The Tigers Have Found Me

by circumbendibustible

Part three of "Solitude and Refuge".

The Tigers Have Found Me - the third part of Solitude and Refuge. Fourth part coming.

When you left
You took almost
Everything.
I kneel in the nights
Before tigers
That will not let me be.

What you were
Will not happen again.
The tigers have found me
And I do not care.
~ Charles Bukowski

---

D.I. Greg Lestrade can't help comparing the current Sherlock Holmes against the Sherlock-and-John-Watson of three years ago, as he watches Sherlock with sad frustration in his eyes. The tall man moves attentively around the corpse in the chair. Sherlock no longer deduces aloud, he no longer gloats over his own acumen, neither does he react in any way to anybody's alternative suggestions or theories. Each time Sherlock is called in he arrives, observes with every sense, thinks, explains and leaves. He does not, apparently, care whether they agree with him or whether he's right or not, though he invariably is. He no longer chases Lestrade for cases, even serial killers go un-deduced unless he is specifically requested to investigate.

Lestrade misses John in his own right, not just as a natural extension of Sherlock Holmes. He'd always liked the man. And admired him: anybody who could – not so much tame Sherlock as contain him – was pretty extraordinary. I mean, Lestrade thinks, everybody knows Sherlock's extraordinary as soon as he enters a room, but it's not that noticeable with John, not till you really think about his many facets, only one of which is his relationship with the truly bizarre Consulting Detective.

For a long time they were amazing together; Greg had witnessed, almost incredulously given the two personalities involved, a genuine love story. Their break-up put one more nail in the coffin that is Lestrade's sense of romance. He doesn't know what happened between the two, only that it seems as though it's permanent. He knows John's back in Afghanistan, having made it his business in the early days of John's absence to find out, and he texted John several times but not once did he receive a response.

He's often wondered how the loss of Sherlock was affecting John. There are always plenty of opportunities in war for one to indulge in self-destruction, which would appear, given the man's meltdown when Sherlock 'died', to be John's preferred method of not-coping.

But the war in Afghanistan is over; somewhere John is being demobbed and Greg wonders what he'll do now.

Sherlock draws his attention now, explains how, why and who carelessly; take it or leave it. Greg watches his face, clocks the fine lines which have appeared around his eyes and between his eyebrows, the deeper grooves which bracket his mouth. It comes to Greg it's been a long time since he's seen Sherlock smile or laugh. Hell, even that annoyingly smug smirk would be welcome. He raises his eyes to Sherlock's own and they look empty. Sherlock's mouth seems unconnected to his gaze, like he's a ventriloquist's dummy.

"Goodbye, Lestrade," says Sherlock, turning on his heel. Gone are the days that Sherlock moved with exuberance, clattering and swirling in and out of crime scenes. He moves sedately now, still graceful but controlled, with the more careful movements of an older man. And that, thinks Lestrade, is what has happened to Sherlock Holmes. He has aged, grown closed off inside himself.

In fact, Sherlock's movements are controlled, constrained, because for the past two years he has been terrified that his centre cannot hold, that any moment he will discombobulate, fly apart, scattering his atoms to the ether.

Sherlock's thoughts are tumultuous. He is deeply offended by Lestrade's attempt to deduce him – did the man think he wouldn't notice? If it had been anybody else he would have put them in their place quick smart but Lestrade had been a friend, back when he had friends, back when he deserved them.

He's in turmoil because he knows why Lestrade was trying to deduce him. Sherlock's far from au fait with most current events, but even he's aware that John will have left Afghanistan by now and Lestrade is wondering what that will mean for Sherlock.

He crouches on his chair in 221B , arms wrapped tightly around his knees. Gazes at his violin, wishing he could lose himself in the music as he once was able to.

xxx

John rings first to notify Mrs Hudson he's coming to collect his things from 221C and has a truck outside the building at 10.00 am the next day. Mrs Hudson greets him with open arms, telling him how pleased she is to see him and how tired he looks.

"Yes, well, war zones will do that to you," he tells her. He says no to tea, just wanting to get his stuff and get out of there. The place holds too many difficult associations for him to feel comfortable. Nevertheless his erstwhile landlady stands outside her door and prattles to him during his several trips up from the basement flat.

"I'm afraid you'll find things a little damp after all this time, John, it's not the best environment down there to store things for too long."

He reads the reproach in her voice correctly and apologises for taking so long to collect his possessions, some of which do, indeed, show signs of mould and mildew.

Blinking into the light yet again as he leaves the darkened basement, climbing the stairs, he's stopped in his tracks by the figure on the landing, standing beside Mrs Hudson and scowling down at John in such a familiar way it throws him completely.

"Sh ... erlock," he says, gruffly, and the moment seems crammed with too many feelings and thoughts and memories for him to say anything else. John lowers his eyes as he reaches the foyer, aware of the flush rising to his skin and refusing to look at Sherlock again, knowing that he must be disturbing him as well. He takes the carton he's carrying out to the truck and loads it into the back. He stands for a moment, hidden by the truck's open door, to calm himself down. He'd hoped to avoid Sherlock. Ten in the morning had been as safe as he could play it, because Sherlock would usually have been either asleep, or out.

What exactly does he mean by 'usually' he thinks, wrily. It's a long time since John knew Sherlock well enough to be able to predict his movements.

John draws a deep breath and shuts the door of the truck whilst he returns to 221 for his last load. Sherlock's no longer there. John can't identify which he feels more strongly; relief or disappointment. He kisses Mrs Hudson good bye and leaves.

Starting the truck, John can't help but look up at the window of 221B . As he almost expected, there is Sherlock, looking down at him, expressionlessly. He turns away from the window just as John pulls out from the kerb.

Xxx

The waxen corpse on the table is beautiful in a terrible way - pale, bloodless, wrists agape. A suicide, straightforward and yet mysterious in its attainment of eternity. Sometimes Sherlock envies the dead, is jealous of their dreadful knowledge. He is far from religious but curious about what awaits him on the other side of existence. The young man lying before him knows either nothing at all, or everything Sherlock wants to know. Today Sherlock is inclined to see him as insensate meat, as he samples cheek cells from inside the mouth.

Sherlock is vaguely aware that Molly has left the lab – surprising really, considering how little she trusts him – and he looks up in irritation at the intrusive sound of footsteps on the linoleum, a frown already creasing his face.

And sees John. Who stops in his tracks and rocks back on his heels.

"Sherlock, I ..."

"John," he breathes, almost inaudibly. He feels a fluttering in his solar plexus –John's appearance at St Barts is the last thing he'd have expected.

"Sherlock, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to intrude on your ...er."

"No, John, it's ..."

Molly appears, stops when she sees the two of them together, her expressive face flushing, then walks towards John.

She holds out a large buff-coloured the envelope to him. "Erm, it's here John," she says. "And remember, if you need a verbal reference I'm happy to oblige."

"Yeah, thanks Molly, will do." He can't seem to stop his eyes from sliding towards Sherlock.

"Okay," he sighs, "I'll get out of your hair now. Thanks again."

Sherlock is startled by the suddenness of John's departure. One minute he's calculating the significance of that envelope, the next he's watching John disappear down the corridor.

He frowns. "Why does he need references, Molly?"

"Because he lost a lot of his personal papers. They went rotten with mould while they were in storage. He's trying to replace them."

"Again, why?"

She looks at him blankly.

"Why now?" he asks impatiently.

"Oh." She looks at him rather speculatively, hesitating, then takes the plunge.

"Because he can't find work," she says. "And he won't work here, though we've asked him to."

"Why not?" Sherlock asks, confused.

Molly gives an exasperated huff.

"Because he doesn't want to encroach on your territory, Sherlock. Because he's a gentleman."

Sherlock sprints down the corridor and out onto the street. He can't see John at first, not knowing which direction he'll have taken (and isn't that infuriating), but he stops and looks, his height putting him above many in the crowd. And there he is, John, walking his familiar walk. Sherlock notes a certain stoop to his shoulders which was missing in their encounter at Barts. There, John had stiffened his spine when he saw Sherlock. Sherlock takes off after him.

John is almost at the tube entrance when a large dark whirlwind grabs him by the arm and pulls him out of the stream of pedestrians and into the recessed doorway of a tobacconist's shop. John's winded and breathless from the shock, but Sherlock doesn't really notice.

"John," he says, commandingly, "take the job."

"Sorry?" John looks bemused and somewhat pissed off, as he wrenches his arm out Sherlock's grasp.

"At Barts," Sherlock says. "Take the job at Barts."

"No," says John, reflexively.

"Why not? You can, I don't mind."

John looks at Sherlock, properly meets his eyes for the first time since he came back. Sherlock is overwhelmed to confusion by the amount of information to be gleaned from John's face and body. Information he doesn't know. Momentarily his mind goes blank.

"I do," says John.

Sherlock frowns. "You do what?" he asks.

"I mind," John says softly. "Bye Sherlock," and he turns, rejoins the pedestrian stream and disappears down the stairs.

xxxx

Sherlock sits, miserably, again, staring at his violin. If he could only find some way out of his brain. Sometimes he wonders why he bothers staying clean. His reality is as grey as it ever was when he first fell in love with narcotics. His mind has regressed to that dreadful rat-mill he experienced at boarding school.

Sherlock had hated school. Mycroft had been school Captain, Dux in his senior year, and had left behind him a reputation that Sherlock was expected to live up to. Of course, Sherlock couldn't do it. Mycroft was clever and diplomatic and admirable, able to negotiate his way through any and every social situation. Sherlock was stuck in his own head and couldn't communicate with anyone. He had been able to see so much more, understand so much more than was offered to him in what was supposed to be a comprehensive education, but he couldn't explain himself. He'd been so frustrated that he lashed out and people – students and teachers - were intimidated by him.

Hhe was an angry, isolated, lonely boy, ripe for the smooth attentions of an older boy, a sophisticated 18 year old, who had, in the course of Sherlock's first sexual, emotional relationship, supplied him with cocaine and heroin. Sherlock was never short of money and never went without. The dealer was the object of a misplaced lust borne of adolescent hormones, soon over, but Sherlock's affair with narcotics was truly passionate, creating and confirming a brilliant distance between him and the rest of humanity.

He had been using for almost two years before his family found out. School holidays were short and lonely when he was at home. Mycroft had been building his career and was unable to spend time with Sherlock until Christmas. What Sherlock's oblivious parents had failed to even notice about their youngest son, Mycroft found startlingly obvious. He informed their parents angrily.

Their father disengaged still further from Sherlock, whom he'd come to regard with a distaste founded upon a singular inability to understand what made his odd child tick. Being of a cold and proper disposition he'd tolerated Sherlock till he could ship him off to boarding school, and had centred all his pride upon his eldest son. The discovery that Sherlock was addicted to narcotics only confirmed his opinion of the boy, and if left to his own devices he'd have had Sherlock locked up. Their mother had fluttered indecisively and tried to please their father. It had been ever thus and Sherlock hadn't expected anything different from her. He'd loved her but knew, to his cost, that she'd never be brave enough to disagree with her husband. About anything. Ever. So she cried a little when she heard about the drugs and then never mentioned it again.

That Christmas, and the weeks afterwards, was the first time Mycroft made use of the Holmes' hunting lodge in the somewhat remote countryside to detoxify his little brother. It was almost as traumatic for him to watch Sherlock come undone at the seams as it was agonising for Sherlock.

In the throes of withdrawal Sherlock said unforgiveable things to Mycroft, who forgave him.

When school resumed, Sherlock chose to go back. He was clean.

Within a week he was climbing the walls with boredom. Within a fortnight he'd set up a new dealer (he'd been through several since his first). When Mycroft came to visit at half-term, Sherlock was awol. Mycroft changed his centre of operations to the hunting lodge again, and this time he shut Sherlock into the bathroom and left him there for a week. Much as he would do, years later, for John Watson.

