It was Sunday.

Sherlock Holmes looked forward to Sundays. It was his favorite day of the week. Well, in addition to a few allotted hours on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday. Oh – and most of Thursday afternoon. Provided he was in town, of course.

It was the day he got to see John.

The time had long passed since he bothered trying to rationalize away the need to follow his former flatmate. It was something he simply did; it was a compulsion that must be followed at all costs. It rode him like some a disease. Too long without checking on his friend, without seeing his face as he turned it away from the rain, without seeing his familiar figure move from work to home to work again – and everything in between – well, too long without those things made Sherlock physically ill.

In the beginning he had observed John daily. Hourly. All but constantly. He had expected, correctly, that his friend would not handle his "death" well. He had set aside a significant amount of time to follow John around and make sure that the man was getting at least passable care from the others: comfort, food, water, at least the admonition to rest. Sherlock knew better than to expect John to sleep. He had not slept well even when Sherlock had been officially alive. Sherlock had never been much for sleeping but the prospect of a flatmate who did sleep and expected quiet in the deep hours of the night had momentarily alarmed the detective; alarmed him that is until the first time John had a nightmare.

That is when Sherlock had resumed practicing his violin at convenient odd hours in the morning.

At any rate when that time, a generous amount Sherlock had thought, was up he expected that John would be well on his way to putting his life back together, building something newer, something better. Something that didn't involve chasing murders through the streets of London and having bombs strapped to his chests by criminal masterminds. The doctor may have thrived on the danger but there was such a thing as too much, or so Sherlock told himself.

Sherlock found his fist unconsciously clenching as the memory of John, with that bomb strapped to his chest, rose in his mind. With a deep breath, carefully exhaled, he banished it. He refused to dwell on it. John was safe. Sherlock had seen to that. He had beaten Moriarty at his own bloody game. The man was dead and Sherlock, supposedly, gone with him. Oh, John still helped out Lestrade every now and then but overall… overall his army doctor was disgustingly safe.

Except… except John had not moved on. He had failed to pull himself up and put his life together. He was the pre-Baker Street John: a beaten, weary man with scarcely a spark flickering inside him; naught but a brief flame wavering on the edge of utter extinction.

No, Sherlock admitted privately, he is worse.

He was not entirely sure why the compulsion to follow John existed; or rather he had yet to discover the most pressing reason for it. Was it to watch over John? Certainly. Initially. Was it some piss poor, invisible effort at apology; at redemption? Possibly. Probably. Was it a punishment? To himself? Most definitely.

So he still followed John.

Not all day, every day but most days. At least for a little bit. Just enough to make sure that the good doctor made it back to 221B safely. Unless he was so involved with a case that he completely forgot, which had happened on several occasions. Once, notably, he had gone seven weeks without following John. By the time he had returned to London after carefully unraveling a few threads in Moriarty's web he had been weak, sick, and shaking so badly it was like going through withdrawals all over again. Of course if he was having a rough go at it – and this was one of those things that he scarcely admitted to himself, even in his own head – he found that watching John sometimes helped him think.

But not Sundays.

Sundays were sacred to Sherlock. No matter how compelling the trail might me, how stiff the scent in his nose, if he was anywhere in England he managed to tear himself away. Sundays were for him. On Sundays he followed John.

In the dark of the night, in those brief moments of twilight before he slipped into a few hours of sleep, when not even his own mind was paying all that much attention Sherlock could admit to himself that he had found something, someone, more important to him than his work.

Stop being soooo SILLY Sherrrlock! Moriarty's voice giggled in his head. You JUUUHMPED off of a buildING for him!

Sherlock shifted deeper into the curve of the building from where he was keeping an eye on the door of 221B and tried to ignore the voice in his head. A light shiver, likely caused more by the hysterical round of giggles that his meager attempts elicited than by the stiff breeze that twisted down the street, made him turn up his coat collar. He spared the sky a glance and pursed his lips in a flash of annoyance. Since he had left his flat it had clouded over: great black clouds filled the sky, covering the earth in a stifling blanket. His nostril twitched and his grimace deepened. Rain. It was coming. Not unexpected, given that he lived in London and it was springtime, but he had been in a hurry this morning and had left his scarf in his flat. Sherlock Holmes hated having a cold neck.

MORiaRTY saaaat on a WALL! Sherrrlock HOLMES haad a great FALL!

Sherlock ground his teeth together and tried to focus on the door across the street. If John kept up his usual schedule (likely) he would be out shortly.

Annnnd all LEHstrade's HORses aaaannnd ALL Mycroft's men, sang Moriarty as he skipped in gleeful circles 'round and 'round in Sherlock's head.

"Shut UP!" Sherlock hissed. It was scarcely a parting of lips, a bare movement of air but the flexing of his vocal chords let him know that that he had, in fact, spoken out loud. He clamped his lips together and felt his face shift into an unmistakable glare.

