A/N: This chapter is John-Sherlock friendship/reconciliation/confrontation post-Reichenbach, with strong Sherlolly overtones and hints, leading into further conversations, many with the same overtones/hints and (eventually) outright confessions. All leading up to the all important conversation between Sherlock and Molly Hooper (but only after everyone else weighs in on her part in Sherlock's faked death and What It Means, of course!) All comments/constructive crits welcomed (especially since this is my first venture into Sherlock fandom), but flames, as more than one author has rightfully noted before me, belong in the fireplace.

Conversation One: John Watson

"Hello, John."

John Watson, war vet, steady-nerved doctor, yelped and fell back against the kitchen table where he'd just dropped a Tesco's bag full of groceries, hand automatically reaching for a weapon that wasn't resting in a holster on his hip or tucked into his waistband but was instead safely ensconced in a gun safe up in his loft bedroom.

The flat was dark; he hadn't bothered turning on the lights when he entered, too busy going over his schedule for the night. That quiet voice in the darkness was unexpected, but he responded to it automatically before his mind caught up with what his ears had already recognized: "Christ, Sherlock, you could warn a bloke!"

He froze for a second time as he realized what he'd just said…and to whom he'd just spoken. "Sherlock?" he asked in a near whisper, hands groping for support against the sturdy wooden kitchen table as his knees suddenly decided to go all wobbly on him. He didn't believe in ghosts…did he?

His eyes automatically found his former – dead! – flatmate's favorite chair and noted the silent, shadowy figure occupying it. He sensed movement, then blinked as the lamp on the side table came on, revealing that yes, the voice he'd heard had been that of his supposedly dead friend, Sherlock Holmes.

A very solid, very real, very un-ghostlike Sherlock Holmes.

He was sitting there, legs crossed, chin resting on one hand, the other returning to his lap after snapping on the light. The same dark, tousled hair. The same calm face, although there were signs of strain and weariness, lines around his mouth and eyes that hadn't been there three years ago. And the clothes, they were certainly different; he'd never seen Sherlock wearing jeans, black trainers and a black t-shirt beneath a worn black leather motorcycle jacket before…

"Christ!" he swore again as his mind finally stopped trying to delay the inevitable by cataloging the physical similarities and differences in his friend's face and body.

A hint of a smile lightened Sherlock's features. "You're repeating yourself, John," he chastised.

"And you're not bloody dead!" John shouted as his frazzled nerves finally settled on a reaction to the stunning sight and sound of his friend – the man he'd loved like a brother, still did, damn him, and had mourned for three. Bloody. YEARS.

Anger. In five quick strides he was standing over the seated figure, fists clenched by his sides as he gazed down at Sherlock. "I watched you jump," he growled. "Why aren't you dead?"

Sherlock maintained his infuriating air of calm as he raised an eyebrow. "Would you prefer that I was?"

John wasn't even aware of the desire to punch the bloody calm out of Sherlock's voice until he'd already landed the blow, rocking the other man (the DEAD man!) back in his chair and forcing a grunt of pain out of him.

Sherlock's only other reaction was to stand up, forcing John back, reaching out and grabbing the other man's fist in an iron grip as it was abundantly clear to both of them at this point that he had no intention at stopping with just one punch. "You get one, John, because I deserve it," Sherlock said, his voice quiet as he held his friend's gaze with his cold blue eyes. "But only one. And I do hope you don't intend to offer the same greeting to Dr. Hooper when you see her later."

The apparent non sequitur served as a splash of cold water; John blinked, stepped back, blinked again and allowed his cocked fist to drop to his side as he tried to process what he'd just heard. "Doctor…Hooper?" he finally repeated, eyebrows creasing in a frown. "You mean Molly? Molly Hooper? Why would I…oh, bloody Christ," he groaned, slapping a hand to his forehead as the penny finally dropped. "She helped you. She knew you were alive."

Sherlock nodded, continuing to study John as carefully as he'd ever examined a crime scene. Whatever he saw in his friend's face – or heard in his voice – seemed to satisfy him; after a moment, he gave a sharp nod and returned to his chair, indicating the one opposite in an unmistakable gesture.

John responded by plopping into the comfortable armchair with a heavy sigh. This day had started off with a great deal of promise, and now he felt as if it had simultaneously worsened and improved. Part of him was giddy with relief (He's alive! I knew he couldn't bloody well be dead!) while the rest of him was still groping to understand why it had taken three years for Sherlock to show himself. It wasn't his reputation; that had been restored fully, his dying (supposedly dying) words to John refuted over and over again as the truth about Jim Moriarity/Richard Brook came out.

