Note: Don't know where this came from – I wrote it in one sitting, with little editing. Enjoy! All characters property of ACD and Gatiss, Moffat & Thompson.

He has returned as last, to all the places familiar to him long ago. He has shown himself to those to whom he used to be important:

Mrs. Hudson (who hugged and cried and tried to feed him)

to Molly (who had given up almost all hope)

to Lestrade (who had also hugged, and wept a bit, although Sherlock had learnt enough by now to pretend not to see)

to Mycroft (a courtesy call only, of course, as he had known everything all along).

He was asked all the same questions: "How?" "Why?" "Where?" He gave all the same answers, subtly edited to suit the questioner.

Then his questions – much the same, really – "How have you been?" "What has happened with you since I've been gone?" And much the same answers, and much the same surprise that he would care.

But it's been three years. Three wretched, miserable and (yes, he will admit it now) lonely years.

Three years of using whatever memories he had not deleted to get himself through the wretchedness and misery. Three years of clinging to those memories, sometimes by only an act of will, when all the false names and fraudulent faces threated to destroy his very self. Three years of remembering how those others saw him, using the goodness they saw in him to keep himself from succumbing to the evil he was fighting. It would have been oh, too easy.

And three years of fighting through the long nights, to break down all the defenses, to steel himself to risk, to force himself to accept the truth, that he deserved their love.

He was no longer the man they had once knew.

But with each encounter, he found what he had only dared to hope – that they forgave him, they still loved him, and they were willing to accept the man he had become.

Yet always, always, when all the other questions had been asked and answered, the most important one of all:

"So – how is John?"

And the answer was always the one he'd both dreamed of and dreaded:

"He's moved on."

Tales of john's grief (through which there was the echo of a memory: "one more miracle, Sherlock – for me?") tales of his drinking, his therapy, of meeting a woman.

"She's so good for him, Sherlock."

"She really loves him, and he really loves her."

"He has a purpose with her, without all the craziness and running around and – oh. Sorry, mate."

Sherlock had simply nodded. He had always known he was not good for John.

"I understand, Sherlock, that they are discussing children."

(Ah. The one thing, no matter the man he became, that he could never give John. )

So now he has seen them all, spoken, reassured, been welcomed. All but the last, most difficult, most painful.

He has procrastinated long enough.

He could not bear to confront John in their old – yes, say it, damn you, "home" – but Mycroft knew where John had taken Mary for dinner. Of course, Mycroft would.

"He has recently purchased a ring, Sherlock. This is not their usual dining place. You are capable of drawing the correct conclusion."

Sherlock would have waited, he truly would have, but everyone said the same thing:

"You haven't seen John?"

"You came here first?"

"You gotta tell John. ASAP. If he sees me before you do, I don't know that I can – "

So here was Sherlock, at the Criterion.

And there was John.

Older, somehow (perhaps the mustache?) than the three years they had been apart; better dressed; calmer, more assured.

Happier.

"May I take your coat, sir?"

Sherlock, distracted, hesitated for a moment, then gestured, and he was stripped.

It was right, he thought. For John beyond all others, that he stand without his armor, vulnerable, defenseless.

Like a bride stepping from her nightdress, naked.

He squared his shoulders.

Moved forward.

"John?"