But over time Sherlock backslid and backslid and backslid, till Mycroft set his formidable jaw, hardened his heart and had Sherlock incarcerated in a rehab facility that practiced tough love without the love. The threat of being locked up there again had kept Sherlock relatively straight since, and John's influence had strengthened his resistance.

But Sherlock had never forgiven Mycroft.

xxx

John discovers the following week that Sherlock has fought irrevocably with Molly who has refused him any access to Barts, leaving John able to accept their offer of employment. Molly won't talk about the conflict and John is too relieved to be working and too familiar with Sherlock's brand of offense to question it too closely. He's been doing the midnight shift for several weeks when Mycroft Holmes brings his mother in. Whilst John is quite taken aback by the visitation, Mycroft is unsurprised, his usual unflappable self. John's eyes travel to Mrs Holmes and understands immediately the reason for their visit.

Mrs Holmes has always been small, frail and very feminine, very much one for elegance and grooming. Her sons' height is their paternal inheritance. Now Mrs Holmes is not just small but shrunken, not just frail but fragile and her clothes hang on her. She is wearing a Hermes headscarf and the muted blues and greys of the silk accentuate her pallor and the enormity of her eyes. She leans on Mycroft's arm as he helps her into a wheelchair.

xxx

Sherlock's mobile chimes at two forty one am, interrupting the brooding silence in which he has been sitting hunched like a semi-domesticated gargoyle. He huffs out a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding – thank god, it's from Lestrade. Sherlock certainly doesn't find the game as thrilling as he was wont to, but anything that takes him out of his head is a boon. He looks at the lit screen. The words, 'Your brother at Bart's. Needs you urgently. Gravely injured. Come immediately,' appear across it in bright letters.

Like that's going to happen. Sherlock has spent a decade not doing what Mycroft wants. Going out of his way, in fact, to do anything Mycroft is clear that he doesn't want. Sherlock has barely heard from the British Government since John left, he'd made it absolutely clear any contact would be unwelcome and there would be dire consequences.

He turns his phone off.

There's a banging on the door some half hour later and Lestrade's voice urgent with frustration and fury. "Open the bloody door right now, Sherlock, or I'll break it down."

"Go away, Lestrade," Sherlock tells him, as the minute silence which follows the threat ticks away and Lestrade barrels through the now defunct door. But Lestrade has brought backup, and while one apish uniform holds Sherlock's wrists, another cuffs him. He is manhandled down the stairs and into the waiting cop car.

"Lestrade, you know I don't ride in ..." He bites his tongue as one of the grunts pushes his head down and thrusts him into the back seat, where he is joined by a Lestrade so angry that even Sherlock is subdued.

"You cold, utter bastard!" Lestrade growls. "Your brother's dying and you turn off your fucking phone? You're unbelievable!"

All Sherlock can hear is 'your brother's dying' looping greyly through his head. But of course, Lestrade's wrong. Mycroft is probably faking it just to lure Sherlock into his clutches again. Sherlock can't expect Lestrade to comprehend Mycroft's devious nature or his dramatic abilities.

"Really, Lestrade," he condescends, "I'd have thought your years of familiarity with me would have given you some insight into my brother's machinations. Dying? Really? I'd have expected a less histrionic method of getting to me. And since when do you obey his demands?"

"Shut it, Sherlock, just...shut it. Your brother, fyi, is too unconscious to be making demands. I've been sent to get you as his next-of-kin. He's in the ICU, Sherlock, get it?"

Sherlock's brain is back on its loop. Dying...ICU...Dying...ICU... "Wait a minute, Lestrade, next-of-kin? This is a trick; the manipulative bastard. He's winding you up. I know. I'm not stupid, remember? I'm not Mycroft's next of kin, Mother is."

Lestrade draws a shaky breath and takes Sherlock's hand in his. "I'm sorry, Sherlock, but there's no easy way to tell you this. There was a car accident. You're mother is dead. Mycroft was badly injured... I am so sorry, Sherlock...I wish there was something I could do." He looks at Sherlock's profile, familiar against the car window, expressionless. Beyond the glass it's raining, the water reflecting in the streetlights on Sherlock's face, a mockery of faux tears. Lestrade sympathetically squeezes Sherlock's hand, which tenses uncomfortably and withdraws from Lestrade's, Sherlock placing it on his own knee, stony faced. Lestrade sighs – he should have known Sherlock needed nothing human from anybody.

And then they're at Bart's. Lestrade leaves Sherlock with the medicos and disappears.

Sherlock stands silently as the thoracic surgeon details Mycroft's injuries and their treatment...flail segment, collapsed lung, bruising to other lung, bruised heart, traumatic pneumothorax; ventilation, chest drain, morphine...Sherlock's brain stores the information whilst all the while one thought travels through his mind and that's the one he voices.

"Why was Mycroft driving?"

The surgeon looks taken aback. "Er...I'm sorry, sir, but I don't know. Now, your brother - "

Lestrade appears beside Sherlock and hands him a hot black coffee. He's loaded it with sugar and Sherlock's mouth curls in a squashed up little moue as he automatically tastes it.

"I think Mr Holmes will do better if he can visit his brother and see Mycroft's condition for himself," Lestrade says, and after a slight hesitation the surgeon takes them both to the ICU.

xxx

Mycroft looks so small. That's what Sherlock's mind tells him as he catalogues his brother's appearance. His brother is pale, except for the lacerations on his forehead and cheeks and the dark tracks of the sutures holding some of them closed. To Sherlock the most shocking thing is the gauntness of Mycroft's face; the hollows under his cheekbones, the sharpness of his bony jaw.

His face is that of an ascetic.

When did he get so thin?

Mycroft's chest rises and falls with the ventilator's pulse. His eyes are closed, the lids bluish. He's hooked up to a plasma bag. His bony hands rest beside him, IV lines leading into the back of them, but the fingers are slightly curved, somehow supplicatory and vulnerable. Mycroft has always had elegant hands, long-fingered and expressive, but these are the hands of a wraith.

There is a chair beside the bed and Sherlock sits himself gingerly on its edge. Someone is talking but he can't hear them. He raises his hands and connects neurally to his mind palace. He has to process this, to categorise, classify it. It is a matter of life and death.

xxx

John Watson walks into Mycroft's hospital room, looking stressed and grey. Whilst he hadn't altogether liked Mrs Holmes, he does feel some regret at her death, mercifully quick as it had been. The other car's impact had pushed the passenger side door in, crushing her frail chest as she sat beside her son. John had not enjoyed identifying her or signing her death certificate.

And the first thing he sees is not Mycroft but Sherlock, crouched in a chair, arms and hands moving almost mechanically. John registers the movements deep in his gut, it brings so many memories back, but he sees something of a difference immediately. Sherlock's hand movements are repetitive, he moves them along an obviously accustomed pathway, but at the same point every time he falters and starts again. And each time he reaches that point, Sherlock's face seems to waver, something like a ripple of disturbance crosses the set of his features. John has never seen Sherlock's expression change before, when he's accessing his mind palace. That exercise has always been the most cerebral, least emotional process he's ever seen. And as he watches, Sherlock's face changes more and more, and John sees frustration and anger and fear in his eyes.

Despite his well-rehearsed decision never to involve himself with Sherlock again, John's first instinct is to 'fix' him. He crosses the room and puts a hand on Sherlock's shoulder, speaks his name in a low, soothing voice, and Sherlock startles into the present.

"John," he says, desperately, "I was wrong." He focuses on John's face, and says it again, urgently. "I was wrong."

"Sherlo..."

"No, John! Don't you understand? I was wrong!"

John's gut twists with revulsion. "Oh no you don't, Sherlock!" he almost spits, "This is not about you. You don't get to make a scene here in your brother's room while he's there fighting for his life. For God's sake, you're mother's dead, Mycroft may well be dying and you make it about your infallibility. I don't know what you're wrong about, and I don't care how it makes you feel. You either stay here with your brother and deal with whatever happens to him next, or you get the fuck out of my hospital right now!"

Sherlock stares at him, open-mouthed, eyes wide and tormented, and suddenly he's running, running for the door, and John hears his footsteps ringing along the corridor outside as he heads for the hospital's exit.

xxx

John makes a conscious effort to quell the fury Sherlock has infused him with. He hears a groan and turns to the man in the bed. John is beside him instantly, buzzing for a nurse whom he sends to find the surgeon, trying to soothe his obviously traumatised patient. Mycroft's eyes are pained and scared and he's struggling to sit and pulling on the tubes in his mouth and nose trying to dislodge them. Despite John's gentle opposition, when the surgeon arrives Mycroft is croaking at John.

"Sherlock..." he says, indistinctly. His eyes are pleading.

"Shh, please don't try to talk, Mycroft. Your brother was here a moment ago. I'm not sure where he's gone but I'll have someone try to find him for you."

Mycroft's voice is like gravel and John has to lower his ear to the man's mouth. Mycroft groans and then tries again. "Roof," he is saying, "Roof."

"Oh shit!" John says, not even bothering to question him. Of course he knows. He's Mycroft Holmes. Seconds later John's running for the fire escape, the fastest way up. Writhing inside as he counts up the floors, he refuses to think about the last time Sherlock was on this roof, nor what John might find at the top this time. He's livid with Sherlock. How dare he do this again.

xxx

Sherlock is sitting, arms hugging his knees, against the wall when he hears the distinctive squawk of the stairwell door. He barely registers it, however, and it's not till John places a warm hand onSherlock's shoulder that he notices his presence.

John looks down at the wan face Sherlock turns up to him, with its desperate eyes and the many small changes wrought by their time apart; the new lines, the older ones which have become more pronounced. He still has that unearthly pallor. The cold, winter light catches the odd thread of silver in the black curls John remembers so well and when Sherlock parts his lips to speak, John's attention is riveted to his mouth. And whatever he sees in John's expression, Sherlock surges upwards, grasping John's arms and pushing their faces together, kissing him with tiny caresses all over his face before he homes in on John's mouth with passion and need. John is still, rigid with surprise and shock. It takes Sherlock a moment to realise that John is not reciprocating, another moment where he desperately slides his tongue between John's lips, trying to make him respond. That's where it stops. Coming to his senses John pushes Sherlock away with all his might and wipes his mouth, grimacing, with the back of his hand. Sherlock sees that movement and with it goes all hope, finally, that John will ever come back to him.

"I'll pretend that didn't happen, Sherlock." John growls. "Mycroft is conscious and asking for you. For some misguided reason he thinks you might be feeling upset. Of course, we had to waste time trying to find you, well done by the way, good to see that even in the most extreme circumstances you can still find the perfect way to inconvenience everybody and be the centre of attention."

Sherlock turns his back on John. "No," he says, "I'm not going anywhere with you. Tell Mycroft..."

John grabs his arm, gripping it painfully. "You tell Mycroft anything you want him to hear, you fucking callous coward. But if you hurt him any further I won't be answerable for my actions." Sherlock's stomach lurches at the familiar jealousy he feels at the friendship between his brother and John. Nothing's changed. Sherlock knows he's being irrational even as he speaks.

"No!" he says. "Mycroft's your friend, you deal with it!"

"Oh for god's sake Sherlock, get over this attitude towards your brother. Mycroft has only ever wanted to look after you. Yes he's a bull in a china shop, his diplomatic skills disappear whenever you're within ten metres distance of each other, but he means well. And he is my friend. He did his best to undo the damage you did me. "

And Sherlock hates that, Mycroft saving John when all Sherlock had done was hurt him.

But John had always been on Mycroft's side after Sherlock came back. Sherlock never knew how John could be Mycroft's friend, when he was Sherlock's lover. He wonders whether John and Mycroft have stayed in touch during john's absence from London. He blames Mycroft's influence for John's defection. All those times that John visited Mycroft, usually when things were tense in Baker Street. Sherlock is quite certain that Mycroft has told John in great detail about the many aspects of Sherlock's life history that Sherlock would rather have kept to himself. But John had, as it were, gone over to the enemy.