Movement in front of 221B saved him from further entangling himself in a furious mental confrontation with the ghost of a mind nearly as brilliant as his own. Sherlock felt every fiber of his being snap to immediate attention as John Watson stepped out onto the street. He barely caught himself as his body surged in an unconscious step forward. This was likely the closest, and the best, view Sherlock would have of him until he visited the cemetery. He always did on Sundays. But even then, though closer, his view would be somewhat obstructed by the trees and carefully pruned shrubbery he was forced stand behind.

Clothes loose. Head down. Stumbles on steps. Cane. Skin pale. Hands shaking. Hair unruly. Limp. Moves slowly. Shadows under eyes. Hollowed cheeks. Clothing: clean, but beginning to look tattered.

Not good John. Bit not good, Sherlock thought, seeing his friend. He still wasn't eating. They hadn't even gotten to John's usual late lunch with Sarah and already Sherlock could tell that he wasn't eating. Again. Not that he had eaten much since the Fall, but this… no, if asked right now John probably didn't even remember the last thing he ate or when he had eaten it. Damn it, he swore. The doctor was down at least two stone and five and it was showing. John was of a shorter, stockier build and the loss of that much mass made him look sickly and weak. If he was being honest, John looked like a man halfway to death. The limp, the pale skin, the dull eyes, the way his cheeks had sunken in – none of it did anything to dissuade Sherlock otherwise.

He had taken a suicidal leap to save this man's life and instead of living John was, in fact, dying.

Sherlock felt all the blood leave his face as that inevitable deduction crossed his mind.

Something unpleasant burned in his throat and he swallowed convulsively, vainly trying to regain his ability to breathe. He tried for anger, reached for it. How dare John Watson throw his life away? How dare he squander the gift that Sherlock had bought him at the expense of his own life?

He couldn't quite grasp it though. No matter how hard he reached the searing, white hot flame was perpetually just out of his grasp. Instead he was left feeling rather like someone had broken something in his chest. He did not understand it, not quite. He remembered all too well, however, what it had felt like to see John with that bomb strapped to his chest; to see him held at gunpoint and to know that somewhere out there was an assassin with instructions to put a bullet in John's head. These memories provoked a wellspring of emotions that he had not experienced before and as thus had been catalogued and stored most carefully. Honestly, he did not think he could delete them even if he tried and he was not entirely sure why that was.

Oh, he had an inkling of course: a faint half formed deduction buzzing around his head like a mad little fly - inescapable and bloody impossible to catch, but…

For the first time Sherlock thought, really thought. He had taken a leap from the rooftop of Bart's because the idea of John being killed was simply unacceptable. It was an impossibility in the world of Sherlock. It was something that Sherlock would prevent at all costs. But what… what would he have done if it had been him on the street watching John Watson leap from the top of the building? How would his life have unfolded if it had been him sprinting across the street to where John lay, oozing blood and apparently very, very dead? What if he had been the one looking down as they turned the body over, John's blue eyes staring blank and unseeing up at him?

Sherlock, having begun moving slowly down the street halted suddenly as his mind played those thoughts back at him as brilliant high def images. His entire body broke out in a cold sweat so thick that he could feel it instantly beginning to pool between his shoulder blades and trickle down the suddenly cold skin of his back. His stomach heaved and it was only through careful, controlled breathing that he managed to keep himself from turning and being violently ill into a nearby planter of newly potted petunias.

Christ, he swore to himself as he watched John limp slowly down the street over the bloodless white ridge of his knuckles, both suddenly weakened and stunned by force of his body's reaction. Jesus fucking Christ. The words exploded in his mind with a staggering vehemence and they surprised him. He took half a second to catalog his reaction, storing it away to muse over later when his mind was not quite so occupied. It would end up being just another puzzle piece whirring around in his head, another piece that he couldn't quite make fit and would frustrate him an inordinate amount, but it was information all the same. Eventually, he would have enough information to put the puzzle together.

ORRdiNAAAry! That damned voice sang.

Sherlock forced himself upright but kept his clenched fist pressed against his mouth, the pressure against his lips another soldier in the battle of forcing the sudden rise of bile back down his throat. A couple coming out of the shop gave him funny looks as they passed, taking a wide detour around his figure. He dully supposed it was because he must look exactly how he felt: like a man trying desperately not to lose his breakfast all over his shoes.

Moriarty smirked knowingly and finished his disgustingly clever little chant: Couldn't put John TOgether AGAIN!

For once Sherlock found no desire to quiet the hysterical voice that danced and smirked its way around the inside of his skull. No, he realized sadly, Moriarty is all too correct.

"Oh John," he whispered, unable to keep a small thread of panic from his voice, "What am I to do about you?"