The State of Dreaming

by Sherlohn

"There's a wealth of gravity to your steps and you feel every footfall on the pavement, every chill and every brush of sound, whilst you make this trip that will be your last." When Sherlock fell, John Watson's reasons for living fell with him and he turns down a dangerous path into depression.

It is dark when you decide. It is winter and it is dark.

The nights always are the hardest, and so it isn't a surprise to find yourself and your thoughts exactly where they are. You wonder why, why are these particular nights so hard? Why do the ghosts of memories haunt you here? Perhaps it is the thought of not all that was, but all that could have been.

All that could have been. The ghost of a palm held against your palm, a forehead against your forehead; a hug and the brushing of a breath against your neck, your cheek, your own. There is comfort for you in these thoughts, but a well of sadness too.

It rains the next day. Oh, nothing much, just a drizzling mist of droplets. You know the kind. The sky is a common blend of washed out grey and darker grey; fitting for your mood but not so for your purpose. Typical, you think, that even nature isn't on your side. You could do it today but you know you won't. The weather is all wrong.

And so you spend your morning sitting alone in your armchair, watching the empty one opposite with sad, wide eyes and living in a state of dreaming. It's hard to believe that there were once two bundles of fizzing energy in this room. Now there is only a broken man and his ghost.

Mrs Hudson visits, she presses a hand to your forehead and comments on the pale colour of your skin. She flits around the room, chatting away, and makes tidying up motions although there isn't much to tidy. The room is neat as a pin, thanks to your military experience and to the absence of a messy roommate. You notice the pitying sigh and head tilt when Mrs Hudson stops but you don't react. There's a lot you don't react to these days.

She brings you a shepherd's pie. You eat it to please her.

That night you sleep fitfully, desperate to relax but unable to when your mind is so turbulent. Horrors are slammed against your eyelids, pressing you into a foetal position and forcing screams from your body. It's shocking and it hurts and you cry.

He falls, jumps, and you reach out to him on the pavement, your voice hitching all over the place and your hands shaking and shaking and shaking. You were always steady in a fight or under pressure but not this time. This time your hands are shaking.

He lies there so still, too still. Why is he so still? He isn't dead. He won't be because he can't be, he can't be, but his bloodless face speaks otherwise and your legs collapse beneath you because of course his face is bloodless, his blood is everywhere else, spilled like wine at your feet and matting the hair to his head.

His eyes are full of dead electric and yours are soaked in salty tears.

Waking up is startling and groggy all at once and you're less rested than before you slept, so you stumble to the kitchen and you grip a bottle of whiskey in one hand and you sink to the floor. You whisper useless prayers of forgiveness for release as you drink. Washing hell away with alcohol, Harry would be so proud.

But it still hurts.

You still love him and it still hurts.

You curl up on the lino, hugging the bottle to yourself. The cold is harsh here but you don't make the effort to move. Maybe I'll die, you think, bitterly. Sleep is avoiding you, or maybe you are avoiding sleep; knowing what it brings, it wouldn't surprise you.

But eventually you do sleep and thankfully, despite the shivers, it is a restful sleep.

You open bleary eyes to Mycroft gripping your shoulder.

Mycroft?

"What are you doing?" You manage to say, voice croaky from having been long abandoned.

"I want to help you, John. He would not want you like this."

God does your body ache.

"He left me. He doesn't care." Puzzled, you wonder why Mycroft is suddenly so blurry. And then you realise you are crying again, too tired to be embarrassed about it. "What are you doing?" You repeat.

He presses his lips together, trying to look irritated, but you notice the pain in his expression and the new lines beneath his eyes. He attempts to pry the bottle from your hands but you can't let it go and hurt, you look at him.

"John." He says.

You're not ready to hear this so you turn your heavy lidded eyes to the floor, curling into a tighter ball.

"John."

You squeeze your eyes shut.

Mycroft sighs deeply and you hear the muffled sound of his suit as he straightens up. "Please don't do anything stupid. I'm watching you, John." His heels click against the floor as he retreats, and again as he turns back. "And don't ever think my brother never cared about you."

Another sigh and then the door clicks softly behind him.

You face the next three days in a sullen silence, going through the motions of your daily routine and keeping a watch on the weather, which remains too murky to be pleased with. It occurs to you that people may watch you with less focused worry if you were to appear busier, happier. And so you practise your fake smile, coating it across your face like a plaster covering a wound. It is ugly and grotesque, ill-fitting with your deadened eyes, so you give up.

The usual loneliness settles on the air again, your only comfort these days. How sad, you think, how sad that your sadness is your comfort.

That evening, footsteps make themselves clear on the stairs. You need to tell Mrs Hudson to stop letting people up since apparently no one can decipher that you want to be left alone to stew in your depression. You decide you just about have it in you to scowl when Lestrade steps quietly over to you. It deepens when he sits in his chair opposite. Greg throws an apologetic look across his face but doesn't move.

"John." He says, hesitantly.