"Mycroft didn't have to save me, you know, Sherlock. He thought you were dead. He could have left me to pickle my brain and let my liver rot – it's not like I was his responsibility. He didn't have to fix me. I'll be grateful he did for the rest of my life." He grabs Sherlock by the back of the neck. "At least one of us has the decency to be thankful for his help," he says, "and I'm going to show him mine by bringing his ungrateful, callous bastard of a brother to see him, since it is Mycroft asking and Mycroft is quite possibly not going to survive the night. Now get!"

xxx

John is worried that Sherlock will make things worse for Mycroft, will be himself; rude, hurtful, careless. But, unexpectedly, at the bedside all of Sherlock's attention is centred on his brother, whose eyes are closed again. His breathing is laboured, hoarse and obviously painful, but he is no longer supported by the ventilator. The rather brisk and matter-of-fact nurse makes way for Sherlock, who takes his place in the bedside chair he previously vacated. John stands behind him, radiating tension and anger, but Sherlock is no longer aware of him, all his attention riveted on the man in the bed, and as if he knows he's there Mycroft's eyes open and John sees his face as he observes Sherlock. His expression is one of concern and sympathy, and Sherlock breathes out shakily at sight of it.

"Alright, Sherlock," Mycroft creaks out of his damaged chest. "'m alright."

"I was wrong, Mycroft, I'm sorry," Sherlock almost whispers, and he leans forward till his face is buried in the sheets beside Mycroft, who slowly and painfully raises his hand to rest it in Sherlock's hair. He looks at John, over his brother's head, and smiles a small, private smile, a smile a little like Sherlock's and John is struck by the resemblance between two men who have previously been separated by their differences. Mycroft looks at him almost apologetically, and says "Would you give us some privacy?" John leaves them to it.

"Not for too long, Mycroft," he says, "Not too much talking. It's astounding that you're even conscious. Don't wear yourself out." He hesitates, looking at Sherlock. "Call me if you need me, Mycroft."

xxx

Sherlock is shocked by the sudden vivid feelings for Mycroft that have swamped him and cut him adrift. Sherlock's face is buried against his brother's side but his mind is peeling away years of hatred and contempt like some encrusted wallpaper in Mycroft's room in his mind palace. He tries to keep his mind intact but layer by layer it falls away despite him, exposing the naked truth. It hurts. Sherlock feels as though he's being mentally flayed, the thick rind of his cultivated prejudice being painfully removed. He can't shut the door and walk away, his defensive walls have been breached and he can't stop the flood of memories, of feelings.

For the second time in as many days Sherlock's mind returns to the grainy mind-footage of his junked up period. He can't help it, can't separate his brother from his history of addiction.

He remembers how for himself, the fact that his drug use had been found out didn't matter. He had no intentions of stopping and it was a measure of how fucked up he actually was that he thought everyone else would be as accepting of his habit as he was. But Mycroft, well, Mycroft had been devastated.

That Sherlock could treat himself so badly hurt his older brother dreadfully, and the way their parents dealt with it infuriated him. All Sherlock's life Mycroft had looked out for him, trying to smooth relations between his brother and his father. Mycroft's praise and obvious love of his little brother had been Sherlock's greatest treasure. He had looked up to Mycroft with almost hero-worship – Mycroft who had always been older but who had played with Sherlock and shown him things, who had enabled Sherlock to interpret the world around him and translated Sherlock to the world.

Mycroft had loved him warts and all, Sherlock had known that. He was the only person in his life who didn't expect Sherlock to change so he'd 'fit in'. Mycroft hadn't wanted him to change. He'd told Sherlock all his life how amazing he was, how proud he was of his little brother. He'd been more of a parent to Sherlock than their parents had ever been and had often defended him when their father criticised him for not being more like Mycroft.

"You're wrong, Father," he remembers Mycroft saying once, that last Christmas the family were together before he left, before the drugs. "Sherlock's mind is brilliant, not second-rate. He just thinks differently to most of us. Sherlock will find his feet soon enough and people will value him as he should be valued. You should not compare him to me – Sherlock has a strength of pure intellect, which I can only envy. I have absolutely no doubt that he will make you very proud."

Sherlock recalls the warmth that had blossomed in his affection-starved chest and belly at Mycroft's words. But Mycroft had let Sherlock slide, briefly, whilst he applied himself to consolidating his new career and Sherlock had found a new teacher, one that distorted every interpretation of Sherlock's world, as through a sharp, bright prism.

Mycroft had forced Sherlock back to the grey and it had clutched him till he met Lestrade, and then John and he hadn't needed the distortion of drugs for a very long time.

But somewhere during Sherlock's drug adventures, he and Mycroft had lost each other.

So much, Sherlock thinks, for unconditional love.

xxx

Lestrade is in the canteen when John arrives there to grab a cup of the brown sludge that passes for tea at the hospital. He joins Greg at the table, and Greg looks carefully at John, observing the grim set of his face. "You look tired," he says. "How's Mycroft?"

"Awake," John tells him. "Sherlock's there with him."

Lestrade looks surprised. "And you left them alone? Do you think that's wise? I mean, Sherlock..."

"I know," John says. "But Mycroft wanted me to leave, and Sherlock...well, I've never seen Sherlock so ..."

"So?" asks Lestrade.

"I don't know," John admits. "I don't know how he feels...what he's thinking. I had to drag him off the roof to force him to see Mycroft...but when he got there he kind of..." he shrugs.

"What, John? Angry? Sarcastic? Unsympathetic? Resentful?"

"No, none of those things. He...it looked like he was surrendering, Greg. All the fight just went out of him. He was practically cuddling Mycroft when I left."

Greg Lestrade looks sceptical. "Are you sure he wasn't just trying to bluff you into leaving?"

"Oh, God, Greg, I don't know. It's been so long since I've seen Sherlock I can't read him anymore." "And do you want to, John?" Greg asks, looking at John's placid face curiously as its expression changes to adamant.

"Jesus, no!" he exclaims. "I wouldn't even be here if I hadn't been on my shift anyway. It's purely coincidental that I was on duty when Mrs Holmes and Mycroft were brought in."

"I wonder where they were going," Lestrade muses.

"I'm pretty sure they were on their way here," John tells him. "Mrs Holmes has been treated for leukaemia here for the last year or so. I was very surprised to see them shortly after I began to work here. But the chemo hasn't worked – she had about two months left. In some ways her death has been more merciful – quick and sudden rather than drawn out and painful."

Lestrade frowns.

"No seriously," John tells him. "Mrs Holmes is – was- a proud woman who hated people to see her weakness. She became very thin, and lost her hair, you know, the usual symptoms. Mycroft started to drive her himself when she told him she felt uncomfortable being driven in one of his black fleet – she felt self-conscious being driven by a stranger. We treated her at night for the same reason. I really believe she's an undiagnosed agoraphobe, she was almost reclusive at the time I knew her."

"Dr Watson," Mycroft's nurse calls, poking her head around the doorframe. "Mr Holmes is asking for you."

As John gulps his last mouthful of sludge and rises from his seat he asks "Which Mr Holmes?"

But she's already left the room and is swinging down the corridor as he follows her rapid footsteps.

xxx

Sherlock leans away from Mycroft as John enters the room, and sits back in the chair, crossing his arms across his chest and staring at him with laser-like focus. John ignores him after a first glance and concentrates on Mycroft, who is no longer lying on his back but rather semi-sitting, propped back on his pillows. John has always known that Mycroft is strong, but his resilience to his quite severe and very painful injuries is astonishing.

He times Mycroft' pulse which is quite regular and strong. The action reminds him of another time, another Holmes, whose pulse he had not been able to feel. He quashes the sick sensation he always feels, still feels, when he remembers that incident, but it makes him feel even less charitable towards Sherlock. He is nothing if not professional, though, and rises above it in order to do his job.

"Mycroft, Sherlock, I'm very sorry for your loss." He is looking at Mycroft as he speaks, but in his peripheral vision he sees Sherlock lean forward again as if to try to draw John's attention to him. John determinedly keeps his eyes away.

Mycroft grimaces, "Thankyou, John," he croaks. "I know you've always done your best for her. She was fond of you, you know. As much as she could be of anybody."

Sherlock gives a sceptical snort, albeit somewhat subdued. Mycroft looks at him and that small, private smile crosses his face again. John sees Sherlock reflect fleetingly a similar expression and wonders.

"My brother and I were wondering if you would be so kind as to accompany him to see our mother, to say goodbye to her," Mycroft tells him. Sherlock snorts again, but somewhat less emphatically. John, who once knew every type of snort Sherlock ever issued, from amused to disgusted, finds himself getting cranky with Sherlock's unsympathetic attitude towards the death of his mother. He looks sourly at Sherlock, then looks at Mycroft again. Mycroft's eyes are pleading with him and John can't refuse him. He says "Of course, Mycroft. If there's anything I can do please don't hesitate to ask."

He summons the nurse to keep an eye on Mycroft and make him more comfortable, then says "Come on then, Sherlock," and leads Sherlock down the corridor and into the room where they have spent so much time, though never before in such intimacy with the corpse.

Molly smiles sympathetically at Sherlock. "I'm so sorry, Sherlock," she says, as she slides the drawer out.

She draws back the cloth covering Mrs Holmes' face, which is pale and blank, as though all her life experience has been lifted from it. John is prepared for her almost skeletal appearance; the cancer had dissolved much of her flesh and the lineaments of her skull can plainly be seen, as can the origins of Sherlock's angular cheekbones and stubborn chin.

Sherlock simply doesn't react, other than to say, "Yes, that's her," and John draws a sharp, offended breath. "Yes," he says. "I know it's her. I identified her. That's not what you're here for. I thought...foolish of me...that you wanted to see her one last time. Your mother. The person who birthed you."

"Oh really, John, really," Sherlock huffs in frustrated amusement, "what possible good would my caring do her now? Surely you know me better than that."

If John was watching, Sherlock's eyes might have told him something different, but John studiously avoids his gaze and Sherlock has shut John, once and for all, out of his feelings.

John turns away, revolted. "I'll leave him to you," he tells Molly, "I need to get back to his brother."

xxx

The thoracic surgeon who operated on Mycroft is there when John arrives back. Mycroft gives John a long look but doesn't ask after his brother. The surgeon, Dr Cowan, checks Mycroft's condition and says he's impressed by his progress, though he's far from out of the woods yet. Sherlock returns just in time to hear this and rolls his eyes. John sees the cautionary look Mycroft gives Sherlock and is surprised that Sherlock closes the mouth he had opened to excoriate the surgeon for stating the obvious.

Mycroft introduces John as his personal physician – the first John has heard of it - and when the surgeon leaves, unaware of the escape he's just had, John turns with an enquiringly raised eyebrow to Mycroft, who, he sees, is watching Sherlock. Sherlock looks shocked; much more so than he had in the morgue and for a moment John thinks he's done Sherlock an injustice, he really is upset about his mother. That sympathetic feeling dies immediately Sherlock opens his mouth.

"Mycroft, you can't!" he says, indignant. "Get another doctor, not John, you can't have John!"

Mycroft looks at his brother, his expression mild and not unsympathetic, but adamant just the same.

"Sherlock, John has been treating Mother for months and I know how good he is at what he does. I am, I've been assured, going to take some time to convalesce and I can't do so in hospital – I must go home. Apart from his medical skills, for which I deeply respect John, I would trust him with my life, no small thing when my centre of operations must inevitably require a security which will be difficult to ensure."

"But..." Sherlock huffs, "But how can I..."

"Sherlock, please don't concern yourself with this. It will not affect you."

John's attention has been drawn to Sherlock's face since he started speaking and he knows the man well enough to recognise Sherlock in control mode. He understands that Sherlock is trying desperately to keep his head together, his face passive. Sherlock's already decided to accord with Mycroft's wishes, and this in itself is a huge eye-opener for John, so out of character that he's shaken by it.

xxx

It's a fortnight before Mycroft's demands to be discharged are satisfied. Anyone else, John thinks ruefully, would have been glad to lie back and let England's top doctors treat him, let time and the best equipped hospital help him to convalesce. But Mycroft has demonstrated a bloody-mindedness as strong as his brother's, insisting upon the necessity of continuing to work even from his bed. Finally his negotiations with his medical team come to a satisfactory close, with them signing him out into the care of Dr John Watson, who accompanies his patient home and brings with him a small suitcase of personal necessities for his open-ended in-house stay.

