After the fall Sherlock somehow stumbled back to Molly's house, knowing that she would be expecting him. He was bloodied, empty and broken-hearted, no doubt much like a certain army doctor.

John

The most difficult part hadn't been falling. The most difficult part hadn't been saying goodbye. The most difficult part had been trying to convince John that he was a fake, because no matter what he said his friend's confidence in him didn't waver.

Nobody could be that clever.

You could.

Molly had tried everything to get him to talk but it was pointless. Sherlock had been sitting on the sofa for the past two days, had barely moved and hadn't eaten or slept at all. Every time he closed his eyes all he could see was John, standing and looking on from afar, so small from that rooftop, but so big in his heart.

All he wanted to do was to run over to Baker Street, to throw himself at John's feet and apologise, beg for his forgiveness, plead for him to take him back.

Please, John. Forgive me. I didn't know what I was doing. I can't do this without you. Please.

But he knew he couldn't go back. To go back would mean to let John be killed, and he couldn't have that. If John died Sherlock would die along with him, there was no question about it. After all, the body cannot live without the soul, and what was John but Sherlock's soul? The one who made him care, the one who made him feel, the one who made him love.

Sherlock had never been sentimental; he'd learned at a young age that it didn't do him any favours to show feeling- it constituted weakness in the Holmes household.

All lives end. All hearts are broken. Caring is not an advantage, Sherlock.

He loathed to admit it, but this time he had to agree with Mycroft. Damn John Watson for all his brilliance and his kindness and his loyalty. What Sherlock felt for John he'd never felt for anyone else, because no one else had ever allowed him to be himself. Everyone else had always complained about his personality, or his attitude, or his deductions, but not John.

Once upon a time Sherlock had been able to let Mycroft see another side of him. When they were young and no one else paid attention to him and Mycroft would come home and they would deduce everything they could, anyone they could find, so that Sherlock didn't get bored. School had never been enough to stimulate him, and Mycroft had taken to helping his brother whenever he could.

And that was exactly what Sherlock needed right now; he needed his brother.

On day four Sherlock quietly thanked Molly for her help- the only words he had uttered during his stay- and left her house under the cover of the night. He made his way to Mycroft's house and, going in through the back door, found his brother sitting on the sofa. He was still dressed in his suit, but it didn't have its usual neatness. It was rumpled and loose, the man himself was dishevelled, hair sticking up in all different directions, leg shaking, fist closed around a pillow which he had placed on his lap.

Sherlock walked in, making himself visible for the first time. His brother's eyes sprang up at the subtle noise of Sherlock's step on the creaky wooden floor and he simply stood there, completely frozen. A single word left Mycroft's mouth in a quiet whisper.

"Sherlock…"

But Sherlock couldn't talk, he couldn't say anything. What was there to say anyway?

I'm sorry.

I'm here.

I need you.

At the sight of his brother Sherlock started to feel his eyes watering. He had cried more in the last four days then he had in his entire adult life, and who did he have to blame?

Himself. No one but himself. Or least that's how he saw it.

The tears blurred his vision, his bottom lip started trembling and he could no longer keep himself from shaking. All of a sudden he felt his legs give way, weakness and exhaustion and sorrow all getting the better of him. He expected to collapse onto the floor, as he had so many times before when he couldn't manage to get to bed before his body gave up trying to keep him awake, but instead he felt strong arms wrapped around him.

"Mycroft…"

"I'm here, Sherlock. I'm here. I'm right here."

Somehow, Mycroft managed to get him upright and move him over to the couch where he promptly collapsed in a tangle of limbs; he couldn't control his body anymore. What little self-control he'd had left, over his body and his emotions, had shattered at the sight of his brother.

"I left him, Mycroft. I left him. I'm never going to see him again." I need him.

"Shh, it's okay, Sherlock. You're okay. We're going to work this all out, little brother. Sleep now."

And somehow he did. Wrapped around his brother's arms, his head lying on his chest while his hand ran through his curls Sherlock Holmes slept for the first time in a long time.

He had hoped to be tired enough that he would be able to sleep. He had hoped to be tired enough to keep the nightmares away. He'd been mistaken.

There's no stopping them now.

Your only three friends in the world will die…

I told you how this ends.

Sherlock sat up gasping, heart beating frantically, and sweat covering his face. He could feel himself shaking, and he could hear a voice in the distance, but it sounded so far away.