You nod in greeting, trying your best to look with an open expression. After all, it does no good to be angry at everybody all the time.

"John, mate." He sits forward, puts his elbows on his knees. "I just wa–"

"You've spoken to Mycroft, haven't you?"

Greg is obviously startled by your voice, though he tries to cover it. "Well, maybe."

You snort. "I know why you're here, Greg. You're here to give me the talk he tried to give me. But it won't work."

"John."

"Why can't you get it through your thick skullsthat I'm a lost cause? I will always be a lost cause so just leave me alone."

"Because we tried to leave you alone. We tried that and it's obviously not working." His voice quietens. "We're all worried about you, John."

The air in the room suffocates. Your mind pushes at you to tell Greg everything, how you feel and how you've felt, how you wake up in the morning thinking for a split second that everything is fine and the break down when you realise it isn't, how you want to die, how you want to die, how you want to die. But you know you won't because that would make you more of a burden than you already are and because of the way he would look at you. With pity and fear, like you're a time bomb set to explode any second.

Greg passes a hand over his face and, when he looks at you, his eyes are gentle, coaxing. His voice is almost hushed. "It's been six months, John. Perhaps you should, I don't know, go out, find something to do, be busy."

"It's not that simple." You whisper, drawing your knees up to your chest.

"If it were simple, we wouldn't be here, but you have friends, people that want to help you get through it. You think you're alone, but you never have been. We all miss him."

"That's supposing that you know what it is I'm even going through, which you don't. And don't ever suppose that anyone misses him or lo-" You stop abruptly, take a deep breath, hold your head in your hands. You realise how small and weak you must look but you care too little because you care too much.

Caring is not an advantage.

Greg sighs and you hear the pity in it. So much pity these days. "I'm going to make you a cup of tea and we're going to talk." He says.

It doesn't take long for him to find the half empty bottle of whiskey on the kitchen floor. He stoops and picks it up then tips the remaining drink down the sink.

"Hey!" You exclaim.

"Drinking is nowhere near the answer to your problems so, yes, it's going down the sink. Where's the rest?"

"That was the only bottle."

"Ha! Yeah, that's funny."

"I'm not going down the route you think I am. Look, my sister is an alcoholic, okay? I've seen what that's like and I know my limits. And I'm a pretty decent doctor, I know what drink does to a person."

Greg looks at you despairingly for a beat or two as you try to look convincing. He looks weary, as though steeped in shadows, and it occurs to you that perhaps you aren't the only person suffering above the average grief line. Suddenly, you want to stop concentrating on your own sorry excuse at being a person and make his life a little easier instead.

"Okay," you say resignedly, "top cupboard on the left."

He nods happily at your cooperation as he deprives you of your alcohol then continues with the tea, clinking mugs and spoons together. He eventually hands you a cracked stripy mug with your name on, a Christmas present from somebody that never had much of an eye for gift giving, and settles once again in the chair opposite you. There's a bit of an awkward silence. You sip your tea for something to fill the gap, despite it burning your tongue.

"You loved him, didn't you? Like, you were in love with him?" Greg asks.

And suddenly the awkwardness is explained.

"You think because he's dead I don't love him anymore?"

He blows on his tea, thinking and obviously deliberating over whether to say whatever it is on his mind. "You wanna know what I think? I think you love him too much, so much that his death was nearly your death and that you can't look at anything without connecting it back to him and that's why you coop yourself up." Greg smiles fondly, his eyes looking somewhere back in his past. "You're lucky, y'know, that you had the chance to love like that and be loved like that."

You shake your head. "Love is too strong a word. He liked me at best."

"No, he loved you. More than anybody else too."

"Then if he loved me so much, why'd he kill himself?" You swallow down the lump in your throat. "Why did he kill himself, Greg? Where did I go so wrong that he couldn't even come to me for help?"

Greg draws his eyebrows together, thinking again. But he doesn't answer your question and silence calmly sits in the room with you.

"You know, we had bets at Scotland Yard on how long it would take for you to come out as a couple."

"I don't think he would have liked that." You smile.

"No," Greg smiles too, a little relieved, "I don't think he would."

"You would have gotten one his looks."

"Definitely."

"One of those "I'm absolutely killing you in my mind right now" looks."

Greg laughs out loud and it encourages you to do the same, even if your laughter sounds weak to your own ears, like a shattered something. He lifts his eyes to you, brightening. "Hey, do you remember when that Adler woman drugged him? That was somethin' else, wasn't it?"

"Yeah," you laugh again, and it's a little more musical this time, "yeah, I remember."

"I wish I'd kept that recording." He says.

"Mm." You agree, but secretly you're glad. Listening to his voicemail over and over is enough pain to contend with, seeing and hearing would be something else altogether.

After that, the memories just keep pouring from your mouth and from Greg's like a flood of thought and it feels good to talk with a hint of laughter to your voice, to even talk at all. For once, you aren't drowning in your layer and upon layer of painful memories but swimming with a good friend as your life jacket.

You sit and you remember and you laugh until you cry, curling yourself around the pain.