Sherlock is angry that John is there, that whenever Sherlock wants to visit his brother (a surprisingly frequent desire) he has to be prepared to run into the man.

His resentment towards John is deep and heartfelt. The man turned him inside out like a salted snail and left him that way – every nerve shredded, every neuron aching with impossible dreams, every feeling exposed and rejected. He'd fought hard for self-control, forced John out of his life and out of his head and, after that one disastrous instance of indulgence in what had once been his drug of choice he had stayed straight ever since. And indeed, the drugs he'd shot into his veins that time had been unable to dislodge or dilute John from his system. John had been Sherlock's last, best high.

And really, he's done a pretty good job of keeping it all at bay for a long time, shutting down all of his feelings. When John left him Sherlock had wanted, expected really, to revert to his pre-John self; analytical, logical, immune to human feelings. But an unintentional by-product of withdrawing any emotions associated with John is an inability to take pleasure, pride, in his own brain. So much of his mind palace is off limits; locked – he's been unable to delete John, despite his statements to the contrary. John is a presence in so many memories and experiences – in the four years before their final estrangement John had woven himself inextricably into the tapestry of Sherlock's very being. Sherlock is made lesser than he was by John's absence and he knows it. Seeing John has simply reinforced his feeling of incompleteness, of isolation.

Over the next few weeks Sherlock gets used to running into John, handling each encounter with an icy stare and a frozen courtesy, as though John is a necessary underling whose presence, while required, is unwanted. Which, he tells himself, is exactly what John is to him.

On the other hand, Sherlock and Mycroft have reached an understanding of each other and their relationship that leads to genuine affection and liking, and while Sherlock would never describe himself as sentimental, his feelings for his brother are closer to those he felt as a child. Sherlock isn't sure why and doesn't dwell on it, but he's grateful for their warmth and closeness. It has become a running joke between them that when Sherlock visits he always brings some kind of cake. Mycroft is gently amused and touched by Sherlock's determination to feed him up, and John is somewhat bemused to overhear Sherlock nagging his brother to eat using the very same arguments John once used on Sherlock.

As for John and Mycroft, their friendship has only grown stronger through their enforced proximity and as Mycroft's health improves he looks happier, more relaxed, than John has ever seen him. By tacit agreement they rarely speak of Sherlock and John tends to leave the room as politely as he can whenever Sherlock enters it on a visit.

On this particular afternoon John has been out and upon his return he walks into the library expecting to see Mycroft ensconced in his big leather chair, holding the reins of the nation through his digital network. John still doesn't really know what Mycroft does, or is, professionally speaking, but he does know it's big and important. He doesn't care that he's ignorant in this regard, he prefers it, truth be told.

John enters the room as Sherlock's leaving it, and is arrested by the look of sheer desolation on his face. Sherlock pushes blindly past him and the door bangs distantly shut. Curious, John looks around for some inkling of Sherlock's expression, but there is nobody else there. He sees the unfolded pages of a thickish document and, without even thinking it through, picks it up to read.

'Sherlock, my dear son, I write this to you in the hope that you may read it one day. I know Mycroft has tried repeatedly over the last months to arrange a meeting between us, and I know why he's failed. I am so sorry, Sherlock, that I've failed you so badly. Please forgive me and let me explain myself to you – I owe you that and much, much more.

You know that your father was an unsympathetic man, and jealous of his dues. He regarded each of us as obligated to him and he expected us to live up to his obligations. I was raised in the days when women owed their first loyalty, their first duty, their first affection to the head of the house. Needless to say, in those days the head was always the man. I never even considered bucking those obligations, even when I was aware that he was destroying my relationship with my sons. I let him. I'll never forgive myself for that.

Mycroft didn't draw so much opprobrium from your father. Mycroft was cut along lines that your father approved of and brought credit to him. There was never any affection there, and your father nipped in the bud very quickly any expression of such feelings between Mycroft and myself. I let him. Mycroft seemed to cope and his absence from home when he attended college was, I think, a relief to him.

Not so you, Sherlock, never so you. I remember your infancy fondly, but that was due to the odd little boy you were, not to any real closeness we had between us. Your affection was all for Mycroft – what a funny little fellow you were, following him around as though he was a duck and you his duckling. I'm so sorry I was not your duck. That is a turn of phrase I never expected to say, but let it stand. Mycroft stood in loco parentis for me and probably did a much better job than I ever could have, given your propensity for asking difficult questions. And your father was so awful to you that it was a relief that Mycroft was so good with you. I know you were reasonably happy in those days, wandering the estate and investigating the world.

Your father didn't appreciate you. Over the years I've realised that he was intimidated by you, by the way you think, the way you see clearly. You saw clearly through him, I know that much, and I know he hurt you with his dislike and his constant comparison between you and your brother. You see, he regarded each of us as an extension of himself and you shamed him by being better, brighter, more yourself than he could control.

He was relieved when you went off to school and weren't at home constantly reminding him of his failure as a father, of his comparative intellectual weakness. How he hated that, that he couldn't comprehend you. Whereas I rejoiced. Both of my sons, brilliant, such futures I saw for you both. And then of course came the drugs. I've never blamed you for that Sherlock. In hindsight I realised the connection – less of Mycroft's time with you meant more time in the company of your parents, which must have been devastating because there was no affection for you. I can't put it more clearly than that. Those last few holidays you spent at home without your brother were unbearable for you. I saw that. So did your father. He was pleased. He believed that Mycroft 'coddled' you and it would be character-building for you to spend some time alone. He wouldn't talk to you, remember? Those dreadful meals we shared at table, no conversation, your father glaring at you until you'd bolted what little you'd eat and then left. I let him, Sherlock.

Sometimes I think my illness is penance for all the times I let him. It eats away at my body the way my guilt eats away at my soul. I never told you that I love you, that I'm so proud of you it's painful.

Such heart you showed, my son, when you risked yourself for those you loved, it made me ashamed that I didn't do the same for you and Mycroft. Standing up to your father would not have endangered my existence but it would have been so hard to live with the consequences. My generation, my class, didn't believe in divorce. Your father was already so cold to me, so incapable of loving even me, his wife. He told me once that he had chosen me because I was 'plain but serviceable.' It made me feel like a pair of wellies. He was quite capable of raising his hand to me, as I discovered early in our marriage.

Mycroft used to stand up for you but he had his own way to make in the world and he wasn't there when you needed him. He's never forgiven himself for that, you know. Maybe he'll be able to when you forgive him. He really is a splendid person. You both are.

So, darling boy, I know I let you down repeatedly and it was too late for me to change anything when your father died. I did try for a while but you and I had never been close and my efforts went unsatisfied. I don't blame you, Sherlock, I've never blamed you. I believe I've come to know you quite well, given that it's at a distance, and I'm deeply honoured to be your mother. Please never forget that, it's so important that you know.

Your John Watson tells me I've not got long to live and I feel it in my soul that he's right, so I'm writing you this letter in case we don't see each other again. Mycroft has been so willing to try to effect a meeting between us, but I wouldn't let him tell you of my sickness. I don't want you to pity me, Sherlock, and if you only came to me because I'm sick it would not mean anything.

Do you know, writing this down, getting it from my head into yours, makes me very hopeful. Even if I'm dead, Sherlock, when you read this, I'm not worried. I think you'll be kind to me, I think your heart will recognise what's in mine. I think you'll forgive me. I hope you understand me. I love you dearly and I'm proud of you and I'm sorry. That's really all there is to say.

Mummy."

John has been so engrossed in the letter he didn't hear Mycroft come in, is unaware he's there until he clears his throat. John turns around and the look on Mycroft's face makes his own redden with embarrassment. He puts the letter back down on the desk, shame-faced.

"John, I'm surprised at you, reading such a very personal letter not addressed to you. I doubt Sherlock would appreciate it either," Mycroft says reproachfully.

John pinches the bridge of his nose, scarlet to the tips of his ears. "I know, I'm so sorry, Mycroft. I don't know why...it's such an invasion of his privacy... but - "

"Well, I understand your curiosity, John," Mycroft says, somewhat mollified. "The Holmes family dynamics must have driven you mad when you and Sherlock were together. I can't really blame you for sticky-beaking."

"No, Mycroft, it's not just that, that would be unforgiveable, it's just that I saw him straight after he read it and he looked dreadful, really... dreadful. I want to go after him but that'll make things worse. And anyway, I don't know where he'd go."

"Of course you do, John. The..."

Realisation dawns." The roof, yes, of course. What is it about that roof Mycroft? Should we be worried he's going to jump again?"

"No," says Mycroft, "think about it, John. Sherlock goes there when his feelings get the better of him. It has great significance to him. It was where for the first time he recognised the true nature of the connection between the two of you. It was where he sacrificed himself for you and for the other people he cared about. I think it comforts him to know that he can survive his own emotions. John, if you're serious about going after him I would appreciate it. It would be good for him to know he's not alone in this. I'd go myself but..." he waves his hand to indicate his still-healing body.

"Right," says John, and before he can take it back he turns around almost militarily, straightens his back. He doesn't want to do this, but maybe it will make up for reading the letter in the first place.

xxx

Sherlock is sitting on the edge of the roof of St Barts, his legs dangling over the side he once flew from not knowing whether he would land alive or dead. He is quite numb. With shock, probably, he thinks, remembering the expression on Mycroft's face as he handed him the letter. "I found this amongst Mother's effects, Sherlock," he'd said, though Sherlock had already recognised their mother's neat hand and then Mycroft had patted Sherlock's arm kindly and left and Sherlock read the letter.

It's the saddest thing he's ever read. And Sherlock knows about sadness, these days, in a way that did not exist before John Watson became part of his life, and then left it; he can read the longing in his mother's words and he knows all about that, too.

And so he sits and he smokes and he thinks he's more like his mother than he'd ever thought, infinitely regretful and unable to connect in the present because of the past.

The sudden scrape of a shoe makes him look up and there he is, John, looking down at Sherlock's upturned face.

"I read your letter," is the first thing that John says, almost blurts it out, and Sherlock realises John feels guilty, is ashamed, that he did. Sherlock shrugs, looks away, inhales, exhales with a sigh.

"May I join you?" John asks, and then removes Sherlock's choice by sitting down beside him, his own legs dangling beside Sherlock's long, slender limbs.

John is staring straight ahead, doesn't notice Sherlock's sidelong glances at his profile. So familiar but so strange. Sherlock is not sure he can bear to be this near.

John huffs out a chilly breath, misting the air, and Sherlock realises for the first time how very cold it is up here. Sherlock isn't even wearing his coat, he left the house in such abstraction. But it's all fine, he doesn't feel the cold.

Only, he does.

John clears his throat, "Your mother was a brave woman," he says.

Sherlock rolls his eyes. "Oh spare me the platitudes, John. Thousands of people die of cancer every day. There is nothing brave about facing the inevitable."

"That's not what I meant, Sherlock," John says, patiently, "though she did face that with all the courage she could muster. No, I meant that she was brave to write you that letter. She really did love you, you know."

"I don't care John. I didn't care when she was alive and I still don't care now she's dead. She was entirely mistaken about me, living in a fool's paradise where I am some noble hero, not the fucking sociopath her husband called me every day of my childhood. She didn't know me, what I did, what I'm capable of doing, all the ugly stuff. Better for her that she didn't."

"You're wrong, Sherlock," John says calmly. "I got to know her fairly well over the last few weeks. It's not surprising, in fact it often happens, that dying patients become emotionally close to their physician. And after all we did have a partially shared history. We had you in common."

