Three long years.
Sherlock closed his eyes against the torrent of images that constituted his last 1,097 days. Nasty weather, blood, racing pulses, cryptic texts, false smiles, fake ID's and running—so much running.
Dismantling a madman's criminal empire does not happen overnight. But Moriarty was dead, as were most of his associates, and those that weren't dead were imprisoned.
When Mycroft finally arrived at the safe house (tucked away in a discreet location in the Alps), he was practically salivating. With Moriarty defeated, there were fresh political opportunities ripe for the picking.
Sherlock could care less about political opportunities (or food metaphors, for that matter) and told his brother so, with no small amount of irritation. When Sherlock had seen the look of glee on Mycroft's face he knew his work was finally finished.
For the first time in years the Holmes brothers wore matching expressions of satisfaction.
Within a few phone calls, Sherlock had caught the last flight out of the country, the first train into London and finally (despite the ungodly early hour) secured a cab and directed himself to Baker Street.
Home.
Crossing the threshold of 221B felt like a triumphal entry—cleansing even. His racing mind was slowly calming and the liberation he felt at that was curious. New. He thought coming home would feel different, slightly oppressive after years on his feet—dashing from one lead to the next.
Sherlock had never thought he'd actually be content. What a strange concept…
221B had changed little in his absence. The clutter was still there, the exhaustive piles of files and even the skull remained dust-free on the mantel. Even after three years, his belongings remained at Baker Street. Mycroft's doing, of course.
He had taken possession of his favorite chair and was currently tapping an uneven staccato on the armrest.
John wasn't awake yet.
Sherlock stopped his drumming to impatiently check his watch…again.
John never sleeps in this late.
This was a frequent complaint of John's when he first moved in. When they were between cases and even with his hours at the clinic, he never slept past seven.
"Army thing," he explained once when Sherlock questioned his punctuality, "Can't seem to shake it, but it's certainly better than an alarm…or a screeching violin for that matter."
Sherlock had thrown the ever present Union Jack pillow at his head.
After hours of waiting, it was now half past eight and still no sign of John.
Stop—there. Sherlock jerked at the sound. A soft creak on the stair. His heart (entirely of its own accord) decided now was the time to run a marathon.
John was coming down.
Sherlock frowned even as his senses zeroed in on the sound of John's tread.
But he hasn't showered.
Another Army thing. John never came down for breakfast until he had at least brushed his teeth and combed his hair. Sherlock could count on one hand the number of times John took breakfast in his pajamas.
Sherlock's chest suddenly felt very tight and he leapt to his feet just as John crossed the doorway into the kitchen.
Sherlock couldn't help the sharp intake of breath when he laid eyes on his blogger.
Mycroft said he took it badly but this-
"John-" Sherlock suddenly choked on the words.
Upon hearing his name, John turned. His hollow eyes met Sherlock's.
The doctor's eyes were sunken and ill rested (insomnia), his face was unshaven (72 hours of stubble minimum) his jumper fit loosely about his frame (Mrs. Hudson's first Christmas present) and his face had aged a decade (haggard, no noticeable laugh lines).
John didn't look surprised to see him.
He stared at Sherlock curiously, lips pursed in concentration. A furrow appeared on his brow and he blinked a few times. Finally, with two fingers, he reached up to the hollow of his jaw.
Sherlock's eyes narrowed, Why in God's name is he checking his pulse at a time like this-
Oh.
John leveled his left hand in the open space between them and studied it carefully—it was steady.
"Ha!" he barked, startling Sherlock. "I've officially gone mad."
With that, John turned away to make his morning tea.
Sherlock blinked in surprise. Well that was unexpected…
"You're not mad John."
John faced him again. A gentle look of amusement was warring with his haggard features, "Ah, you can talk? Fancy that. And you're wrong there, actually, I'm quite mad. Why else would you be here?"
Sherlock stared at him, "You're serious? That's the best explanation you can come up with? Madness: the only logical reason for my presence. I know you struggle with deduction John but this is abysmal."
John leaned against the counter and crossed his arms, "Wow, I am rather clever. That bit with your voice? You sound just the same as you did the day you left."
Sherlock's face changed then and he suddenly found the new scuffs on the floorboards rather absorbing.
"I had to leave John," he explained quietly, "It was for the best—"
"Ha!" John crowed.
Startled, Sherlock looked up.
The doctor shook his head. "That's the sorriest excuse I have ever heard. But of course it is my imagination that's dreamed this up so that must be my fault."