The media that had first acclaimed Sherlock Holmes, then lambasted him as a fraud, had found themselves once again backpedaling as information was doled out in dribs and drabs. Not all at once, not in the first few months after Sherlock's (supposed) suicide, but here and there: the discovery of the true kidnapper of the Bruhl kids; a body found in Belgravia in the middle of a drug lab; a criminal network unearthed in Sweden, another in Spain; all clues leading inexorably to the truth now known to the world. Sherlock Holmes had been framed, not Rich Brook.

Rich Brook had been a fabrication of the late (Or was he? If Sherlock was alive, what about him?) Jim Moriarty. His background had been easily discovered once Mycroft Holmes (John always assumed it was Mycroft, although he'd never had the nerve to ask) had started digging into the false data strewn about the internet. Reporters had started asking the right questions for once, and a paper trail, something that could have been fabricated almost as easily as a digital one by someone as brilliant and twisted as Moriarty, had never been found.

Questions had been asked, sources had been located, and an exposé by the Times had proven, once and for all, that Sherlock Holmes – as John and his other friends had always believed, never stopped believing in spite of the circumstantial evidence so carefully presented to them – was not a fraud.

And now, he was also not dead. He shook his head in continued disbelief, in spite of the evidence of his eyes and ears and not inconsequentially, aching, bleeding knuckles. He opened his mouth to ask the million questions that had filled his stunned mind.

oOo

Sherlock watched as all of this flashed through John's mind, reading every thought from the expression on his face, the slight movements of his body, the flickering of his eyes, as easily as if the other man (your friend, remember he's your friend, not just one of the millions of anonymous faces that have surrounded you these past three years) were enunciating them aloud. Therefore he was prepared, simply waiting for the moment when John's mind finally started functioning well enough to ask the flood of questions his presence – alive and in their flat – had undoubtedly raised. "Don't ask how we did it, because, distasteful as the process was, I wish to keep such knowledge private in the unlikely event it should be required in the future."

John's mouth slowly closed as Sherlock continued, his voice clipped and contained but answering, he hoped, every question his friend might have. "I was forced into those actions by allowing myself to be outmaneuvered," he couldn't stop his lip from curling into an angry snarl, "by Moriarty. He had snipers with weapons trained on you, Mrs. Hudson, and DI Lestrade; if I didn't jump, you were all going to be killed."

He allowed a moment for that truth to distill itself through John's mind, waiting until his friend's eyes widened in realization before speaking again. Really, he shouldn't be enjoying this moment so much, but he'd held this information inside himself for so long, sharing it only with Molly in his infrequent communications with her (Mycroft, of course, already knew everything, had known from the start, wasn't the least bit surprised when his supposedly dead brother showed up on his doorstep yesterday and announced his presence), that he couldn't help indulging himself.

"Yes, that is why I claimed to be the fraud Moriarty wanted the world to believe I was. Yes, that is why I jumped and forced you to witness it." He leaned forward and caught John's gaze, which had slipped down to his hands. "No one in Moriarty's network would believe I was dead unless you believed it, John," he said softly. "If for even one second you showed any kind of knowledge or belief that I was alive, they would have been onto me – and killed you and the others in order to flush me out. That is why you weren't allowed to know before now."

"But why Molly?" John blurted out, obviously setting aside for later thought what had been – for Sherlock – a highly emotional confession. "She's a terrible liar…or at least, I thought she was."

Sherlock leaned back in his chair, drumming the fingers of one hand against the arm as he considered how best to respond to John's question. "I was not," he finally said, his words careful and precise, "taking advantage of her…feelings for me. I wish to be very clear on that matter. I was not using her."

After a moment, John nodded. Good; acceptance of his word. Very good. He'd been…not worried, precisely, but concerned that it would take far more effort for his friend – but no longer his only friend, as he'd once proclaimed – to reach a state where he wouldn't argue or disbelieve every statement Sherlock made. "I asked her not only because I knew she would have the technical proficiency to do so, but also because her faith in me appears to be…quite unshakable." He didn't bother to disguise the tone of wonder in his voice; even now, three years after the fact, he was still profoundly moved by her unquestioning belief in him, how she'd simply asked what he needed of her without requiring any further information, agreement implicit in her simple words. What do you need?

John was studying him closely as he fell silent. "I'm a medical doctor," he pointed out, also not bothering to hide his feelings – in this case a combination of gratitude and resentment as easy to read in his eyes as his low voice. "I also have unshakable faith in you."

Sherlock found himself repressing a sigh. Sentiment. It always got in the way, although in this case he found himself unable to either fully resent its presence or ignore the way it deserved to dominate the conversation he'd never expected to go calmly and unemotionally. "I know," he replied, keeping his voice equally quiet. "However, you were already a target. Molly never was."