Sherlock snorts, derisively. "That must have been nice," he bites out, "discussing my shortcomings – and so many of them to discuss!"

"No," John tells him, almost musingly, "no it wasn't like that. She was so full of regret for what she'd missed, Sherlock. She used to ask me, and Mycroft for that matter, about what you were like."

"That explains the letter, then," Sherlock snaps, "painted her a pretty picture did you? Left out all the bits that wouldn't fit into her deluded puzzle? Being kind to the woman before she carked it? No surprise there, then, you always did prefer the sanitised version of me. It was the real me that..."

"No, actually, I told her the truth. I believe people who are dying deserve honesty. I told her the truth as I knew it in answer to every question she asked. And there were a lot of them."

"Huh," Sherlock says.

"She really did want to see you, you know. She couldn't bear to leave home, hated people looking at her, pitying her. It's why she came to Bart's by night for her treatment."

"That doesn't sound very brave to me, John," Sherlock snarks, "you should get your story straight."

"That she had a go at fighting it at all was courageous, Sherlock. She didn't have much of a life, you know, trapped in her house with everybody gone, no happy memories. She fought death off for you, in the hope that you would see her, that she would get to tell you in person everything she said in the letter. Even despite her desire for nonentity, if you had asked she would have come, under any circumstances."

"She was too much of a coward to just arrive on my doorstep."

"She didn't want to force you, Sherlock. She didn't want to guilt trip you into seeing her just because she was dying. She was as bloody obstinate as you are. Mycroft and I had plans to force the issue once she grew too sick for any alternative. That way you could both blame us. But – she died, unexpectedly."

"Oh, the irony just kills you, doesn't it," Sherlock drawls.

"It does, a bit," John tells him. "My parents made dreadful mistakes with my sister and me, too. Most parents do. Not all of us are lucky enough to get a message from beyond the grave trying to rectify them."

"Well, there you go," says Sherlock, raising his palms to the sky and shrugging his shoulders. "Aren't I lucky! Too late to change anything, but lucky that the truth has set me f...f...ree-"

And his shoulders hunch over, he folds his arms against his chest and turns his head from John.

Who tentatively runs his hand gently over Sherlock's shaking back, rubbing small circles as he would a child. Trying to soothe the man. And Sherlock stills under his touch, stiffens, petrified.

"What are you doing?" he asks John in a low voice filled with suppressed violence, a dangerous voice. John removes his hand.

"Just...just trying to be of some comfort to you, Sherlock," he says, "I just wanted to make you feel better."

Sherlock is standing up, moving away. The wind snatches his words away but John can still hear them, as from a vast distance.

"You're not making me feel better, John, there's no comfort in you for me."

John is standing now, looking at Sherlock, whose hair is tossed by the wind into elflocks, whose face is bloodless, his strange eyes fixed upon John. John swallows.

"Whatever you say, however you touch me, John, you will only inflict more damage. Because having you here, being this close, but not being close to you is a monstrous thing."

He turns and goes, leaves John up there on the roof in the cold and the wind, alone with his own confusion, alone with the longing for Sherlock which had reawakened as his fingers traced circles on the man's back.

xxx

It's a good quarter-hour before John's mobile chimes and he shakes himself back to awareness, .

The text is from Mycroft. 'Sherlock with me, all ok.'

John pokes out a message back. 'Good. Will go to my place tonight Mycroft. Call me if you need a doctor.'

He doesn't want to go back to Mycroft's, doesn't want the complication of dealing with Sherlock. He finds a pub, the Baron's Arms, and settles in a corner near the fireplace, nursing a whisky and still cold with a cold that's working its way out from the inside, a personal chill.

Because how could he have thought he wouldn't feel when it came to Sherlock? How stupid has he been to imagine for a moment that he's over the man? He recognises now that all these years he's dealt with Sherlock's absence by simply not thinking of him, with filling his days and nights with busyness so that Sherlock never intruded into his mind. And that had been fine in Afghanistan, more than fine, it had been easy, there was always something he had to do. But now he's back and even with the practise there is too much time for Sherlock to niggle away at John's defences, to slip in under the radar and to remind John of what he'd once had and what he's lost. Another whisky and he's remembering how beautiful Sherlock was, naked in his bed, eyes almost closed with pleasure, gazing at John through half-shuttered eyelashes, the touch of his big, warm hands against John's body. How could he have forgotten that? How can he ever forget anything?

And then that last, awful memory slides itself behind his eyes. Sherlock stretched on the couch, head back and syringe in hand. The half-naked man against his chest. And John is suddenly enraged all over again. There's no way he can ever forget that and now he lets it play out, makes it become the defining image of his relationship with Sherlock, who, after all, hadn't even waited a full week before he'd replaced John with a fucking junkie.

Right. John's ok now. He downs the third whisky and leaves the pub, takes a cab home. Sits in his musty-smelling flat and thinks about Mycroft's health and whether he can decently remove himself from Mycroft's ongoing treatment. He doesn't want to face either Holmes brother. Mycroft will know as soon as he looks at John, with that arcane perceptive ability, and the idea of seeing Sherlock is unthinkable in his current state of mind. He sits for a long time trying not to think of Sherlock, but it's ages before he's relaxed enough to go to bed and even longer before he sleeps.

He's on edge all through his breakfast tea and toast, debating how to tell Mycroft he can't continue as his physician. He's concerned he'll lose Mycroft's friendship. But in the event he needs not have worried.

Mycroft is waiting for him and, having ordered tea, sits himself, still gingerly, in his usual chair. John assesses his condition with a sharp, appraising look. Mycroft is still very thin but not painfully so. His skin tone is much healthier and his eyes are bright and clear and no longer sunken. He moves carefully but through caution rather than pain and he makes a deep rumble of pleasure as he sips his tea.

"I believe there's something you'd like to tell me, John," he says encouragingly, his expression open and friendly. John takes the plunge.

"Yes, Mycroft," he says. "Do you...er...I suppose..."

Mycroft raises one eyebrow, his expression one of amused sympathy.

"I do know how your meeting with Sherlock went, yes."

"Right," says John. "CCTV up there, I suppose?"

"No, Sherlock told me of your ... confrontation." Mycroft tells him. "When you left for Afghanistan, Sherlock demanded that all surveillance of him, of his personal life, stop. I respected those wishes as well as his desire for a complete break from his family. Well, until Mummy became ill, but even then he wouldn't talk to me, or read letters or text messages, no phone – you know how stubborn he can be."

Of course he does. But actually, this is surprising – in the not so distant past Sherlock would no more have talked to Mycroft than to Anderson.

"I do indeed," John agrees, "Mycroft, it's about that. Sherlock seems very indecisive about his feelings for me and I don't feel comfortable in his presence. I think it's great that you and he seem to be making progress in your relationship, but I've seen that he takes umbrage about my residence here and after yesterday's ... meeting on the roof I feel it's best if I move back to my flat. I'll do a checkup now, but I think you've been very lucky and you're healing faster than I would have believed."

Mycroft searches John's eyes with his own intense gaze. "Very well, John, I agree. I know I am well enough to not need constant watching over, but if I should need you..."

"I'll come, anytime, though I'm pretty sure that necessity won't arise. You've recovered very well, Mycroft."

"I've had a very good physician," Mycroft smiles.

"I'm sorry to just...skip out on you, Mycroft, but I think it's for the best."

"Don't be too concerned, John. As a matter of fact this solves another problem I've been worrying about."

"As your doctor I forbid you to worry," John tells him, only half jokingly. "This is what happens when you bring your work home, Mycroft."

"As it happens it's not work that is concerning me. No, my brother has been asking if he can stay here with me whilst I convalesce. He told me he'd like to look after me."

"My God, Mycroft, what have you done to him?" John laughs."Put something in his tea? Hypnosis?"

Mycroft smiles back."I assure you I've done nothing," he says, "but to be frank I'm not surprised. You're familiar with the concept of arrested development, I'm sure."

"Of course," John says, "it's practically Psych 101."

"Well you'd be aware then that addicts of all kinds tend to slow or even halt their emotional and psychological development at the point at which their addiction takes hold."

"I've seen it in my own sister, Mycroft. She's older than I am but never seems to have grown out of her late teens."

"Indeed, John," Mycroft says rather soberly, "and it has been evident in my brother since his adolescence. Which was when he first began to use narcotics – I believe as an unconscious attempt at self-medication when he was depressed."

"Well," John laughs, "he certainly comes across as a surly teenager what with the tantrums and the sulks..." his voice peters out as at the look on Mycroft's face and he stops for a moment and turns the idea in his head. "Actually, I think you've got something there, Mycroft."

"Oh I know it," says Mycroft. "I've always known it. You didn't know Sherlock as a child," he continues, "but he was charming. He was endlessly curious and he chose me to answer his questions. He wasn't like other toddlers who ask why, why, why to get adults' attention – he asked seriously intelligent questions and listened to the answers and absorbed the knowledge and postulated the next question based on the previous answers. At three years old he had the rules of scientific research and theory down pat."

"I can believe that," John tells him, wincing a little at the picture in his mind of a tiny Sherlock with dark curly hair and big serious eyes.

"He was very popular on the estate," Mycroft continues, "he was so affectionate and pleased with people – our housekeeper used to call him Bonny-boy. But my father...well John you read my mother's letter. Father was cruel to Sherlock. He insisted upon silence when we dined en famille, he jeered at Sherlock's questions and told him he was stupid if Sherlock tried to talk with him, he abused Mummy if she so much as held Sherlock's hand – he tyrannised over us all."

"Sherlock was lucky to have you as his brother," says John, "the age difference must have benefited him while he was a child."

"I think so," Mycroft agrees, "we certainly spent all our time together. But then came boarding school for me and he was left to his own devices. Whenever I came home for the holidays, every term, he was pathetically pleased to see me. He was so starved for affection and whilst I was at home he clung to me. Every time I returned to school he was devastated. He wasn't allowed to cry, John, Father called him all sorts of names the one time he saw Sherlock in tears."

"He still has difficulty with that," John confirms. He is deeply interested in the conversation – this is more than he's ever known about his ex-lover.

"Yes, well, arrested development John."

"Right," John says.

"Each time I came home I noticed that Sherlock had withdrawn further into himself, and Father was openly hostile, pushing at him and deriding him – he started calling him a sociopath when the boy was eight, for God's sake – and I used to tell Sherlock that in only a little more time he too would go to school and be away from Father. I really thought he'd thrive at school; with his intelligence how could he not? But when the time came he hated it. Neither the teachers nor the students could see past the intellect to the person – and his obvious brilliance was mistaken for arrogance."

"Like Anderson and Donovan," John remarks.

"Yes, John, precisely like that. And then I graduated, after Captaining the school in my final year, and I left him behind. Again."

John makes a soft little sound of distress and Mycroft smiles at him, ruefully.

"It was around that time that he began to grow away from me. What with my studies and then my career I was only able to find the time to go home at Christmas and even then it took a couple of days for me to cut through Sherlock's defences – he wanted to trust me, wanted things to be the same, but there just wasn't enough time. Father was utterly vile to him and had a new trick of comparing the two of us and always found him wanting."

John can hear the pain and frustration in Mycroft's voice, still resonating after all these years.

"You mustn't blame yourself, Mycroft, for your father's failings. He was father to both of you but I think he let you down just as much as he did Sherlock, saddling you with this guilt."

"I've earned plenty of guilt on my own behalf, John. It was when I stopped going home for Christmas that I lost Sherlock for good. Oh, I had no choice – not if I wanted the career I was aiming for, but I bear the blame regardless. I could have had him in London with me if I hadn't been so thoughtless, but I let him drift for two years. When I finally made it home, he was off his trolley."

John smiles a little at Mycroft's use of the colloquialism. "You were only young yourself, Mycroft. Don't be so quick to shoulder the blame."

