Prologue
"Begin with what you know."
"It's not that simple."
"Yes it is. Begin with what you know."
"He's dead."
"Is he?"
"YOU'RE THE ONE WHO SAW HIM SHOOT HIS FACE OFF, YOU BLOODY WELL TELL ME."
"Begin with what you know."
"Based on your little coroner's report, your own established version of events, and the body that I had to have rather inartfully disposed of, he's dead."
"Is he?"
"Christ."
"Begin with what you know."
"I don't know what to know or what not to know. I wasn't there."
"Very clever. You've been saving that one. What do you know?"
"I know you came back from the dead."
"Begin with what you know."
"I laid him out on the table. I opened him the way I always do. I removed vital organs. They were weighed and catalogued."
"And?"
"He's dead."
"And?"
"Just because his body is dead doesn't mean his image is."
"Begin with what you know."
"I know an awful lot."
"I am aware."
"You read it then? Even though John didn't?"
"I did not need to."
The Beginning
Pound. Pound. Pound.
Mrs. Hudson's feet shuffled part way up the stairs before she gave up, turning her head up to call to the second floor flat with its door standing open, "Sherlock- that'll be the door. It's for you."
"I know that it is the door. Specifically, I know that it is our own DI Lestrade come to yell a bit to prove that he's in charge and find out what I know," Sherlock hadn't moved from his cross- legged position, finger's steepled under his chin as he called his pronouncement back to her. "And do not call at me like an errant teenager." Sherlock could feel John's eyes roll all the way from the kitchen where he was bandying about doing whatever it was John Watson did in the kitchen.
"I am not your house keeper dear, let alone your mother. You know, you're quite lucky I didn't rent this place when you got on that plane. I could have. In a heartbeat. Quite a fashionable area 'round here these days…. Even with all that nasty business you've brought round."
"Ha!" But her statement was enough to break him from his reverie, so that by the time Lestrade entered the second floor living room, Sherlock was unfolding himself from his chair. He half turned toward the doorway, rolling his wrist at the newly arrived detective, "What do you want?"
"You do know that if you can hear Mrs. Hudson standing at the bottom of the stairs and she can hear you, it's quite probable that someone that's standing 10 feet and one door way behind her can hear you too," Lestrade stated, scoffing at Sherlock's feigned ignorance.
"Yes, but I didn't want to steal your entrance line."
"I'll believe that when I see it," he muttered, sliding into the kitchen to take the cup of tea that John offered.
The look of affront on Sherlocks's face was enough to require Lestrade to continue without further prompting, "What do you know then?"
"I know all of the things I knew yesterday and little more. At this point it's about rearranging our points of knowledge until they all fit together. I was attempting this task when you chose to barge in and ask for information I couldn't possibly have."
"It's been a month!"
"Yes, and no new information has come to light since the first- sighting- we'll call it. There have been no other attempts at communication, there was seemingly no digital footprint, despite the incredibly wide digital presence, and so here we are. We have the image of a dead man plastered on every screen in the country, and nothing else. So, I must attempt to use the information previously available until something changes," Sherlock's attempt at patient explanation came out in a frustrated huff- largely sounding more like he was scolding a child then speaking to a colleague.
"Alright then. Well. In the meantime, you wanna come see about a case?"
"How's Mary then?" DI Lestrade asked as the trio descended the stairs. He had been privy to many pieces of John's private life in the past five years of their acquaintance, John never having been one for keeping relationship escapades to himself and Sherlock being fairly useless at listening to other people's troubles that didn't involve a dead body. Greg liked to believe that it was between the two of them and their painful normalcy that helped keep Sherlock's mind in check.
And so it was to his surprise that Sherlock turned his head sharply and responded before John could, "She's well. Why would she be anything else?"
John shook his head before giving his friend a hard look and turning to Greg as he closed the door to 221b behind them, "Eh… she's very pregnant. Due at the end of the month and miserable with it."
Greg nodded his head in understanding and opened the front door of the flat, where two cars awaited them. "See you at the station then?"
"What is this Lestrade? I thought you said there was a case?" They were standing in a white room with white walls and clear glass on two sides. Only the shadows from the unlit florescent lights broke the monotony of the room that was dominated by a square table covered in crime scene photographs.
"There is! It's just not anyplace close. Practically Wales, this one is." Lestrade said, with a bit of sheepsihness to his tone,
"Then why are we not in "nearly Wales"?" Sherlock's hands got the better of him, gesticulating more wildly than he would have liked, as he attempted to communicate his frustration with being back in the too cold and sterile offices of Scotland Yard that had too recently betrayed him.
"I thought you'd want to see the photos first. Decide if it's worth your while?" Greg's positive affect was deteriorating quickly as Sherlock's frustration grew. Greg hadn't spent much time with the world's only consulting detective since his return from the grave, but he had been hopeful that this case (unlike the one that Anderson had planted) might bring him back into the fold. Well, as close to the fold as Sherlock ever got, anyway. Truth was, Lestrade had missed having the indomitable duo that John and Sherlock made around. John and his friendship had always been steady, but there was an element missing when Sherlock was gone. Even knowing that, he could feel more of the hair at his temple turning silver as he took Sherlock's show of temper in and attempted to diffuse it. He began to feel the first tinges of regret of bringing them in on this particular case.