He gave John a moment to digest that particular truth, unpalatable though he knew it to be, then continued speaking. "She never was because everyone – including her – believed she didn't matter."

Her words wouldn't leave his mind; he'd considered deleting them more than once over the last three years, but was never able to bring himself to do so even after having proven to both of them that they weren't true. I don't count.

Something of his troubled feelings – that word again! – must have translated to his face, because John leaned forward with a questioning look on his own face. "She believed she didn't matter…but she really did? Does?" he asked.

Sherlock supposed he should be grateful that John was allowing the conversation to remain focused on Molly's part in this entire fiasco and not, as it probably should be, on how outraged and angry John was at the deception his supposed (actual) best friend had put over on him. Or that he wasn't berating him at the top of his lungs (good thing for both of them that Mrs. Hudson was visiting her sister in Leeds; he would have to be sure to ease his way back into her life, her heart was sound but she wasn't as young as she used to be, as she kept reminding him – almost as often as she reminded him she was his landlady, not his housekeeper, and dear me, he was rattling on inside his own head, this must be taking more of a toll on him than he'd expected) or trying to punch him again.

Not that Sherlock had any intention of allowing any such thing; he'd meant what he'd said after that first punch, the one that had left a trickle of blood at the corner of his mouth he hadn't bothered to staunch. John was allowed one. Just one. No more.

When this moment, this calm before the storm, had passed, when Molly and her part in all of this (and why was he continuing to avoid thinking about why he'd selected her to assist him, the real reasons, the buried reasons, when that was exactly what John had asked him to explain?), he held no illusions as to how John's delayed reaction would play out.

There would be shouting. There would be punches thrown – although he knew both of them well enough to feel no superiority in the fact that none would land. There would be storming out of the flat and long, involved, behind-his-back conversations with the new woman in John's life (Miss Mary Morstan, elementary school teacher, divorced, no children, daughter of a retired naval officer and a nurse, nothing else about her life significant enough to bother remembering even though she and John had been dating for nearly six months now).

"Yes," he finally answered the question John had posed him. Although his thoughts had raced along he knew only a few seconds had passed outside his own mind. "She does. She always has."

And that, he hoped his clipped response and tightened lips and narrowed eyes, would tell John, was the end of that.

oOo

John leaned back in his chair and blew out a breath. Sherlock (Not-dead Sherlock Holmes! Holy bloody Christ!) probably thought he wasn't giving anything away with that dead-eyed stare and blank face, but just admitting that Molly Hooper, someone John had felt varying shades of pity for the entire time he'd known her but nothing more, admitting that she mattered, that she counted…that was huge. Almost as huge as when Sherlock had called he, himself, John Watson, his only friend. I don't have friends. I have one friend. You.

Molly Hooper was someone Sherlock counted on and trusted. Another friend. He found himself wondering if Molly understood how big that confession had been, how important. How she reacted when she discovered she mattered to the elusive object of her unrequited affections… With a jolt, John remembered that quiet little Molly Hooper, competent pathologist and stuttering mess around Sherlock, had somehow managed to fool them all. Himself, Greg Lestrade, Mrs. Hudson, her coworkers, the entire fucking media including Kitty Go-For-The-Throat Riley…for three. Bloody. YEARS.

She'd attended Sherlock's funeral, wept alongside them, comforted John during those first, difficult months before he finally gave in and went back to his therapist for professional help. She'd come round for tea with Martha Hudson every Saturday the older woman was in town, when she wasn't away on one of her increasingly frequent stays with her sister Margaret in Leeds.

She'd dressed down Sergeant Sally Donovan in front of them all at a memorial dinner (she'd been dragged along by Lestrade for some insane reason, oh yes, his wife had been "ill", code for not speaking to him for the nth time) for bashing the (not so) deceased detective in public, for calling him a freak and stubbornly proclaiming her belief in his guilt in spite of the mounting evidence to the contrary.

Sally Donovan had been speechless in the face of Molly Hooper's fury, and John had been grateful – grateful! – as she blasted the other woman for speaking ill of the dead.

"You will not berate Molly for her part in this, John. Or punch her."

He glared at Sherlock as he jumped to his feet, hands balling into fists by his sides. Damn the man for reading his mind so easily! "I don't hit women, Sherlock," he ground out. "I'm not some bullying bastard. I don't put them down, humiliate them in front of others…no, that's all on you, Sherlock. Which is why," he added as he bee-lined for the liquor cabinet, since this discussion had been far beyond tea since Sherlock had first spoken to him from the darkness, "I don't understand why she would be willing to help you. One apology and a quick peck on the cheek do not make up for years of abuse."

