A/N: This is a homecoming and post Reichenbach prequel to "We Might Not Make It Home"

Disclaimer: I do not own Sherlock, I'm just visiting around with them.

A quiet rain slowly pattered against the lone window pane of the small, dark and bare flat. The grey clouds softly rolled outside, warning of further rain and gloom.

Sherlock's eyes traveled over the tiny flat that John had moved into after Sherlock's death. The cold room was colorless and void of feeling. No emotion or life hung around it.

It was so different from the warm and cozy flat of 221B Baker St. Even in the darkest days there always seemed to be a light in that flat that never went out. But in this flat, it seemed like life had left it behind, leaving only sadness to take its place.

Mycroft had said that John had moved out shortly after the funeral. Sherlock didn't blame him. He knew he wouldn't want to live in the Baker Street without John.

He knew how bad it was when he had traveled by himself, always turning around expecting John to be there, always catching himself speaking to John and finding that there would be only empty air beside him. He could only imagine how worse it would be at the flat they had shared.

Sherlock's eyes fixed on the door and his ears strained for the sound of footsteps on the stairs. He clasped his hands together to control their slight shaking as he sat in the soft lamplight. This was the day that Sherlock had hoped for and dreamed about for months.

He was so tired and weary. He thought that this day would never come, that he would never get here. This day was the only thing that had kept him going at times. The thought and hope of seeing John again was the only beacon of light he had had to fight toward in the darkness of those long, lonely months. Without that light he would have been lost and surely would have never found his way back.

He sat frozen in the hard, unfamiliar chair as he heard the familiar footfall of John coming up the stairs; he could hear the cane and the echo of the limp that had returned to haunt his friend.

Sherlock closed his eyes against the sound. He wasn't surprised, he had known with a terrible certainty that the limp would come back after Sherlock's death.

Just another skeleton he had added to John's closet.

Mycroft had told Sherlock that John had not been doing well, and was starting to slow down more and more as each day passed. He had suggested that Sherlock come home as soon as it could be arranged. Mycroft didn't tell Sherlock that he dreaded the thought of having to bury John by himself.

Mycroft had tried to keep an eye on John and help him as much as he could. So did Lestrade and Mrs. Hudson. But there is only so much water you can give to help a drowning man.

Sherlock opened his eyes and shook away the wave of nervousness that threatened to wash over him. He had waited months for this day and it was finally here and there was no time for cold feet now.

The door slowly opened and the silhouette of John appeared in the doorway and Sherlock's heart stopped when he saw him. He seemed smaller than before, like he had shrunk into himself. He looked so tired, so beaten, and so much like the John Watson that Sherlock remembered when they had first met.

John had his head down, his eyes lowered to the floor like he couldn't bear to see the world around him, like he didn't know what to do with it anymore. He had the bearing of a soldier who was fighting a war he knew he didn't have a chance of winning, but would not let himself surrender.

Seeing John like this completely blew away the last bit of bravado that Sherlock had planned on using. Without it, he was left to face this picture of tragedy open and vulnerable, without the familiar shield of nonchalance and apathy that he had carried his whole life for protection from emotions and feelings that he despised and never thought he would need or want.

After meeting John, he found his protective shield had developed strange, deep cracks, like heart lines. During the dark days when he was alone and as he worked and fought to destroy Moriarty's web, he had found his beloved shield had grown a million more cracks and had become weakened to the point of almost shattering at any moment, and when it did, it would let feelings and emotions that he had never met before creep in like silent motions of color.

Sherlock didn't even feel his shield fall and shatter away in those few seconds it took to see the image standing in the doorway.

John sensed Sherlock before he saw him. The man in the corner looked like Sherlock, but something about this apparition was different, like an ill-made replica that had seen better days.

John only stared at Sherlock, didn't move, and didn't say a word. He just stood there gripping his cane tightly. It was him again, the eyes were weary and haunted, the face drawn and worried, the long slender hands trembling slightly. But it was him.

John shook his head, and walked further into the living room. Hoping that if he ignored the ghost that he would disappear, just like he always did. For the past few months it was no longer satisfied in haunting only his dreams and Sherlock's ghost had started to follow him around during the day, appearing everywhere John went.

They had a routine, he and the ghost. He would haunt John and John would let him, until he couldn't take it anymore. And during the night when John's nightmares would overcome him and his tortured cries all began to sound the same, the ghost would leave him. And the next day they would start all over again, haunting each other with no mercy.

Sherlock broke the still silence, his soft baritone filled the air as his buried emotion tried to surface and betray Sherlock's voice.

"Hello, John, it's so very good to see you again." John froze and he slowly turned back to the corner of the room where Sherlock sat. He looked sadly at Sherlock, like he was someone John both loved and hated to see.