"My parents hadn't even noticed, John," says Mycroft, and the distant anger he felt then echoes around them now. "Sherlock sat there at dinner with them every night, and they didn't notice – the pinpoint pupils, the shaking, the needle marks in his arms, the unfocused stare – of course there was no actual conversation where they might have been alerted to the condition of their youngest son..." Mycroft's breathing is angry, distressed. John places a steadying hand on his arm. Mycroft consciously takes a deep breath, closes his eyes for a moment.

"My father harangued Sherlock through every meal," he continues, "but Sherlock had never been allowed to speak at the table. When he was high, he still didn't talk and he didn't eat either. He was so thin, John, he was so sick, and when I told my parents why, my father used his son's drug addiction as further ammunition against him. I packed my brother up and took him to the Lodge, and got him clean, but for years he wasn't able to stay off the stuff – he was still using sporadically when he met you, and then it simply stopped."

John looks away. He doesn't want to tell Mycroft about his final visit to Baker Street. Mycroft being Mycroft sees the momentary hesitation in John's expression but does not acknowledge it. Something is there, he knows, but now is not the time to ask questions.

"I must be honest with you, John, at how upset and saddened I was when you left London – I had hoped that the two of you could have resolved your differences – and I knew Sherlock blamed me for your departure."

"I'm sure you're sensible enough to know what the actual situation was, Mycroft. I won't waste your time going over the same old ground. Suffice it to say that Sherlock and I had reached an impasse – he never would believe that I cared for him and he challenged me by being deliberately cruel to other people."

"Ah, so you worked that out then," Mycroft murmurs.

'Of course, I'm not a total noddy. But it took me a while to understand, and then he wanted me gone – he deleted me, Mycroft – and it all seemed rather pointless to continue even as friends – I wanted more than that. But Sherlock didn't want me."

"The two of you are very similar, John."

"Oh come on, Mycroft, in what possible way could you find us alike? At our very best we complemented each other – vastly more often we were at odds in every expectation, every desire... I got tired of playing bear-leader. I wanted an equal, adult relationship."

"And there you have it, John. The thing is, you were trying to have an adult relationship with a traumatised adolescent. One who'd never had an adult relationship with anybody, one who'd been thrust by his own vulnerable, untried emotions into a ghastly circle of every adult depravity you can think of, whilst hunting down the perpetrators. Sherlock needed what you gave him, John, an older mentor who allowed him to distance himself from the awful things he'd had to do, had to experience. It was when you began to ask more from him at an adult level that the cracks appeared, and like the teenager he was he pushed you into them, then pushed you away."

"Do you know who else I recognise there, Mycroft? You. For as long as I've known him he's rebelled against you, refusing to see that the two of you have any possibility of a relationship that isn't based upon you being the adult and him being the surly adolescent."

"Exactly, John, exactly," Mycroft says, "so Sherlock offering, asking even, to come and stay with me because he wants to look after me...this appears to me to be perhaps a sign that he's willing to put away childish things. That he wants at least one adult relationship. That perhaps he's ready to grow up."

"Huh," John says, and it's a recognition of truth, not at all an expression of doubt. "What do you think was the trigger?"

"I think it was Mummy's death, in part," Mycroft tells him, "but my injuries tipped the balance. You see, Sherlock was...conditioned, shall we say...to see me as his competitor, especially after our father began to compare us. At face value I was always more successful than he, School Captain, then the University medal and a secure and somewhat ... powerful ... career. I started to represent the horrible adult world that he could never master, and you've seen how he's dealt with me in the past. I believe that seeing me injured and unconscious shook a few truths into him, as did Mummy's death and even you leaving him."

"I didn't willingly leave him, Mycroft," John says and it's hard not to sound bitter, "he threw me out."

"I am aware, John. I am certain that the fact that you left when he told you to, that you treated his decision as an adult choice, is one contribution to his sudden growth spurt. It happens. A life lesson can trigger that arrested development. I think that's what's happened."

xxx

During the lulls at Bart's everything Mycroft said runs through John's head and it all makes sense. So where does that leave him? Despite his deliberate cultivation of the retrospective rage he feels about Sherlock and his infidelity he can't get Sherlock's words from the rooftop out of his head.

Monstrous, Sherlock had said, of how he felt about John's physical proximity and emotional distance, because that, distilled to its basic elements, is what Sherlock meant. So what does he want from John?

And what does John want from Sherlock? His fingertips tingle with the memory sense of Sherlock's thin back beneath his thin shirt and John longs. He tries not to, but he can't help himself and what he longs for, despising himself at one and the same time, is that moment when Sherlock kissed him. Kissed him with such urgency and sincerity those weeks before, on the roof of this very building. He recognises now that that was Sherlock needing him and he also recognises the hurt in Sherlock's eyes as he pushed him away, disgusted.

Would he change the outcome of that moment? Kiss back, put his arms around Sherlock, welcome him back into his heart to fill the hole in it? He still doesn't know, but it's moot. The moment is gone, never to return.

xxx

John makes himself comfortable in the black sedan sent for him at Mycroft's orders. John has not seen him for some weeks and Mycroft wishes for John's assessment of his condition and whether he is up to relocating his centre of operations back to his actual place of work. John has been surprised by Mycroft's willingness to compromise his work in order to return to health – he's always assumed that nothing takes second place to the work – much like Sherlock - but perhaps his mother's death and Sherlock's astonishing about-turn in his relationship with Mycroft have re-jigged his priorities.

Mycroft welcomes him into his office, pours tea and makes small talk for several minutes, then allows John to undertake a thorough check-up. John is quite satisfied with his erstwhile patient's recovery.

"You're in excellent condition, Mycroft," he tells him. "You can resume whatever activities were interrupted by your accident, but, as your doctor as well as your friend, I'd like to see you spend more time relaxing than you used to."

Mycroft smiles at him. "I'll see what I can do," he says. "I'm not unaware of the vast improvement in my mental as well as physical health since the accident. I'm very grateful to you, John, for the care you've taken with both."

"It's fine, Mycroft," John says, "I'm very glad I was able to help."

Mycroft excuses himself for a moment – John is amusedly aware that he needs to straighten himself back to his usual elegant, unwrinkled self. Mycroft's unruffled sartorial splendour right throughout his physically arduous recovery has often tickled John's sense of humour. Both of the Holmes brothers have an almost compulsive fixation on their clothes and appearance.

The moment John thinks of Sherlock, he appears, walking into the room and stopping short at the sight of him. John can feel his face flushing, his pulse increasing, remembers Sherlock's mouth on his, is confused by his feelings and tries to hide them.

Sherlock stares at John, at his nervous tongue sliding over his bottom lip. His eyes snap up to John's.

"Go away, John," he says, "I don't want you here." The hostility in his voice stiffens John's back as well as his resolve.

"Well, lucky for me this is Mycroft's place, not yours. He invited me and here I am and here I'll stay."

"Mycroft likes you, John," Sherlock snipes, "I don't."

John flinches at that, despite himself. "Yes," he says, "you made that quite clear when you threw me out."

"John, please," Sherlock drawls, "histrionics don't become you. I just got in first, that's all. Now leave."

"What do you mean, 'got in first', Sherlock?" John frowns at him, his puzzled frown, and doesn't Sherlock hate the fact that he can still read this man's face as if it was his own.

"Don't give me that look, John, did you think I didn't know?"

"Know what? What was there to know?" John can feel his self-control slipping. How does Sherlock do this to him? "Who did I insult and hurt over and over again? When did I go out of my way to be an arsehole to everybody, and especially to Molly?"

Sherlock snorts. "Are you carrying a torch for Molly now, John? How ironic."

"Don't you dare, Sherlock!" John snaps. "She helped you when you couldn't trust anyone else to help you, not even me. And don't you even imply that there's ever been anything beyond friendship between Molly and me. I'm not the one who ..." He shuts his mouth with an audible clash.

Sherlock's eyes narrow and his voice sneers in the tone John has always loathed, "The one who what, John? The one who ..."

But John sees red, feels the hot burn of rage as he turns to face Sherlock. Sherlock's disdain incenses him and he strides across the room. "How many shot-up junkies did I fuck, Sherlock?"

Sherlock looks stricken. His face turns crimson, then pales. "No, John, I didn't – I would never..."

"Don't fucking lie to me Sherlock I saw you. You couldn't wait for me to leave, could you, you faithless bastard!" and suddenly he's there, up close to Sherlock, who steps back from him only for John to follow him with his fist, right there in Sherlock's face, and Sherlock's head snaps back, hits the mantelpiece and he drops like a stone.

For one moment John can only look down at the man he's just felled, doesn't even notice Mycroft entering the room and freezing in position at the scene before him. John's face is deathly pale and his breath hitches with something like a sob as he falls to his knees beside Sherlock, touches his head, his hand coming away sticky and red.

"John," Mycroft says, gently, but falls silent when Sherlock's eyes open dazedly, trying to focus. Sherlock's hand goes to his face. There is a thin stream of blood sliding down Sherlock's temple and he touches it, touches his temple and his scalp. For a split second John's face is wiped completely blank but for his eyes as they follow the movement of Sherlock's hand and then he breathes out, as though not to would suffocate him.

And Sherlock sees. John's expressionless expression. His bloodless lips. The panicked pulse of his carotid artery and the tortured eyes, blank and desperate simultaneously, somehow.

Sherlock, finally, knows.

"Don't look like that, John," he says, sharply. "Don't look like that!" He reaches up, touches John's face and John stands up, stands back. He's walking backwards, clumsily, knocks over a low table, gasping, hyperventilating and as Sherlock tries to pick himself up off the floor John's eyes meet Mycroft's.

John's face is still blank and Mycroft crosses the floor, touches his shoulder tentatively.

"Sit down, John," he says gently. "Let me get you some tea. You've had a nasty shock."

John's face is suddenly suffused with an expression of absolute incredulousness. He giggles nervously.

"I've had a nasty shock, Mycroft? Really? I almost killed your brother and it's me you're worried about?" He studiously avoids looking at Sherlock, but he is obviously upset, his body shaking violently, his face still sheet-white. "You need to have him checked out by a doctor, Mycroft."

"Well, here you are, John." Mycroft says.

"Oh no, not me. He needs another doctor. One that doesn't attack him in the first place."

"No, John..." Sherlock says, his voice pained and quiet, it hurts his head to speak loudly and he is frustrated by his inability to arrest John's attention.

"I have to go," John tells Mycroft, urgently, "I have to get out of here. Please." His expression is that of a trapped rat and Mycroft rests a guiding hand on John's back, tries to steer him towards a chair, but John suddenly explodes into action, backing away from the whole situation, hands held up in front of him as he retreats from the room, from the house until he's outside on the street and he turns and would run if he could, if his body was not still caught between fight, and flight.

xxx

Mycroft is at Sherlock's side instantly, kneeling beside him and holding a handkerchief to the bloodied hair that clings to Sherlock's temple.

"It's just a scalp wound." he tells Sherlock, "more blood than damage."

"Obviously," Sherlock says, though he winces at Mycroft's touch.

"What happened here, Sherlock?" Mycroft asks, and it's a measure of how far they've come that he neither thinks nor says; "What did you do?"

Sherlock looks at Mycroft, his eyes full of trouble. He doesn't want to destroy the trust they've been slowly building between them, but he knows he needs help; he has no idea how to deal with this alone.

"John," he tries, but his voice falters. He swallows, closes his eyes and forces the words.

"John is under the mistaken impression that I was unfaithful to him." He struggles to rise, leaning on the hand and arm his brother offers him in support. Mycroft helps him to the chair he recently offered John, relinquishes Sherlock into its contours.

"And were you?" Mycroft asks, gently.

"No!" Sherlock exclaims. Mycroft recognises sincerity when he hears it, but he sees there's more to this than Sherlock has said. He pours Sherlock a glass of chilled water from the crystal decanter on the drinks tray. Sherlock takes a mouthful, swallows gratefully.

"Why would John think such a thing?" Mycroft asks, and Sherlock swallows again, his focus everywhere but on Mycroft's face.

"Sherlock?"

"I don't know how he knew," Sherlock says. "He must have come to Baker Street while I was out to it."

