to understand why your own brother would kill himself and leave you – how did you put it? Scared, sad and lonely.' She gaped at him as he spat out acidic words. 'Now, do us both a favour and stop projecting your pathetic misplaced anger onto me. The situations are incomparable – your brother killed himself because he was weak, and I "killed" myself because it was the only way to keep John alive!'

The words hung in the air between them. She took in a deep breath. Clenched her fist. Narrowed her eyes.

'Get out.'

He blinked.

'Get out,' she snarled.

'You do understand that there is a murderer waiting to kill me out there?'

'Go upstairs!'

'John left the curtains open.'

'I don't care.' He opened his mouth, but she didn't give him the chance. 'I don't care. Get out of my flat.'

His demeanour was unbelievably cold as he swept past her. She listened closely, but didn't hear the second opening and closing of a door and gathered that he was hiding in the hallway. Shaking with anger and blinking away tears, she tried to make herself some tea, but after first spilling the water across the counter and then discovering she was out of bags, she hurled her mug against the floor. It shattered into a hundred tiny porcelain fragments.

Swearing up a storm, she fetched a broom and swept it up.

It isn't the reunion Sherlock imagined.

But welcome to the sequel.

Thank you for reading.

-J