Sherlock was gob smacked and suddenly very very angry. This was a problem he could never have foreseen.
"Damn it John! What the devil is wrong with you? I didn't fake my death and destroy Moriarty's work brick by brick just to have you stand there and tell me I'm a bloody ghost!"
John clicked his tongue and chuckled, "No, not a ghost Sherlock, a hallucination. Do your research."
John's mirth suddenly turned to ashes in his mouth. He turned away and rearranged the tea things, chasing them about the counter.
"Am I really so desperate?" he muttered, "What a sorry Sherlock Holmes you've dreamed up 'eh John?"
Sherlock crossed the sitting room into the kitchen.
"I'm not a dream John. It's Wednesday, you went out last night hoping to run into trouble. You haven't been drinking, you're still working at the clinic and filing your taxes. But you don't carry your gun anymore—you've been reckless. You don't lock your doors at night, hoping for a burglar?"
John chuckled and finished making his morning cuppa.
"Of course you'd know all that. You're Sherlock Holmes. You also live in my head so that's not exactly fair play."
Sherlock practically growled at him.
"The door was not locked when I came in at five this morning. Your shoes have a layer of grime and filth that can only be found at the wharf, a solid hour's walk from here. The ticket stub in your pocket for that ridiculous film last night told me your whereabouts and the ungodly hour of your trip. No cab receipt, no Oyster card, you walked. Your jacket has seen better days and should be replaced but you don't. Do you enjoy flirting with pneumonia?"
John responded with a crooked smile, "When there's nothing better to do…which is often."
"There's a thick layer of dust on the barrel of your gun where I found it in the drawer, just the barrel. You don't hold it very often but when you do it's just the grip. You only hold it. You don't clean it, why? You don't need to. You don't think you need the gun ready for action. Except the mag has one bullet. Just one. You hold it just long enough to talk yourself out of—"
Sherlock ran out of steam and stared at his friend. John stared levelly right back.
"Brilliant." John whispered.
Sherlock flinched.
It was nothing but a twisted parody of John's delighted praise.
"Clever Sherlock."
"Stop it." Sherlock snapped. "Moriarty is dead. I hunted down every last one of his contacts, conspirators and spies. I can't very well do that when I have a target painted on my back. No one could know. Mycroft was my only contact and even then only sparingly. I could not risk anything else."
I couldn't risk you.
John took a contemplative sip of his tea and nodded grimly.
"Do you know? That's the neatest theory I've heard. But you forget one thing…"
He set his tea aside and leveled his gaze at Sherlock, pinning him to the spot.
"Sherlock Holmes was the cleverest man I ever knew. He was bloody brilliant—a goddamn genius! He loved to blow up my phone with texts, harass me at all hours, and expected me to be at his beck and call. He would have told me. He would have left a note, a riddle, some bloody clue that I can mull over and try and decipher even if it took me the rest of my days!"
John was gaining momentum and Sherlock actually took at step back at the cold fury in his words.
"But no! He didn't. He did his half-cocked Sherlock Holmes disappearing act! He walked out three years ago and threw himself off a fucking roof!" John roared,
"You left me with NOTHING!"
John's eyes clouded and he couldn't take it anymore. He had to look away. Sherlock was too painful to look at.
Sherlock staggered. He felt like the floor had been ripped out from underneath him. His thoughts scattered like marbles.
Dear God, what have I done?
Sherlock knew himself to be an arrogant sod—but he never considered himself prone to fantasy.
In his arrogance he thought John would morn him and live his life anew. Changed by his adventures with the eccentric detective but better for it. He would go about his days, healing patients, watching crap telly and find his niche on the crowded streets of London…maybe get married. But every once in awhile something would jog a memory and John would smile at the woman on the street in the bright pink coat, or possibly eye the seedy looking cabbie with mistrust—he would certainly never be able to watch Hamlet the same way again.
Yes this life was a tidy, bright future for his flatmate and friend, but Sherlock had never considered the fact that it could be a fantasy. That John might never move on, never forget him and struggle with the herculean burden of his own grief every single day.
Sherlock had made a grievous miscalculation and John was suffering dearly for it.
As the façade of his friend's life came crashing down around him, Sherlock's thoughts compounded and raced like lightening—they were crashing into each other and spinning wildly out of control.
He had no clue, not starting point, no indication of what on earth he was going to do.
Sherlock did the first thing he could think of.