He squeezed his eyes tightly and tried to get his breathing under control before trying to decipher what the voice was saying and who it belonged to. After a while only his hands were shaking and his breathing had returned to normal. He finally opened his eyes and looked up to see Mycroft's worried gaze- more than worried, scared. It was a few seconds later that he realised Mycroft had been the one talking.

"Sherlock, can you hear me?"

He blinked a few times and tried clearing his throat before talking, nevertheless he sounded croaky when he did. "Yes, of course I can hear you."

"What were you dreaming about?"

No! He wasn't ready to face that yet. He wasn't ready to face the consequences of what he'd done or the man that had made him take the actions that would result so catastrophically. So instead of trying to deny anything, knowing that Mycroft would see right through it, he decided instead to stay quiet.

"Very well. What do you need, Sherlock? What can I do for you?"

What do I need? What do I need? John. I need John. I need him but I can't have him without risking his life, and I can't be selfish. I need John. John. John!

"I need to go after them."

"After who?"

"Moriarty's men. They're after John, Mrs Hudson and Lestrade, I need to stop them."

He got up but only took two steps before he collapsed back onto the sofa. Clearly he was in no state to be going anywhere.

"You need to eat, Sherlock. You need to eat and sleep before you even think of going anywhere. When you're well enough, I will help you. I promise you, brother, I will take you home again."

And with that promise he slept. For the next couple of days he slept and ate whenever his brother told him to, all the while begging Mycroft to start making preparations so that he could go after those men and put an end to all this.

When he was deemed well enough, and everything was ready, he set out on his mission, determined to be quick and efficient, and return home as soon possible.

But things hadn't quite gone according to plan.

Being away from everyone was more difficult than he could have imagined. He was homesick. He missed John and 221B and the Union Jack pillow and arguing about the body parts in the fridge and John's typing and John and John and John…

That night he ran out into the night looking for anything to quieten his mind. He started out as he had years ago. Just one time. Just one time to make it better.

First it was the nicotine patches again, then the cigarettes, then the cocaine.

He still kept in touch with Mycroft, if only just so that he knew where to go next, and he could tell that his brother was getting increasingly worried.

"Sherlock, please stop this. You know he wouldn't want you to do this, you're destroying yourself."

"He doesn't know I'm alive, he's not going to care."

"Of course he cares. And even if he didn't, what about me?"

He didn't want to believe it though, because that meant he was hurting the people he had run away to protect. So he did what he could to keep himself alive, though more than once he had really thought that maybe that was the end of it. A knock to the head, a well-placed bullet, a 7% solution.

In the end Mycroft had saved him. A particularly bad day after a particularly bad fight- thankfully the last one before he could go home- and weeks of not returning his brothers calls had resulted in Mycroft meeting up with Sherlock in person for the first since his brother had come to him a year and a half ago.

He had never seen Sherlock like this. He was skinny, his skin was pale and stretched tight over his bones, his hands were shaking, there were track marks all over his arms and tear tracks all over his face, his clothes were ratty and old and worst of all he had a vacant look in his eyes. He was completely broken.

So Mycroft walked over to his brother and carefully picked him up and, holding on to his fragile frame, he walked him back to the car that was waiting outside. Sherlock held on to him with strength that Mycroft didn't even realise his brother's body could still have. He was holding on as though to keep himself from falling apart.

"I'm taking you home, little brother. I'll take you back to him."

Sherlock's return to normal was difficult. He couldn't keep the food down, he couldn't keep the nightmares away and the withdrawal was worse than anything. So he retreated to his mind palace, organising everything again and storing away information about everything that had happened in the past two years. As his condition slowly improved and he managed to stay coherent for longer periods of time he started spending most of his time I the room he had especially designed for John. All their memories, all the moments and conversations, all the actions and the world's left unspoken crossed his mind, his visits becoming more and more frequent as he became more aware of how close he was to going back to John.

And so the food and the sleep slowly brought Sherlock back from the despair he had been drowning in and Mycroft started seeing more and more of his brother's traits returning. His impatience, his sarcasm, his curiosity, and he allowed himself to hope that everything was going to be okay after all, that Sherlock had made it through in one piece.

So one day when Sherlock was finally back to normal- or as normal as he'd ever been- Mycroft gave him a new phone, the start of Sherlock's return to his previous life. The first thing Sherlock did when he got it was to save the number that he had longed to text all this time. He hadn't spoken to or seen John in two years but now finally, finally, he could go back. He could go back home again.

I'm not dead. Let's have dinner. SH