Sherlock's eyes flashed dangerously; John had half-turned to glare at him once more as his fingers found the correct bottle. Oh, he felt some right to be angry right now, did he? Sod that! The only person in this room with any right to anger – to righteous anger – was he, himself, John Fucking Watson. "Don't act like I haven't the right to throw that in your face, you selfish tit!" he found himself shouting as he twisted off the top to the scotch and angrily flipped it over his shoulder, uncaring where it might land. He took a healthy swig of the bracing drink, savoring the burn as it made its way over his tongue and down his throat to rest with a glow of warmth that helped soothe the churning in his gut. "You treated her like shit for years, don't try to deny it!"

"I'm not." Those two words, quietly spoken, did almost as much to calm John's fraying temper as the alcohol. "You're right, I treated her like shit. And she never once wavered in her faith in me. I treated you like shit as well, and you reacted the same. Never gave up on me." He met John's eyes squarely. "And I'm sorry for putting you through that. For putting both of you through that."

Well. That was…unexpected. Still, it wasn't going to smooth things over, make everything all better, lull him into forgiving his supposed best friend for lying to him so long and so well. Or Molly. Yes, he owed her for helping to save Sherlock's life, but still…Molly? Lying for years to cover up for Sherlock? It didn't seem possible.

He threw himself back into his chair with an explosive release of breath, too violent to be called a sigh, and took another drink. Sherlock surprised him by holding out his hand; reflexively he gave over the bottle, watching with raised eyebrows as Sherlock took a drink of his own, not even bothering to wipe off the neck of the bottle as he did so. Some sort of brotherly solidarity being shown, John supposed, reluctantly admitting he appreciated the gesture as he was given back the scotch.

The breath he released this time was softer, much closer to a sigh as he reached up and rubbed his eyes. "Don't get me wrong, I'm still pissed off at the two of you, but I get why you did it. Snipers, the threat of death, a web of evil to unravel." He waved a hand over his head dismissively. "But Christ, you could have left a hint once you got going on your one-man crusade to rid the world of evil! I mean…after your reputation started being repaired in the press, couldn't you have, I dunno, let Molly know it was safe to tell us? This is going to kill Mrs. Hudson! Shatter her to pieces almost as badly as you 'dying' did!"

"Martha Hudson, as you well know, is made of far sterner stuff than you give her credit for," Sherlock replied dryly.

"Getting roughed up by a couple of thugs isn't the same as losing someone you think of as the son you never had," John retorted, allowing his tone to get a little nasty. "Yeah, she came through that like a trouper, but this is different Sherlock. You'd best not try out your 'surprise, I'm alive!' routine on her, that's all I'm saying."

"It was never my intention," was the quiet response. "In fact, I was rather hoping you would do it for me. You and Molly together, perhaps, once you've calmed down enough not to tear into her for her part in this."

It finally penetrated John's anger how solicitous Sherlock was being of Molly's feelings, how protective he was acting toward a woman whom he'd always treated as a necessary evil in the past. Yeah, he'd been saying she counted since her name came up in this – conversation? Confrontation? – but it hadn't really sunk in until now how fucking important that was.

Sherlock said he always missed something, but this time John knew he'd missed something as well, something important. Maybe even bigger than Molly Hooper being a friend and not just a convenience to Sherlock... "What happened, between the two of you?" he finally asked, wishing to God he smoked. A fag might do wonders for his nerves, give him something to do with his hands besides fidget with the bottle of scotch he was still clutching.

He leaned forward and placed the bottle carefully on the coffee table, between a stack of medical journals he was behind on reading, and allowed himself to really look at Sherlock, taking in all the details of the man's appearance as he waited for an answer to his question.

Dark, tousled hair; check. Black t-shirt and jeans, black trainers, black leather motorcycle jacket; check. Long, pale face, signs of strain; check. Nervously tapping fingers; double check. Those twitchy movements hadn't stopped once John had taken his second swing, he realized. Sherlock was back, yeah, not dead, but definitely still not completely at ease. He wondered if it was unfinished Moriarty business, or the way the conversation kept coming round to Molly. Bloody. Hooper. Keeper of Sherlock's biggest secret.

He still couldn't quite wrap his head around it all, knew it would take almost as much time to sink in as processing Sherlock's miraculous return from the dead. Sure, things like this happened on the soaps all the time, but this was real life. No one got over a shock like this between commercial breaks.

Sherlock finally broke the growing silence, responding to a question John was still very, very interested in hearing the answer to. "Why did anything have to happen besides me realizing I'd been, as you so poetically put it, a selfish tit?"