"Oh, you again, I knew you'd show up tonight," John whispered as he rubbed his left shoulder, trying to ease the pain. "You always do seem to appear when the evening falls the hardest."

The approaching storm was making his leg and shoulder ache dreadfully. It would be like the ghost to show up now.

He paused as he bowed his head and pressed his fingers between his closed eyes. Looking up, he shook his head at the image of the person in the corner. "Stop this, I told you. You're dead, Sherlock and you know you are, so why don't you just accept it and leave me alone so that I can."

The lamplight caught John's life weary face as he began to limp away from Sherlock and towards the kitchen. He paused and half turned back to the ghost in the room.

"We are dead and there's nothing you... nothing we can do to fix us," John pointed a shaking finger at Sherlock's corner. "So just stop showing up and pretending we are alive."

Stunned, Sherlock realized by John's broken tone and actions that John didn't recognize him as being real. That he was accepting that his mind was playing tricks on him. Casting Sherlock as a ghost that apparently haunted him at every moment.

With dread in his heart, Sherlock realized he actually didn't feel like anything more than a ghost. All those months of dealing with Moriarty's men, hiding and running had faded him to nothing. Sherlock could hardly even recognize himself as being alive. He felt nothing like he used to. Maybe he was a ghost. He had to think of a way to convince John. To convince himself that he wasn't a ghost.

"No, not dead, John, I have come back. I wasn't really dead. It was all just a trick, I faked my death so that I could defeat Moriarty and clear my name."

John froze as his eyes begin to take in Sherlock more closely, catching things the other ghostly Sherlock's had lacked. This ghost Sherlock seemed to more alive than the last one, although not by much. John moved closer to him before he caught and made himself stand still. Not daring to come any closer.

"Fake?" John gasped as his voice began to shake. "Are you telling me that everything we… everything I went through wasn't real? That all my grief and tears were all for an empty grave?

Hearing John say it made it all the worse. Sherlock tried to ignore the cold feeling that filled his stomach. John had changed so much. He looked older than Sherlock last remembered seeing him. And he had never heard John's voice so void of emotion before. It was like he had become used to talking to things that weren't there. Like he had grown to be a part of nothing himself.

"We are dead and there's nothing you... nothing we can do to fix us."

Sherlock shifted in the hard chair. Not daring to stand. Not trusting that his legs would support him at that moment.

"I'm sorry, John. I... I didn't mean for it to be like that, I didn't know it would take so long. I tried as hard as I could to come back as soon as I could."

John's face was pale, and he looked like a person who had heard it all before. Sherlock tried to get his mind to work, to reach out to John, to make him understand that this was all real. That both of them were real.

Sherlock pulled his old black coat closer to his thin body, silently shivering from the cold that filled the room. "I know you don't think that this is real and it's all too good to be true. So do I."

The look on John's face made Sherlock's voice weak and it took all of his strength to keep talking.

"I can hardly believe it myself, for I don't even know how I made it. There were some days, I honestly didn't think I would. I have never fought for anything so hard in my life then I did Moriarty's men and the fear I'd have nothing to come back to. That there wouldn't be a John to come back to."

Emotions swept through John, and his mind would not be stilled with all the questions that filled him. Those same worn out questions he had carried with him for months. Always knowing they would never be answered, but still they just kept hanging around. Threatening to overtake him at any moment.

Those tired, ghostly grey eyes were begging him to understand, to let him explain, But John didn't understand and he didn't think he ever would and nothing the ghost Sherlock could say would fix this.

Sherlock's death had taken the life out of John. And here was this ghost trying to say that he was back. John realized with a shudder of horror, that even if it wasn't an illusion and a mistake of his mind that sat there before him. John knew that he had no life left in him to care. The time and place that he had always dreamed about was here, and he couldn't accept it the way he knew he wanted to, the way he knew he should.

Before he met the consulting detective he never thought that there would be a chance for a war-scarred and tremor burdened army doctor to have a happy and successful life. After he had met Sherlock, John's whole world had changed.

He finally thought that maybe he would have a chance at a decent life and maybe even a great one. And there wasn't one he'd rather have than chasing down criminals and getting woken up at 3am by violin music loudly played by a curly haired consulting detective who forgot his pants.

After Sherlock's death, the old familiar echo of doubt began to creep up in him again that maybe it had all been a mistake, maybe he wasn't meant to have a happy life. That he was never supposed to get the one he always dreamed and hoped for ever since he was young. He would always be that wounded soldier at the train station being greeted home by silence and the flickering of a motel vacancy sign.

Some people, no matter how hard they try, never get to be truly happy and John knew-accepted-that he was just one of those people. And there was nothing he could do but make himself soldier on, keep his head down and pretend not to notice the world losing color.

