"We're going to catch a criminal."

John was excited, perhaps unreasonably. After three years, a time that seemed immeasurable, torturous, unending, Sherlock had returned to Baker Street. He humbly tended to John after he'd fainted from shock and eagerly told the story of how he'd survived his skydive from St. Bart's.

"So you're back. And he's gone." Neither of them were questions. Not really.

Sherlock rolled his shoulders noncommittally. "More or less. There's one more." He looked painfully at John, his pale eyes begging. "Come with me? Just like old times?" As if he was expecting John to say no, to decline.

As if John could say no. "Yes, of course!" He laughed suddenly, still a bit in shock. Sherlock seemed taken aback for a moment, but then he smiled gratefully.

"Good!" And he jumped up. "We're going to catch a criminal! And we'll have time for a mouthful of dinner before we need to go."

As usual, Sherlock didn't eat. He sat watching John eat. John was ravenous, not having been properly hungry for what felt like three years (in reality, he knew he'd fed himself to keep himself alive, but it didn't taste like anything. Not really), and having Sherlock back with him…well, it felt like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. For once, he didn't scold Sherlock about his eating habits. As usual, he wasn't properly looking at Sherlock, not with the proper, deducing eyes his flatmate had tried to train him to use. John was just too happy to have Sherlock back. And so Sherlock, deducing this, understood, and he let John look with fondness and affection at the man who had previously been dead.

Now, they were standing side by side. Well, closer than side by side. John was pressed into Sherlock, his left shoulder nestled behind Sherlock's right, their bodies fit together like platonic puzzle pieces. The empty house, with its exposed pipes and useless electrical wires and stained, ugly walls visible in the dim light of overcast London (obviously oblivious to the man who had just rejoined the living, breathing life into the flatmate who'd so desperately missed him) was cold, so both men had their hands in their pockets, standing stiffly, watching and waiting. A wooden replica of Sherlock "sat" in the chair by the window, moving about like a puppet every so often. It was actually a puppet, Sherlock had explained, maneuvered from below with the help of Mrs. Hudson—a reverse marionette, Sherlock had called it. A clever invention of his, as usual, brought to fruition with the help of his brother.

They were waiting for nightfall, or for the darkness of the coming cloud cover. For once, Sherlock wasn't sure, admitted he couldn't possibly predict what Colonel Sebastian Moran had in mind. But whichever one came first, John was happy. He was here, beside Sherlock, where he belonged.

There was an impossible lull in action. John stayed tense—it was the military training that did it, really. He could never relax if he knew there would be danger, regardless of when it would happen—but Sherlock began to sag almost imperceptibly. His shoulders slumped forward, which resulted in a slight, unnoticeable whisper of fabric. But John noticed. And then, he looked at his flatmate. Really, truly looked, with the deductive eyes Sherlock had trained him to see with. And he saw quite a bit more than he needed to see. Certainly more than he was looking for.

Sherlock was thinner, paler, weaker than he'd been three years ago. It was true that, after they'd first met, Sherlock had gradually begun to eat a bit more, and his body began to gain imperceptible muscle. He was still thin—oh yes, very much so. Impossibly so. He'd still been pale, oh yes—like he hadn't been out in proper sunlight in ages. But he looked marginally better, marginally healthy. Three years had not, evidently, been kind to the detective. John looked. And as he looked, his frowned.

Sherlock's eyes were staring, focused, watching the puppet across the street. But they were softened by exhaustion and depression—yes, depression, though John would have to ask about that later. His hair was surprisingly flawless, but the rest of him looked disheveled and undone. The coat, which Sherlock usually buttoned or at the very least held tighter around himself, was open completely. Hiding, John knew, his true thinness. Beneath his coat collar, his customary scarf was missing—lost, perhaps, during his arduous journey, blowing through the air somewhere over the Swiss Alps, a blue snake prey to the harsh, cold wind. On his neck, John could see—faint, mind, but identifiable all the same—scars. Scars from war wounds. He imagined there were many scars all over his body, and probably bruises, too. Lingering effects of fights in another time, another place, another world.

John's eyes strayed back to and lingered on Sherlock's face. The canvas seemed open and exposed, and John drank it all in with analytical eyes Sherlock would've been proud of. Sherlock's head tilted slightly to the side, and he was now leaning back, his left shoulder blade just brushing the edge of the corner they'd wedged themselves into. His cheekbones stood out more than John remembered, the sharp angle of one clear from the man's slight profile, the shadows showing the hollows in his face. Though he was obviously in deep concentration, John could tell that the brain had slowed down a fraction. His entire expression was softer, his breathing low and even—sleepy. His blinks lasted longer than was natural. He almost looked as if he might pass out from exhaustion at any moment. For a minute, his foot caught as he shifted, and he almost did fall into unconsciousness.

John was quick to rescue him. "All right?"

Sherlock grunted, nodded, and then finally spoke: "Yes." His voice didn't sound all right, though, and John noted the slight change in the baritone—the change he hadn't noticed until now—that indicated the weakness that the man had not allowed himself to feel for three very long, very tiring years.

John looked up as the sun's strained light dimmed with massive cloud cover. Sherlock tensed. "It's time," he whispered. "Look." Indeed, in the street below, a suspicious man walked against the grain. John stared right at him. Moran.

John nodded. Then, he chuckled. "Dinner."

"What?" Sherlock glanced at John, distracted, a smile gracing his thin, nearly colorless, chapped lips. Normally, Sherlock loathed distractions, but being back with John made him fail to care.

"You heard me." John smirked. "Dinner. Food. Down you. In you." He stopped, and then added before Sherlock might protest: "Later. After this."

Sherlock chuckled and settled back against the wall. "Yes, doctor." And he nudged John back against the wall, cloaking him in shadow. "Now hush."