He sound irritated; good. Sherlock off-balance was a treat to be savored, even under these peculiar circumstances. Even better was the element of discomfort in his voice that John had been listening carefully for, there and gone so quickly he'd have missed it otherwise as Sherlock added: "I told you, I needed someone to help me. Someone with the technical proficiency…"

"Yeah, I get it, technical proficiency, unshakable faith, not me because she wasn't a target," John cut in impatiently. "Got all that. That explains why you asked her to help. It doesn't answer the question I just asked you. What happened? I know you, Sherlock; even helping you fake your death and covering it up for three years isn't enough for you to start treating Molly like a basket of kittens! Christ, you're more concerned about how I'll react when I see her than you were about my reaction to seeing you!"

He was only just recognizing that fact; why else would Sherlock have just let himself into the flat and waited for however long it had been until John returned from Tesco's? Why else sit there in the dark, knowing full well that his reaction was going to be one of shock and startlement and even a bit of fear, for that split second of believing there was an intruder in the flat? Yeah, Sherlock could be theatrical and he supposed it was hard to resist the urge to show off, but why not simply ease him into it the way he'd mentioned doing for Mrs. Hudson?

The simple explanation: because he wanted John to be unsettled and focused in his anger. To not let that anger spill over onto Molly.

Holy Christ, was the answer to his other question that simple as well? "You care about her!" he blurted out.

"I believe we've already covered that, John," Sherlock replied, but again, there was something in his voice, a warning to let it go that John ignored completely once he'd noted its presence.

"Yeah, no, not really," he replied. "She counts, got it, that puts her in the same category as me and Mrs. Hudson. But it's not her life you're protecting, Sherlock. It's her feelings. You don't want me to hurt her feelings by ranting at her the way I've been doing to you. Not that you don't deserve it, cos you do. But you don't want me to hurt her. Do you."

"As you pointed out earlier," Sherlock replied, his voice even softer than it had been, "I've already hurt her enough for one lifetime. So yes. I would appreciate it if you would…go easy on her. Wait to see her until you've calmed down enough to accept that she acted in your best interests. That it hurt her as much as it hurt you to keep the truth from you."

"Which brings me right back to my question: what happened? More specifically, what happened between the two of you? Because I still feel like her helping you isn't all there is to this change of heart."

Sherlock abruptly rose to his feet, towering over his friend, eyes blazing. "Whether there is or not is none of your business, John! I've already apologized for keeping you in the dark for so long…"

"No, you haven't, actually," John was quick to point out, remaining firmly planted in his own chair, refusing to be intimidated by his back-from-the-dead friend. "Not yet. Still haven't heard those particular words cross your lips."

He held Sherlock's gaze stubbornly; this time, for once, he wouldn't be the one to back down. And when Sherlock flung himself back into his chair, flicking his gaze to the side with an annoyed sigh, John counted it as a win. "Fine, if you insist. I apologize for keeping you in the dark for so long. But it was for your own safety."

Well. That was about as close as he was going to get to a heartfelt apology, so he supposed he'd best take it. "Apology accepted," he replied. "And yes, I promise not to rip Molly a new one when next I see her, although I don't promise not to demand a few explanations."

"Fair enough," Sherlock agreed quickly. A little too quickly, perhaps; did he think that just because Molly had kept his secret for this long that she'd be able to hold out against a John Watson determined to wrest details from her now that the secret was no longer a secret? It would certainly be interesting to try.

Tomorrow, perhaps, or the next day. Certainly not now. Right now all he wanted to do was sit and bask in the knowledge that his best friend – the best man he'd ever known, even if he was a sodding, lying not-dead git – was alive and well. "So," he said after a moment's silence. "Mission accomplished, is it? Moriarty's network dismantled, the public safe to walk the streets at night?" Then, more seriously: "No guns being held to my head or anyone else's?"

Sherlock shook his head, a there-and-gone-if-you-weren't-looking-for-it flash of relief in his eyes as he crossed his legs and steepled his fingers in front of his face in a familiar (much missed) gesture. "All safe, else I wouldn't be here."

John leaned forward and plucked the bottle from the table. "So, a toast then; to wars won and soldiers returned safely from battle, eh?" He took a healthy swig and passed the bottle to Sherlock, curious to see if he would emulate the gesture.

To John's immense satisfaction, he did, once again not bothering to wipe the lip of the bottle clean. Signifying their bond much as children would spit in their hands and clasp them together. Just as unsanitary.

Just as satisfying.

Sherlock Holmes was back, and no matter how mixed up John Watson felt about the nature of his disappearance and return, the dominant feeling was and always would be relief.

He had his best friend back.