John took a step toward Sherlock's ghost then stopped himself and limped back to the doorway as he ran a shaking hand through his hair. As he whirled back around to face Sherlock, his face filled with pain and anguish, as if he was re-watching an old memory.

"I watched you die...I begged you not to jump. I couldn't truly believe you were dead even when I watched your blood run in the street. I wouldn't let myself believe and I didn't until they buried you. It killed me, you know? Seeing your name set in stone."

He could feel tears filling his eyes and the old anger and confusion began to creep over him again.

"And if you really did fake your death like you say you did. Why wouldn't you tell me? All this time and not even a word; you just left me to fill an empty coffin with myself."

Sherlock flinched at those words. He gripped his hands together even tighter now. He so desperately wished John would understand, would listen to him and give him a chance. But John's hurt and anger were too strong for Sherlock's weariness for himself and overwhelming sadness for John.

He wanted to tell John. Oh how he wanted to tell him. Except he found that the words he had carefully planned out before failed him now, and there was nothing he could say that would possibly make sense for both of them to have come to be like this. Especially John, he should never be like this. John, his conductor of light. John, whose eyes that used to shine when he laughed and who braved the world for him in the moment Sherlock said "Take my hand." And the John who did and who never let go.

The excuses seemed so empty and useless now in the light of the disaster of what lay before him. Even though it might have been the only way to save them, it had been a terrible price to pay for the both of them.

He had no reason for a man who fully deserved to be dead to be alive and a man who deserved every reason to be alive to be on the edge of death. He had no fair reason for things to be this way. Logic had deserted him now, leaving him with empty excuses to face the wreckage of what had been the best man he had ever known.

Magic tricks lose their meaning when the white rabbit dies in the top hat.

Sherlock could see John's eyes that had been once blue, had been washed to a hollow grey, like all his tears and grief had washed the blue out of them, leaving them an empty shell of grey.

Sherlock could tell, that by the severity of the tremor of John's hand, the flexing of his fingers and his psychosomatic limp that they had all returned with a vengeance and he could see John's old eating disorder had returned also.

Although John didn't suffer from post-traumatic stress syndrome as bad as some soldiers it did not completely pass him by and after he was released from the RAMC he developed a depression linked eating disorder that was common among PTSD sufferers.

John was thin, much more than when Sherlock had first met him. After they moved into flat Sherlock had tried so hard to make sure that John ate.

Sherlock wasn't one for eating meals himself, but he tried to help John eat more by making himself remember to eat. He even set reminders to himself on his mobile. John had been startled many times by Sherlock's sudden declarations of how hungry he was and why didn't they grab their coats and run over to Angelo's.

He even went so far for John that he would halt an investigation on more than one occasion to make sure John got a meal into him and would keep a different assortment of snacks in his various coat pockets in case his 'transport' ran out of fuel and John also needed to 'refuel.'

It took time and a lot of quiet help from Sherlock for the eating disorder to gradually leave him. And when it finally did, John didn't even notice, but Sherlock did, and he smiled to himself behind his microscope as he listened to the chorus of pots and pans and the happy whistling of John making a lasagna in the kitchen like it was the most glorious task he had done in ages.

Sherlock had learned over the few months that he had known him that a well fed John was a happy John, not because he was full but he was actually happy enough to eat.

But those happy days were clearly gone now, as John was the thinnest Sherlock had ever seen him. John didn't mean to starve himself; he just didn't see the point of eating as an effort to stay alive anymore. He could no longer bring himself to care. The only person, the only one bigger than his apathy and the one that would have cared, hadn't been there for him.

He was only an empty shadow of the man he once had been. Sherlock realized that John was only a mirror image of himself. John had turned into a faded and worn out ghost just like Sherlock had, and he had only himself to haunt through all those long and terrible nights stuck with the memories that tormented him.

Sherlock could see now how much his actions had destroyed his friend. He rose from the chair and stepped numbly toward John, never taking his eyes off of him.

John saw him coming toward him and he took a step back, flinching at the thought of being touched. Sherlock stopped in mid step, the look in John's eyes was unbearable.

"I wanted to tell you, to let you know, but I couldn't, not with Moriarty's men still around. I couldn't come back until I had broken his up his ring and there wasn't a threat of them trying to hurt us anymore."

John's eyes lowered to the floor and it took everything that Sherlock had not rush forward and embrace him.

"Did Mycroft know?" John whispered, looking down at the floor; he was clenching and un-clenching his hand now.

"Yes." Sherlock replied softly.

John nodded slightly, turning his head slightly as his mouth tightened.

Sherlock moved closer to him, but the warning look in John's eyes halted his steps.

