A/N: The epilogue to the Resuscitation Series which began with It was Greg. Previous instalments and reading order are accessible through my profile.
John insisted that a further two months elapse between arriving home from the hospital and going out on cases. Sherlock protested and pleaded, but John stood firm on that ruling. For the best too, because while Sherlock was far from being an invalid by the end of that time, he was still easily exhausted, the effort of recovery being more strenuous than he himself imagined.
However, Sherlock was far from bored in that time. A steady stream of visitors as well as his own tiredness kept him occupied throughout those two months. His parents, for one, kept checking in to see how he was. His mother took it upon herself - joined by Mrs Hudson - to keep him and John fed, stocking the 221b fridge to the point where it was almost overflowing with meals that the two of them had prepared – but only doing this after a careful session of disinfection because who know what horrors that boy may have been keeping in it? (John quietly pawned some of this food off on various guests, though he ensured Sherlock ate as much of it as he could.) Mister Holmes took a different approach to helping the boys of 221b. He may not be as brilliant as his wife, but he is far from slow, and so he meticulously sourced books which he felt Sherlock would be interested in, ranging from music analytics to the latest editions on forensic science. (Quite a lot of it was comprised of things that Sherlock already knew, but on this occasion he had the good sense to stay quiet.) They only returned home two weeks after Sherlock's release. Even then his mother called every day to see how he was feeling. More than once Sherlock let John take the call, feigning sleep. (John saw through this, of course, but let him have his little ruse. More often than not he ended up actually falling asleep anyway.)
The Holmes parents, however, were by no means the only guests that John and Sherlock had in those two weeks. Greg stopped by as often as he could, bringing news of cases which he censored so that they sounded reasonably dull. Sherlock was pleased to get to make a few deductions and get to hear about these cases, though it did make him chafe at how little he was allowed to do.
Greg, for his part, was happy just to see Sherlock alive and getting better, however slow it may be. Even with more than a month having passed, the memory of Sherlock lying there bleeding still came back to him at times, so that he'd have to take a moment to clear his head. (When he got home from the hospital that day, after Sherlock's surgery, he burned the clothes he was wearing. With a good dry cleaning, they could have been salvaged but in that night that didn't matter. It was more important to try to get rid of the memory.)
For Sally Donovan, it wasn't the memory of Sherlock bleeding that stayed with her, though that certainly did too. Rather, the dreams that made her wake sweating with a racing heart were the ones that showed her the paramedics, working over his limp body. Tearing open his shirt to apply the AED pads, intubating him and running fluids through lines into his veins wherever they could find them. After waking from those dreams, all she could do was make tea and settle in on the couch with whatever happened to be on television at that hour, driving the memories away.
It was her who chose the cold case files to give to Sherlock for his convalescence. She chose them and brought them over, and had tea pushed on her by John and was hugged by a Sherlock who was so pleased to be given something to do that he didn't mind the pain it induced to do so. And by the end of that first visit, they'd worked themselves some way towards becoming friends.
There were other visitors too, at different times. Anderson, now quietly employed by Mycroft, dropped by on more than one occasion under the guise of looking for advice with his new work. And Molly - having banned Sherlock from the morgue and its labs until John said he could visit - brought photos of autopsies and interesting things that she came across.
Mycroft didn't visit 221b as often as some, but he popped into 221a often enough that Mrs Hudson had enough of him. She met him at the door on one occasion - about a month after Sherlock came home - and twisted his arm behind his back, pushing him up the stairs.
"If you want to know how your brother is, you're going to see him in person."
Mycroft could see that there was no point in arguing with her, so he took it meekly. Sherlock, as it happened, was sitting at the kitchen table studying case files.
"There are marked similarities between the Cooney case and the Roche case," Sherlock murmured as they walked in. "Perhaps you could get someone to look into it." He looked up at Mycroft and smiled slightly.
Mycroft smiled back, a slight twitch of his lips. "Of course. Anything else?"
"Not that's occurring to me just yet. I'll let you know if there is."
"I'll bring you some biscuits and tea," Mrs Hudson grinned to herself and left them to themselves.
All in all, everyone pitched in, in whatever way they could, to make the two months as easy as possible.
The first case - proper case, with legwork - that John allows Sherlock to take is a murder. He's still tired, still sore if he moves in particular ways, but he is well, and those little things are to be expected anyway. It's a relief, really, that he's up to taking a case.
The case is simple enough, really, and John knows that Sherlock was only called in for the sake of it, to give him something to do. He rather suspects that Sherlock knows that too, but he doesn't mention it.
Sherlock, for his part, doesn't particularly care that it's so easy. It's oddly satisfying simply to be back, though he passes a few snide remarks anyway for old time's sake and to keep up appearances. Donovan smiles to herself when he tells her how foolish she is not to have noticed the ear rings. For the first time in an awfully long time, she thinks that things are going to be all right after all.
And it feels marvellous.