Originally uploaded on Archive Of Our Own on November 22, 2012.

A/N: Hi, everyone! :) I've been submitting my fanfictions mostly to AO3 lately since I find it a lot easier to use, but I figured it wouldn't be fair for people following my work on here to not get anything from me anymore, so I've decided to upload my fanfics to both sites. Please read and review! ^_^

John Watson found himself waking in a fright for what seemed to be the millionth time. He sat up in bed and inhaled shakily, looking out the darkened window of his bedroom. Every month on the same night, John always had the same nightmare.

A tall figure standing on a rooftop, the edges of his long coat fluttering in a light wind. Then, he was falling, down and down… John ran to see, a pool of blood spreading across the sidewalk from the man's head. The man's blue eyes were wide open, blood trailing across the pale skin as unseeing eyes stared into John's.

"Sherlock," John murmured, his lip trembling slightly as he spoke. It had been nearly three years since John watched the great Sherlock Holmes plunge to his death from the roof of Saint Bartholomew's Hospital; three years since the nightmares began. In spite of how much time had passed, the wound felt as fresh in his mind as it had that day he first stood over Sherlock's grave.

John wasn't even aware of the fact that he was weeping anymore. He cried a lot nowadays, but the repeated occurrence ensured that he was numb to the sensation of tears falling down his face. His life felt so empty before he met Sherlock, and now again. He wanted his friend back. He needed his friend back. There were so many things that had gone unsaid, and now he would never again get the chance to say them.

John heard footsteps coming up the stairs to 221B a few minutes later and he sighed, assuming it was Mrs. Hudson checking on him. She always checked in whenever he had the recurring nightmare, since his waking from it always involved a great deal of screaming on his part. Even after Sherlock's death, John hadn't been able to persuade himself to move out of the flat. There were many memories in this place, and no matter how much pain they caused him now, he couldn't give them up.

"I'm alright, Mrs. Hudson," John called from the bedroom, hastily wiping at his eyes to get rid of the tears. "I'll just make myself some tea and I'll be right as rain." He got up to make his way downstairs and into the kitchen to get some water boiling for tea, but he barely made it through the entrance to the living room before he stopped short.

Sherlock was standing in the center of 221B, hair and clothes soaking wet and dripping water onto the floor. There were dark circles under his eyes, signifying that he hadn't slept in at least two days.

"S-Sherlock?" John stammered, hardly able to believe his eyes. He had to still be dreaming. That was the only explanation, wasn't it? How else could Sherlock possibly be standing less than ten feet away from him?

"I don't understand. I… I saw you jump! I saw you lying on the pavement in a pool of blood. You had no pulse!"

"I know," Sherlock said simply. He sounded so tired. "It's about time I explain everything to you, I think… I owe you that much. Go on and make some tea; I'm not going anywhere." John had missed that deep, rich voice so very much. He laughed, but it was a pained and forced sound.

"Right… Sure, yeah. Have, uh… have a seat, then." Sherlock did just that and watched as John walked into the kitchen. The doctor was clearly shaken by his sudden appearance; Sherlock had expected as much. He sat quietly and watched as John started brewing tea for the two of them.

A short while later, John brought two cups of freshly-brewed tea out of the kitchen and handed one to Sherlock before sitting across from him in his armchair. He swallowed heavily and frowned at the taller man, silently demanding an explanation.

Sherlock took a small sip of tea, a thoughtful frown on his face. Soon, his explanation began.

Sherlock's explanation was a very long one, and even though he touched upon everything and answered any questions John had, more kept coming to mind and he felt the need for more and more answers.

"Right, so… is there anything else I should know about any of this?" John asked, frowning and setting his now-empty teacup on the coffee table.

Sherlock averted his gaze to the floor and frowned, his brow knitted together in a troubled expression. He said nothing, and that sent up a red flag in John's mind.

"Sherlock?"

"The day you came to visit my grave with Mrs. Hudson, I was there in the cemetery. I heard everything," Sherlock said a few minutes later, finally turning his gaze back to John's face. "You said no one would ever be able to convince you that I told you a lie. What did you mean by that?"

"The last time I talked to you, you told me you were a fake," John said with a calmness that surprising even to the doctor, himself. "You told me that you'd researched me prior to meeting me for the first time, getting every scrap of information about me that you could in order to impress me. I know that's not what happened, so no matter how many people made you out to be a fake, I couldn't believe them. I couldn't believe you when you said it was all a magic trick."

"You couldn't, or you wouldn't?"

"Jesus, Sherlock, what the hell does it matter?" John snapped.

"It matters because of what else I heard and saw in the cemetery that day. You said you wanted one more miracle, for me to not be dead. You wanted me to stop being dead, for you. You cried for me, John. You cared."