Mycroft breathes a small, pained breath.

"It was just once!" Sherlock protests, desperately afraid he will lose all the credibility he has established with his brother. "John had left me and I was so miserable, Mycroft. I ran into an old frie ... acquaintance, a dealer, and I – I gave in. I wanted to not feel. I thought if I could replace John with cocaine ... so stupid of me. Dagnar came to my place to sell me the stuff and I couldn't wait – I treated myself right there in Baker Street. So did he. He made himself comfortable ...", Sherlock swallows again, this time pushing down his nausea at the recollection, "when I surfaced Dagnar was lying on top of me...half undressed. Oh god, Mycroft, John must have come to Baker Street...he must have seen Dagnar ...seen us." He can barely bring himself to meet Mycroft's eyes and when he does he sees a certain amount of disappointment. "It was once, Mycroft," Sherlock cries, "You don't understand! John left me! I had to do something!"

"Fine, Sherlock, it's alright," Mycroft soothes him. "It was well done of you to have stopped there. It's the danger of it escalating that worries me more than anything and you seem to have conquered that."

"It was pointless, Mycroft," Sherlock tells him, "I realised I couldn't - didn't want to forget John and I thought if I stayed straight he might come back to me, but he didn't. I should have known he wouldn't. And now he has and he hates me."

Mycroft says softly, "What I just witnessed had nothing to do with hatred. But Sherlock, you keep saying John left you, yet it was you who terminated the relationship. It doesn't add up, brother."

"I don't understand why you would say that, Mycroft, when you must know the reason. I didn't want John to leave me and I was furious that he wouldn't tell me he was going. He never did, you know. Even when I forced the issue; told him I didn't want him anymore – told him to go..."

"Sherlock?" Mycroft says, uncertainly, "what are you talking about?"

"John, of course," Sherlock is agitated. Mycroft still looks blank.

"The letter from the Army!" he says, exasperated with Mycroft's incomprehension. His brother still looks confused, but understanding seems to be dawning.

"Tell me, Sherlock, everything about John leaving."

Sherlock rolls his eyes, but there is a gradual disconcertion growing within him.

Mycroft huffs a little. "Are you referring to the letter that John received inviting him to rejoin his unit as a trainer of medics in the field?"

"So you did know of it," Sherlock says, hurt. "Did he tell you about it?"

"He told me he'd received such a letter, yes, in passing. He felt rather pleased by it, in fact. He told me it made him feel that he wasn't...let me remember, oh yes – 'complete crap' as a military man."

Sherlock snorts. "John couldn't be 'complete crap' at anything except trying to be."

"He didn't show you the letter then?"

"No," Sherlock says, bitterly. "He wasn't as open with me as he obviously was with you."

"I suspect he just didn't think you'd be interested. It wasn't as if he was going to accept the invitation." Mycroft's eyes are boring into Sherlock's, and Sherlock feels the ground beneath him begin to give.

"If he didn't show you the letter, Sherlock, how did you know of it?"

Sherlock looks at his brother. "Obvious, Mycroft."

"He kept it didn't he."

"It was in his Army drawer."

"His what?

"He has ...had... a drawer in his tallboy, just for his military things. I used to ... investigate it sometimes. It was in a blind spot as far as your cameras were concerned. He kept his gun there. His dogtags, photos of his unit, his medals – that kind of thing. The last time I looked the letter was there."

"And you assumed, Sherl..."

"Of course I assumed he'd accepted. Why else would he keep the letter?"

Mycroft sighs. "Because, Sherlock, it was a keepsake. He was flattered. He told me he liked to feel needed."

"I needed him!" Sherlock almost snarls.

"He realised that, Sherlock. He knew you did. He said he never even considered accepting. He also said he needed you. "

Sherlock makes a pained noise at the back of his throat.

"It never entered your mind to ask him?"

"Oh, don't look at me like that Mycroft," Sherlock tells him, peevishly. "John was leaving me. I wasn't thinking logically, or rationally."

Mycroft takes the other chair, seats himself, looks fondly at his brother, who's got his head between his hands, clutching his hair frustratedly and wincing with the pain of it.

"What am I going to do, Mycroft?" he groans, and Mycroft is warmed by Sherlock's acceptance of his help – all his adult life Sherlock has rejected any advice Mycroft proffered and here he is asking for it.

Mycroft waits a beat, until Sherlock raises his head, looks at him.

"What do you want from John?" Mycroft asks and Sherlock buries his face in his hands again and thinks.

What does he want from John?

So many memories assail him he is nearly overwhelmed, but this time instead of fighting them he lets them surround him.

The grip of John's hand, on Sherlock's arm, or wrist, or shoulder, warm and strong, holding Sherlock back when his enthusiasm placed him in the face of danger. John and food. His oft-spoken awe at Sherlock's feats. The smell of him, so familiar and so unique. He wants John, himself, all of him. He wants John to take him to bed, to feel John's hands taking him apart, his devouring mouth and the heat and press of the two of them, skin against skin. Sherlock remembers all of this, after years of trying not to, and his need for John radiates from the centre of his being. He wants John's thoughts, his very life, and John's remembered smile arrests his attention – that sweet twist of the thin lips, the affection in his eyes ... Sherlock sighs. Underpinning and infusing each of these recollections is John's face just moments ago. Up till now Sherlock thought he knew how John had felt when Sherlock threw himself off the roof those years before, John had never hidden his feelings from Sherlock, but now John's blanched, blank, broken visage has finally brought it home to him. The dread, the terror in his eyes when Sherlock hit the floor is unlike any expression he's ever seen on John's face. He knows it was a flashback and he knows exactly where John's memory has taken him – to Sherlock lying on the footpath, blood trickling and pooling around his head. And he feels John's pain deep within himself.

He remembers the times when John's eyes lit up when they rested on Sherlock. John's smile as he took Sherlock's hand or when Sherlock nuzzled into his neck. The super-high grins they shared after a case, the tender smile John wore when he took Sherlock into his arms and held him against his own beating heart. That triumphant, open-mouthed 'gotcha' beam he turned on Sherlock's detractors, the unbelievers , when they invariably got it all wrong.

It's far too long since he saw John's smile – he'd do anything to bring it back, for John to smile at him. What does he want from John?

"I want him to be happy," he tells Mycroft. Who gives him a sharp-eyed, though sympathetic, look.

"Then, Sherlock, you need to think about what he wants – needs – from you."

When stated so plainly, following such a disaster as the one just past, it becomes obvious to Sherlock what he must do. "I have to let him go, don't I Mycroft? I have to stop feeling this way because I'll hurt him again." Mycroft watches as Sherlock brushes a few errant drops away and stands up, lurching a bit with dizziness.

Mycroft looks concerned. "We can ponder such things a little later, Sherlock," he tells his brother, "right now I think John was quite right – you need to be assessed for potential concussion. That was a nasty bump you gave your head."

"Oh honestly, Mycroft, your fussing wearies me, I've had much worse before," but half an hour later he lets himself be checked over and is given a clean bill of health. Mycroft smiles at him when they are alone again. "Maybe a good night's sleep will improve the world for you, little brother. We can worry about everything tomorrow."

xxx

John finds a cab, miraculously, and shakes in the backseat all the way back to his flat. His phone chimes and he accesses his messages in a trembling hand.

From Mycroft: Sherlock fine.

John is not fine. He goes to ground in his lonely bed, shuts his eyes against the images that play back on an endless loop behind them and sleeps only to invoke a nightmare he's not had for a long time – a dream of falling, of white, bloodied skin and staring eyes, of him pushing his best-beloved to his death and he wakes gasping and tear-stained and sleep is impossible for the rest of the night.

Heavy-eyed next morning he uses the bathroom and finds himself back in his bed without having made any conscious plan to be there. He feels lethargic and feverish at one and the same time and knows he just can't live his life today. It's too much. He is stupefied by the confusion he's experienced over the last few weeks, his guilty yearning for Sherlock – his constant need to be mindful that that way lies madness – the shock to his system of the blind fury that propelled his violence against the man, of the terrible-beyond-anything moment he thought he'd killed him... John cannot deal. He pulls the blanket up over his head and for the first time in years John Watson has to fight his own desire to drink himself into oblivion.

Vvv

Sherlock lies awake for hours, head throbbing and spinning, mind a winding spool with no end. He can't stop the visuals of yesterday; the hurt he'd seen in John's eyes when Sherlock had told him he was unwanted, the fury behind John's fist, the way John's face closed off all expression bar the obvious pain in his eyes.

Sherlock once saw a suicide throw himself in front of a train. Whilst everybody on the platform cried out and shuddered and talked about it, Sherlock had stood and observed. For all his work with death this had been the first time he'd seen a person exchange life for extinction and it had been an eye-opener.

The man had been active, alive, held together by animated muscle, bone, sinew when he jumped from the platform. And then he was hit and pushed along the tracks by the train which had no choice but to stop as planned, and he became unstrung, no rhyme or reason to his limbs, his body, his head, just a tumbling sack of potatoes. There'd been little blood, even, but that man was no longer a person, he became a thing.

Sherlock is reminded of this now when he recalls John's face. It was as though all the animation, all the character, all the John-ness of John was wiped clean, all except for the eyes which had been anguished, till Mycroft had spoken and jolted him back into the moment. But that anguish had not just been for the now, Sherlock knew that John had been jerked back to Sherlock's fall, and he finally recognised just how John had felt when he held Sherlock's cold hand and looked at his dead eyes. Sherlock shivers.

Of course Sherlock's first thought is to find John, to tell him it's all fine, Sherlock's fine – to throw himself at the man and beg him to forgive him for what Sherlock knows now had been a series of monumentally stupid actions based on mistaken assumptions that had lead them to their separation.

He knows now with absolute clarity that even then, even at the time that he pushed John away, sent him away, even at that time he knew deep down that John would not really leave him without telling him; that he couldn't be going to act on the letter after all. Sherlock had used that to justify his actions to himself, but really there had been no one thing John had or hadn't done, no single instant when Sherlock could say 'thus far and no further'.

Sherlock had been peeved when John criticised him for being rude or unfeeling towards people; clients, friends, Mycroft. But from the very start of their deepened relationship Sherlock had told him, warned him, that he was tainted – corrupted – by the company he kept and the things he did during their time apart, he'd told him and John had said it wasn't true, that Sherlock had to let go of that thought because it made him not try to be better. John accused Sherlock of using it as an excuse to not make an effort, and Sherlock had become more and more angry as time went on and John continued to carp. The last straw had been John's reaction to something Sherlock had said about Molly and then his absence for days during which he stayed at Mycroft's place!

Sherlock had been irrational – he knows that now. He knows he was unreasonable when it came to Mycroft; years of prejudice and dislike have only relatively recently been sidelined by a more sensible attitude towards his older brother. He regrets some of the words he wounded Mycroft with over the past. He still thinks Mycroft's surveillance and attempts to control him were over the top but he understands now why his brother did things that way. Sentiment. He'd been so surprised when he realised that had been Mycroft's motivation.

And even then, John had known, John had tried to make Sherlock see but Sherlock wouldn't.

So Sherlock had pushed John's limits and pushed them and John had complained but he'd stuck with Sherlock. So Sherlock had pushed him some more, testing the boundaries and John had stayed. Then Sherlock had cut him out of his life and John had fought tooth and nail to stop him but Sherlock had refused to stop pushing. And at last it had worked.

What an idiot he'd been. Right up till the day Mycroft informed him that John was heading overseas, Sherlock had expected, had been sure, that John would come back to him. Overrule Sherlock, overpower him, force Sherlock to take him back. It was what he'd wanted, he knows that now. To have pushed John that far and yet have John stay, for John to finally prove that no matter what Sherlock said or did, John would love him.

Sherlock had been quite right, he thinks now, ironically. John had come back, even after all the horrible things Sherlock had said and done to him. Trouble was, he'd come back after Sherlock thought he'd already left. He'd come back to see the most disastrous thing Sherlock could possibly have done to send him away forever, and Sherlock hadn't even known.