"Making those decisions is John's job," and with that curt phrase and a nod of his head, Sherlock exited the conference room, seemingly in search of a cup of coffee, or perhaps other mischief.
Greg turned to John, shaking his head. "Been on a tear, has he?"
John stared after Sherlock's retreating figure, as though he was still trying to figure out a puzzle, but he didn't like the picture it was making. It took a second for Greg's question to sink in, but when it did, John's first answer was a swift nod. "In the oddest kind of way though. He hasn't even been looking for cases since the incident, but he's been… oddly content. For him anyway. He's in and out of Baker Street so often I can't keep track of him. Far as I can figure his full focus is on whoever brought Moriarty back from the dead, but he also won't talk about it. Truth be told though, if you hadn't come by I was getting ready to call you. He needs something else. Something to busy him."
"Well good then. You two can head out on the afternoon train."
"It's not all that simple though, is it?"
The white row house loomed in front of him. It was his home, but he was still readjusting himself to it. With a sigh of resignation- he was sure this was not going to go over well- he willed himself up the stairs and through the front door. His wife sat perched on the floor (how had he never noticed she always sat like that- ready to fly away at a moment's notice?), beautiful in her ungainliness, folding little bits of clothing that it seemed impossible any human could ever fit into. John stopped in the entry way, struck again at how much he could love and not understand her in the same breath.
Mary's head turned up at the noise from the door, her hair sliding into the streak of sunlight from the front window, "Just finishing up the laundry from the baby shower. I swear, she'll never have to wear the same outfit twice."
With an uneasy smile, he went to sit with her on the wood floor of the living room, beginning to move the piles of clothes she'd made into baskets. The silence stretched between them.
"It's ok you know," Mary commented finally, when it seemed as though the moment might break if it went any longer.
John looked up, locking eyes with his wife (blue! Blue! Brown contacts for their whole relationship, why had he not noticed that she only came to bed after the lights were out? That she was always awake and in the shower before him?).
"What is?"
"That you have to go on a case. I don't like it, and I'll miss you, as I did just get you back, but it is ok. This is who you are. And if you can love me as I am, I can certainly do the same."
John should have known. More and more of their conversations had gone like this since he'd moved back into their home. It seemed almost as if she was flexing muscles that had gone unused in her most recent incarnation of self. She'd know more than seemed reasonable. He'd feel foolish for not recognizing she'd know. His temper flared, (of course she knows!) but he took a deep breath before he responded, even managing a half-hearted chuckle before asking, "Know where we're going too then, I take it?"
"Only because Molly rang before you came home."
"Oh thank god."
"What? Did you think I'd deduced it? I'm good lovey, but I'm not that good," she reached her hands over and patted John's shoulders before using them to leverage herself into a standing position. She looked down at John, a real smile playing on her lips for the first time all day, hand outstretched in a clear offer to help him in return.
"I wouldn't want to topple you," he said as he pushed down on the chair behind him to bring himself up next to her.
"You really know what the ladies want to hear, don't you John Watson?" With a laugh and a crinkle of her nose, she picked up a basket with one arm and tucked her other hand into his. They may not be right yet, but she was glad to have her husband back.
"Wait, Molly called?"
"No."
"Yes."
"No."
"Yes."
"No. No, no, no, no, no," maybe if I say it in a rhythm, he will get it and leave me alone- Molly's thoughts might not have been the most rational, but this was getting old.
"You will be going to stay with Mary Watson. John and I agreed it will be safer."
"No, I will not. I've already talked to her. And we agreed. We will check in on one another daily. We will have each other as our number one speed dial. We will even make sure the other flosses for heaven's sake, but we will NOT be spending how-ever-long it takes you to finish this case in 'nearly Wales,'" Molly's hands shot up in a mocking gesture, showing just how high her frustration level had gone with this conversation, "in the same house! We are friends Sherlock but part of maintaining a friendship between most people means time apart as well as time together. We'd kill each other."
Sherlock's eyebrows shot up at her last comment, wrinkling the alabaster skin of his forehead, distracting Molly for the split second she needed for her next comment to come across as pithy rather than desperate. (Get it together Hooper- it's a forehead).
"Oh not literally," she huffed, unaware of the connotations of her comment. "And stop making that face; it'll get stuck that way," Molly turned back to her lab bench to busy her hands, trying and failing to hide her reaction to him. "Besides, she's got Janine to keep an eye on her as well."
"It will be safer this way. We still aren't sure who plastered Moriarty's likeness across the country, and I don't like not knowing. I will not allow people I consider my friends to be put in an unnecessary level of harm's way. With you in the same place, it will be easier to keep track of you. And Janine is not a doctor."
"I do not like being considered something to be 'kept track of,' I am not a dog," (much as I feel like one some days- ugh.), Molly's inner monologue berated her even as she attempted to maintain her cool with the looming detective.
Sherlock reached over and placed one wide palm over her wayward hands, stilling them in an instant. "Please. It will make me feel… less distracted. John as well- he wasn't happy about going so far away with Mary almost to term."
"Well… when you put it that way."