"Of course I did." John's throat felt tight, but he kept going nonetheless. "I saw my best friend dead on the sidewalk, bloodied. I had to live with the fact that I didn't do anything to stop you."

"There was nothing you could have—"

"Do you remember the last thing I called you before you 'died,' Sherlock? I called you a machine. I… I knew it wasn't true, yet I said it anyway. It was cruel, and I intended to apologize for it after I made sure Mrs. Hudson would be alright. But I never got the chance before you… I thought you died thinking I hated you, and that wasn't the case." John was only vaguely aware of the tears starting to roll down his cheeks, of the stinging sensation behind his eyes. He was so used to crying nowadays that he was only dimly aware of it now.

Sherlock's expression was a bewildered one once John started crying. He cried for me at the cemetery, too. He felt an urge to pull the broken, distraught man into his arms so that he could feel just how real he was, that he really was still alive and not a figment of his imagination, but would it do any good or would it simply make John cry more?

"That wasn't the last thing you said to me, though," Sherlock stated quietly, a faint smile on his face and a light shimmer in his eyes. "Don't you remember?"

"W-what…?"

"The last thing you said was, 'he's my friend.'" He barked out a short laugh, and it was riddled with pain. "You know, I had hoped that phone call on the rooftop would make you hate me. I had hoped you would absorb my lies and believe that I was a fake, but I felt how your hand shook as you took my pulse and it dawned on you that I really was gone. You didn't hate me in my last moments… and because of that, you were hurt more deeply by all of this than anyone else."

Sherlock's lower lip quivered slightly as he spoke, a rare glimpse of true emotion in his eyes that John couldn't remember ever seeing before. When John opened his mouth to speak, Sherlock held up a hand to silence him. "You can say you're fine all you want, John; it won't make the words true. I can read you like an open book. I've always been able to. You're crying and shaking. You're thinner than I remember, which means you haven't been taking very good care of yourself lately. There are dark circles under your eyes from lack of sleep, and your eyes are a bit red which means that besides this very moment, you have been crying an awful lot lately. Anyone else would have been able to move on with their lives and get over this sort of trauma in about a year, perhaps a year and six months, but you… The image of me lying dead has haunted you for three whole years, and that was exactly what I hoped wouldn't happen."

A single tear fell down Sherlock's cheek, and it didn't escape John's attention. His eyes widened at the rare sight of Sherlock crying, in shock. "Sherlock…" He truly didn't know how to react to this. What should he do? His first instinct was to get up and cross over to Sherlock's chair, enfolding him in his arms and holding him close. The detective was still wet from the rain, but John didn't care about that at the moment. All he cared about was stopping those disconcerting tears from marring the cheeks of this man, whom he loved with every fiber of his being.

Love. Yes, that was what this was, wasn't it? His therapist had been trying to pry it out of him for months before he finally just stopped seeing her altogether. No one but Sherlock was meant to be the first to hear those words from his lips. A couple of times, upon visiting Sherlock's grave to leave flowers, he had begun to utter that simple phrase but stopped himself before he could say it. What would be the point in confessing to a cold, hard piece of granite that could neither return the sentiment nor list in alphabetical order all the reasons the sentiment was misplaced?

Sherlock automatically went tense in John's arms for a few moments: a normal, physiological reaction for him where unexpected touching was concerned. Unexpected but, surprisingly, not unwanted. After the initial surprise wore off, Sherlock's arms slithered around John and held him closer so that the warmth of the doctor's body was able to seep somewhat through his wet clothes. He nestled his face against the soft fabric of John's sweatshirt, his tears getting caught on the small fibers and leaving small, dark smears of moisture in their wake.

"I can't expect you to forgive me for not contacting you at all these past three years," he mumbled finally, his voice sounding a bit forced. "But even if you can't, I just want you to know that everything I did, it… it was only to keep you out of harm's way."

"I know."

"And Lestrade, and Mrs. Hudson…"

"I know."

Sherlock fell silent then, slowly but surely calming until the tears stopped falling. The shaking didn't stop, though, and that was due mostly to the fact that he still wasn't dry. Smiling faintly, John slowly pulled away and settled for simply resting his hands on his shoulders.

"You're soaked to the bone, Sherlock. You ought to take a nice, hot shower and warm yourself up, otherwise you really will catch your death."

"I've never been sick in my life," Sherlock said simply, quirking an eyebrow at the incredulous doctor.

"Even so, it would make me feel loads better."

Eventually, Sherlock agreed and disappeared into the bathroom, the sound of the shower starting up a minute later. Reassured that Sherlock was sorted, John smiled faintly and lay down on the sofa, staring up at the ceiling thoughtfully. Over time, as the hour became later and John's eyelids became heavier, the soothing sound of the shower running gradually lulled John to sleep.

His last thought before closing his eyes: Come morning, please let him still be here.