Had John believed that Sherlock had reverted to type completely? For all that time he spent overseas? He must have done; visualised Sherlock as a drug addict. He supposes so. And even the thought that John could believe Sherlock could ever be unfaithful to – sleep with – it makes Sherlock nauseous, it makes him hollow.

So now he has to decide what to do. His instinct is to leap out of bed, find John and make him see. His conscience, however (and he's sort of surprised that a} he has one and b} he recognises it), stops him and that strange new sense he has developed lately pulls him back. He can't force himself upon John. He told Mycroft he wants John to be happy and that, he finds, is still his overriding feeling. He must not make John any unhappier than he already has. John will get over their last confrontation more quickly if he doesn't have to see Sherlock again. Sherlock will never get over John, never, but John is not for him anymore, Sherlock has forfeited John. Best that Sherlock stays away from him.

Sherlock rests his aching forehead on his knees, wraps his arms around himself, trying to hold himself together and farewells John finally. It hurts a great deal and Sherlock makes himself feel it, because John deserves to be mourned and Sherlock thinks he'll mourn him for the rest of his life.

xxx

It's been months since John sub-leased the flat he's leaving; one more way station, never a terminus. He scans the room to make sure that he's left nothing behind, and he hasn't – there is not a piece of him here. It's like he's his own ghost. It makes him heartsick.

It's been months since he saw Sherlock as well, so as he pulls the door open, he immediately assumes his defensive stance at the unexpected figure looming on the other side, instinct readying him to attack, springs forward, both hands reaching for the vulnerable bits.

"John," says Sherlock, and John straightens up, falls back.

"Jesus, Sherlock," he says, 'do you have no sense of self-preservation at all? How many times have I warned you never to surprise an old vet."

"You're hardly old, John," Sherlock tells him, straightening his collar.

John gapes at him. "That's what you take from this?" he says. "I just attacked you and you quibble about my age?"

"That wasn't an attack, John," Sherlock says, "if that was truly an attack I'd be on the floor by now."

John gasps, recalling the last time Sherlock was on the floor.

Sherlock looks surprised by John's reaction and then recollection settles across his face.

"That wasn't really an attack either, John," he says, and he grabs John's hand, holds it within the curled warmth of his own. "That was just an unfortunate set of circumstances. No harm done."

John removes his hand, steps back, puts more distance between them.

"What do you want, Sherlock? Why are you here?"

"I ... er, this turned up at Baker Street ..." he's holding out a bunch of mail."

John takes it. "You could have just re-addressed it," he says, a little sullenly, but Sherlock is looking past him.

"You're leaving," Sherlock says.

"Yes," John replies.

"Why are you leaving?" Sherlock asks, then, rather breathlessly, "Where are you going?" His heart rate has sped up and he feels as though he's somehow emptying out. John can't leave, he won't let him.

"Not that it's any of your business, but this was only ever a short term arrangement. I'm staying at Harry's while I find somewhere."

Sherlock is relieved. At least he's not leaving London. "How are you going to get to and from Bart's? Harry's miles away."

"I'll commute," John says. "People commute all the time. I can do it."

"You sound like you're trying to convince yourself, John," Sherlock tells him.

"Well it's not as though I have any real choice in the matter, is it?" John snaps.

And suddenly Sherlock knows that's not true. Impulsively he reaches out, puts his hand on John's shoulder.

"Come back to Baker Street, John. There's no rent, but I still need someone to split household expenses and it's close to Bart's. It's perfect!"

John steps back from Sherlock, out of his reach. His look is one of total disbelief. He laughs. "You can't be serious, Sherlock. Even you could not be that blind."

"I am serious, John. I mean it."

"Sherlock, last time I saw you I knocked you unconscious. How does that suddenly make me a safe bet for a flatmate?"

Sherlock's face settles into obstinacy. "It doesn't," he says, "but I'm quite sure it got some of your frustration with me out of your system. I'm not afraid you'll hurt me again. I know you, John, remember."

"No, Sherlock, you really don't," John retorts, "If in fact you ever really did know me, which I have great cause to doubt, you most certainly don't anymore. I've been a long time away and I would not presume to claim that I know you intimately, don't you make presumptions about me."

"Then why shouldn't we share a flat? If we put the past behind us, why can't we simply do what we set out to do in the first place?"

John just stares at him.

Sherlock knows he needs to muster a decent argument. Even though the whole idea is spur-of-the-moment, he suddenly wants nothing more than to have John back at 221B .

"Look," he says, trying to sound calm and rational, "when we shared together, before the whole Moriarty thing... don't roll your eyes John ...when we first became flatmates it was brilliant, remember?"

"What I remember are the messes in the kitchen ... the unspeakable objects in the fridge, the hazardous encroachments of your stuff everywhere else ..."

But Sherlock catches a wistful smile and is heartened by it. "Yes alright, John, but remember the good things; the ...er..." He trails off, unable to come up with an example, but he knows, he remembers that it was brilliant.

"It was a good time," John says, kindly. "I can't recall what, specifically, was so good about it but ..."

"It really was," Sherlock finishes for him. For a moment they're both smiling and Sherlock takes a deep breath and continues.

"Moriarty complicated things for us," he says, "our friendship was ... compromised."

"Huh," John says, and Sherlock knows he's got to make this good, and quickly too, before he loses the slight goodwill they've established.

"It was mostly my fault, John," he continues, "you were my first, my only friend. I missed you so much while I was clearing Moriarty's mess up, and when I came back ... well I think we both know we mistook the strength of our feelings as something other ... more... than it was. I made a mess of it, John; I regret my behaviour. But more than everything I regret we're no longer friends and I really think we could be again. At the very least we could be amicable flatmates."

John doesn't let himself feel the soft punch in the heart that Sherlock's words deliver. Instead he remembers his conversation with Mycroft, thinks about the idea that Sherlock is trying to be grown up. This is a strangely mature attitude for Sherlock and John feels inclined to approach his suggestion with a similar level of maturity. It is not for him to childishly point the finger at Sherlock's previous behaviour towards him – John needs to move on from that, he needs to forgive his friend. Because Sherlock's right, whatever has passed under the bridge between them, they were friends first and foremost. And Baker Street – what wouldn't he give to be home again at Baker Street.

"Are you sure about this Sherlock? I wasn't very friendly last time we met."

"Forget that, John," Sherlock tells him, "I had."

"I'll ... I'll think about it, then, yeah? Harry's expecting me now, so let me think on it."

Sherlock is disappointed and worried that John, with a little distance between them, will decide against him, but John tentatively touches his arm. "Thanks for the invitation though, Sherlock, I appreciate it."

xxx

"You must be joking," Harry says. "Why would you even consider it, Johnny?"

"Leave it be, Harry, I've not said yes. And don't call me Johnny."

He loves his sister, really he does, and he's proud of her for her sobriety and the way she's cleaned herself up. He is still deeply ashamed of the way he treated her – the things he said to her in the dark bleak days before Sherlock resurrected himself – but if any good came of it it's this. Seeing him like that, worrying about him being like that; well, it had shown her things about herself she'd finally had to admit, to recognise. She's almost a different person now. Almost. The sad thing is that even without the booze she just isn't different enough.

Harry's still loud-mouthed and opinionated and patronising. John realises that he's still her little brother and she wants to look after him, especially now when she feels she has to make up for all the drunken years she didn't give a stuff, but it grates. He wants quiet to sit and think about Sherlock's offer but ever since he told her about it she's been banging on, trying to extract a promise from him that he'll say no. It's been forty-eight hours of 'you mustn't' and 'swear you won't' and 'why would you even?' and Johnny, Johnny, Johnny and really he's relieved when they hear a car draw up to the kerb outside and she looks through the window (she's an inveterate curtain twitcher, who knew?) and says, "Oh great, here's your creepy brother-in-law."

John's out the front door and down the stairs before the car's even come to a complete stop, opening the door and sliding into the back seat where a rather startled but amused Mycroft grins at him in greeting.

"John," he says, "what a pleasure it is to see you."

"Yeah, yeah, you too, Mycroft. Now let's cut the crap. I take it you know Sherlock's invited me to move back in with him."

"Always so direct, John. I do wish others could be more like you."

John studies his friend's expression for a long moment and is unsurprised to find the concerned brother peering at him through his eyes. He recognises the concern for Sherlock, hell, he feels it himself but suddenly it shits him.

"You know, Mycroft, I put up with a hell of a lot more crap from Sherlock than he ever did from me."

"Yes, I do know that," Mycroft says softly.

"I shouldn't have hit him, I know that, and there is no excuse for doing so though there are ... aspects of our breakup that you aren't aware of... nevertheless ... should I move back into 221B ?" he draws a deep breath, looks at Mycroft. "What do you think, Mycroft? Help me here."

"I cannot advise you, John, as to how you should proceed..."

"Then why the hell are you here?" John says, frustrated yet again.

"I thought to inform you in person that I myself would have no objections if you were to decide to cohabit with my brother at Baker Street."

"Jesus, Mycroft, I could have packed and moved in already in the time it took you to say that. Aren't you ever tempted to throw the florid prose out the window and just say; 'Right John, she's jake'?"

They grin at each other, but John loses his smile quickly. "I just ... I just don't know whether it's a good idea," he says, "given our history."

"I understand your concern, John, but would remind you that times have changed. Sherlock has changed."

John raises a sceptical eyebrow. "I don't know that he's changed enough to make him easier to live with."

"Sherlock issued his invitation three days ago, John, did he not?"

"Yeah, he did, Mycroft. What of it?"
"Well," Mycroft says, "has he been in touch with you since?"

"No, he hasn't, but I fail to see how that is relevant. I asked him for some time to think it over."

"Exactly, John, and he has respected that request. Now I understand you are concerned that your living conditions may revert to those in ascendance when you last lived with Sherlock –"

"No, no, no! Mycroft – there's no going back to –"

Mycroft raises a slender hand, "John, let me finish," he says reassuringly, "I don't mean in terms of your personal relationship. I am referring to the previously very one-sided nature of the fulfilment of your domestic requirements."

John looks at him, confused.

"I mean the daily necessities..."

"Oh!" John says, his frown disappearing. "You mean housework and shopping and cooking and not shooting holes in the walls...!"

"Indeed," says Mycroft with a droll little smile.

"What's that got to do with Sherlock not contacting me?"

"I only point out to you that in the past Sherlock would have been here nagging you, texting you, importuning you to agree with him, to give in to his demands. Yet he is respecting your wishes at this moment by leaving you to make up your own mind."

"That's true," John says, struck, "but how long would that last?"

"I believe it would be of a permanent duration, John. Sherlock has been on his own for quite some time and is a much more domesticated animal than he ever was when he had you at his beck and call. I've already pointed out to you his growing maturity; respecting your decisions is a development of that. And whilst I will not advise you one way or the other I must be honest with you about my hope that Sherlock will have an opportunity to discover how enjoyable an untrammelled friendship can be when both parties are responsible adults."

"God, Mycroft, if this is you being unbiased I'd hate to see you actually trying to persuade me."

Mycroft looks slightly guilty when his eyes meet John's but whatever expression he sees there causes his own to display some relief. "I really don't want to pressure you, John, and I'll respect your decision either way also. I regard our friendship as a strong, enjoyable bond, and that will not change. I just wanted you to know my own thoughts on the matter."

"Thanks, Mycroft, that means a lot. I value our friendship as well. I'll keep thinking, but it won't be long before I make my decision. I'll see you soon, yeah?" John is out the door, leaning in. "If, if you see Sherlock, say hello from me, ok?"

"Very well, John," Mycroft says, that warm smile stretching his mouth, "I'll do that."

xxx

And really it is a decision John makes very quickly, despite Harry's oft re-iterated advice against it. By noon the next day John is knocking on Sherlock's door and for the first time in a long, long time he sets foot in 221B , greeted by a gravely smiling Sherlock Holmes.