"I know you don't understand and you have every right to be angry but I can explain it all to you. Please, just let me." Sherlock implored him. "I have come home, John... I have come back to make it right, to pick up the pieces that I left behind."

"You are too late!" John's raised voice broke as he took a sudden step backwards away from Sherlock and he pressed his trembling fist to his mouth for a moment then lowering it, he made it hold still by his side. "You're too late, Sherlock."

John clutched his cane in his right hand as his left clenched into a fist. His body stiffened as he shook his head slightly.

"Why do you even keeping coming back? It's not like there is anything left for you here. I'm not who I used to be. You well made sure of that. I'm... I'm nothing now. John's voice broke to a whisper. "You should just leave both of us dead, Sherlock."

The shock of John's bitter words ran through Sherlock like he had struck him. He could see John crumbling before his very eyes and he didn't even have a chance to explain himself.

He knew how hard John had tried to keep going after Sherlock's fall. He knew how the soldier that John was, put his brave face on and tried so hard to keep living and going through the motions. John was the strongest man that Sherlock had ever known; Sherlock always knew that it would take a great burden to make John Watson crumble. Sherlock never imagined he would be the one to place that burden on Johns back.

Not all the king's horses, not all the king's men could put Sherlock Holmes and John Watson back together again.

Tears filled Sherlock's eyes before he even knew they were upon him.

"Please, John," Sherlock tried to keep his voice steady. "Let me explain." he stepped toward John again, reaching out a slightly trembling hand toward his shattered friend as he did so.

"I have so much I want... that I need to tell you. I know you're tired and scared and you don't know what to think, so am I, John. I'm terrified."

Sherlock's voice was breaking now. "Just give me a chance, I never...never missed anything as badly as I did in those long months of not being able to talk to you."

John backed away from Sherlock. The look on John face made Sherlock freeze in his step.

"No, Sherlock, you can't, not this time. There is no explanation you can possibly give me that I could understand and that will undo and make everything I have gone through not real and all for nothing. It simply…" John paused as he closed his eyes and his mouth tightened.

He looked up at Sherlock again. "It just simply doesn't matter, there is nothing you can say or do to change what has happened. You just can't come back with a little explanation and expect everything to be the same as when you left it."

"You were not the only one who died that day, Sherlock," Johns voice held a cold tremble. "Even if you did only pretend to die, I didn't. And logic can't fix a dead man."

The chilling hand of desperation gripped Sherlock.

No, this was all wrong, they couldn't end like this. It wasn't supposed to be like this.

"Please, John; please just let me talk to you, I-"

John interrupted him with a raised hand and was already turning his back on Sherlock as he headed toward the door.

"No, Sherlock, I just can't. Not... not this time, like I said, there isn't anything here for you anymore. You may have the power and tricks to raise yourself from the dead, but plain ordinary people like me, well, when someone kills us we stay dead and there is no going back."

Sherlock gasped and he felt frozen to the floor as he watched his only friend turn away from him.

John opened the door. Clutching the door handle, he turned back to face Sherlock. His grey, dead eyes were distraught and his face pale.

"When I come back you'll be gone just like you always are. It doesn't even matter if you are real and alive like you say. It just doesn't matter anymore and it doesn't change anything because I can no longer tell the difference between living and dying, even if you can.

John's voice hushed to a broken whisper, and he angrily brushed at his eyes with the sleeve of his jumper.

"Just go back to wherever you came from, Sherlock, and quit coming back here just to clear your conscience. Don't trouble yourself with real dead men like me."

And with that, Sherlock watched the remains of what had been his soldier, his doctor and most importantly, his friend, walk away from him and out the door.

Sherlock stared at the closed-door and a soft gasp escaped him as he fell to his knees on the floor and buried his face in his hands.

The rest of his strength and hope that there might be a chance left for him drained away, leaving the exhausted and shattered remains of a man clutching the pieces of the last lucky break that he had just broken in two.

Softly rolling thunder swept through the air. As his grief for himself and John come pouring down over him and the rain drummed harder against the windowpane.

Sherlock stayed in John's tiny flat. Sitting in the corner of the hall, arms wrapped around his knees. Sitting numbly for hours. Trying to think of what to do, trying to get his numb mind to work.

His thoughts were interrupted by his mobile ringing.

It was Mycroft calling.

"Yes, Mycroft?"

"Sherlock." Something in Mycroft's voice made him freeze, taking his breath away.

He closed his eyes, dreading the words that would come.

"Where is he, Mycroft?" Sherlock whispered.

"He's on the roof of Saint Barts."

For the ghost that he felt he was, Sherlock Holmes never ran so hard in his life.

To Be Continued...