He crossed the space between them and grabbed John by his shoulders, tangling his fingers in John's jumper.
The man nearly leapt out of his skin. John's eyes flew open and he gaped open-mouthed at the sight before him.
"John," Sherlock demanded, "Damn it John do you believe me know? Can you touch a ghost? Can you feel a hallucination? Will you throw yourself in an asylum because your flat mate faked his death and wanted to come home?"
Sherlock shifted his hands to cradle John's head and stared earnestly into his eyes.
"Please John. You must believe me…"
And John did believe him. Which is why his first real response to his flat mate and friend's return from the dead was to promptly faint clean away.
He was only out for a few moments but to say John came up swinging would be an understatement.
When John finally came to he jumped to his feet like a cat and pounced on Sherlock.
"You selfish bastard!" he cried as his fist connected to Sherlock's solar plexus. Sherlock's breath left him but he did nothing to defend himself. He deserved every second.
Blow after blow rained down on Sherlock's yielding body and John gained strength with every passing moment. Yet John's mind was shrieking at him. Condemning Sherlock as a liar and begging John to protect himself in the only way he knew how.
But John knew better. He knew this was real. He could hear Sherlock struggle for breath, touch Sherlock's frantic pulse and feel Sherlock, so innately and completely alive under his hands.
That's one reason John couldn't stop touching him—well, hitting him really.
The other was that he was spitting, livid furious.
"How dare you?"
He violently shoved Sherlock into the sitting room, Sherlock nearly overturned a chair in the effort to remain standing.
"For about seven seconds each morning for the past three years I think that you're alive."
John slammed his shoulder into Sherlock's chest and sent him crashing to the floor. He didn't spare a moment before roughly hauling Sherlock upright.
"Then I lay there for the remaining hour to try and summon the energy to drag myself out of bed."
John swept Sherlock's legs out from under him and the detective stumbled into the couch. Sherlock struggled to his feet and John was waiting for him.
They faced off, lungs heaving, eyes more alive than they had been in a thousand days.
"Damn you Sherlock Holmes…" John cursed, "Why?-Why would you do this?"
Sherlock's answer, struggling for purchase, barely made it across the brief space between them.
"I would never have forgiven myself if anything happened to you."
That was apparently the wrong thing to say.
John's eyes went dark and he grabbed Sherlock by the collar before slamming him into the floorboards and pinning him there.
"Well, something did happen Sherlock, to you. Where does that leave me detective? How could I not damn myself every day since I buried you?"
John's indictment fell on Sherlock like the brutal bite of a whip.
Sherlock's mind raced back three years in time. To the moment he had made his decision to 'die'.
Sherlock's reason had told him to leave his friend, keep him safe and out of the line of fire. He never thought John could blame himself—that guilt would eat away at him like rust.
I always manage to misjudge you, John Watson. And for that alone I should be damned.
"John…" Words usually came so easily, so effortlessly. Why was it such a struggle now? "John, I—I'm so sorry."
John's unforgiving grip went slack against his arms. Sherlock didn't move, he waited for another blow. When none came he craned his neck for a clearer view of John's face.
His face was bowed, hidden from view and his body shook violently. Wasting no time, Sherlock quickly twisted out of the soldier's grip and seized John by his shoulders.
"John, John! What's happened? Tell me! Please—"
His plan had been to protect John but it was (Damn it, yes it must be said—) his insecurities that told him John would move on. Could move on. The depth of John's grief and completely righteous anger threw him, and Sherlock had no idea what to expect…
When John lifted his gaze to meet the detective's, Sherlock's brow furrowed.
John was smiling? Correction—giggling. A hysterical fit of laughter at the onslaught of too many emotions battling for dominance.
Sherlock relaxed a fraction. "What?...what on earth are you laughing at?"
John's laughter was suddenly audible and mildly hysterical in its intensity.
John snorted and attempted to speak, "Sherlock Holmes actually shows' up for breakfast—and I'm ready to check into a madhouse!"
Sherlock's mouth quirked. His lips were hesitant, slowly stretching and coaxing atrophied muscles into motion. Finally his mouth cracked wide open into a brilliant smile that hadn't been seen for a very…very long time.
Wheezing, John reached out and grasped Sherlock's shoulder, "Sherlock?"
"Yes, John?"
"Don't you dare…ever do that again."
Sherlock's mirth faded, and they stared seriously at each other for a long moment.
"That I can definitely promise you."