Greg calmly takes the mug from your hands and sets it on the floor, before patting your back and saying "It's all right, mate. You're all right."

But you aren't all right and you know you never will be.

You choke back your tears, embarrassed, and keep your blurred gaze on your knees. It registers to you that Greg is asking if he can get you anything but you say no. You can sense his frown at the broken sound of your voice. You apologise and push up past him.

"Where are you going?" He asks.

"I need to go to bed. I don't – I don't want you to see me like this, please go home."

His eyebrows draw together and he looks worried. You curse yourself for always, always making people worry. But now is not the time to make up for that, now you have to sleep and take an interval away from all this.

"Please." You say.

Greg hesitates, clearly wanting to stay. "All right. You go on. I'll just stay until I've finished my tea."

You nod, short and sharp, and turn to go. Greg's voice stops you for a moment.

"John, isn't your room upstairs?"

"Oh. Yeah."

You continue on into the downstairs bedroom, leaving a sad looking Greg behind you.

Wrapped in bed sheets and tatty pyjamas that are way too long, you try your absolute hardest to sleep. Your brain is working overtime, however, and you're crushed beneath a tower of your acute sadness. A butterfly pinned to a corkboard. There are no tears left in your body with which to cry so there is no choice but to let the pressure build and build and that is what you do, pulling the crisp sheets up to your neck. They're as cool as his embrace would be.

Lying there in the dark and surrounded by a thousand painful memories, it occurs to you that you don't want to wait for the right weather anymore; you don't want to wait at all. Isn't it better at night time anyway? After all, he preferred the night to day. There are fewer complexities to it.

And if there is a way to stop the hurting, shouldn't you take it?

Your heart beats an eccentric pattern as you set your mind on this decision, giving you cause for concern. But you slip out of bed anyway and dress silently in your own clothes with a grim determination that drums against your ears. When you leave the bedroom, you discover that Greg never did leave; he's asleep in the armchair, legs stretched out in front of him. You whisper an almost guilty goodbye to him as you slip on your shoes and coat.

There's a wealth of gravity to your steps and you feel every footfall on the pavement, every chill and every brush of sound, whilst you make this trip that will be your last.

It doesn't take long at all to reach St. Barts, somewhere you haven't been for a good long while. Your shoes squeak on the linoleum flooring and nurses constantly rush past you, smiling bright white smiles. You smile back politely, aiming to look like you know where you're going.

Eventually you make it to the roof and all the world begins at your feet.

You feel momentous up here, truly. There's an acute sense of power in your blood and a surge of a sort of awed horror. Your feet take you across the expanse of concrete easily, as though you are pulled by strings, a puppet under the command of something much greater than you.

You make it to where he stood and an onslaught hits you immediately made up entirely of that day, the day your world imploded, the day he died. Your eyes lift to the night sky where the stars are like the smooth bluntness of nail heads scattered across a flat black wall.

You could stay here forever but the ground is beckoning.

It is as though he speaks to you. The beauty of a long missed voice is tripping through your head and tangling up in all your thoughts. He asks you why, why would you do this? And you think, you flip it over in your mind, and finally speak the thought that has plagued you for so long.

"Because I am John Watson." You say. "I am John Watson and I love my best friend but my best friend is dead."

"John." Coaxes the velvet voice. "John."

You shake your head. "No." You're going mad, you knew you would. You're going mad and grief is the catalyst.

"John, turn around."

"No."

You match his pose from all those months and months ago, back straight, arms held out like imaginary wings. Perhaps you will not fall, but fly. Perhaps that is what he thought too.

You take a deep breath.

In this pocket of a moment, you are calm and you are composed. You hold your pose and the world is as still as your held breath, frozen solid and frosty with both the beauty and horror of isolation. And then it is shattered by his voice.

"Step away from the ledge, John, please. I will not watch you kill yourself."

"I watched you kill yourself. I won't watch it again, over and over and over all the time. My mind is – it's a broken record and I can't stop watching. I can't stop watching."

The wind ruffles your hair and caresses your arms, softly telling you to do it, do it, do it, and you imagine that it's him, pulling you towards him on the other side of this. You lift your face to the iron sky, letting the wind drag tears from your eyes all too easily and you tell yourself that it's okay, John. It's all fine.

It's all fine.

You lean forwards a touch and the world spins below you. The prospect of jumping is dizzying. You take another breath, shaking your way through it. "I'm scared, Sherlock."

"Then step away." He whispers and his voice brushes against your ears like a breeze.

"I can't go back to – to that. Going back is scarier than this."

You close your eyes and feel the pull, the pull, the pull. A nervous spark flashes through your blood, the first spark of life you have felt since Sherlock died. Ironic, isn't it?

And you tip yourself forwards.

Suddenly, there's a sharp tug against your stomach and you realise someone has hold of the back of your jacket. Sherlock, you think, Sherlock. It must be Sherlock; after all you did hear his voice, didn't you?

You are not crazy, you comfort yourself. You are not crazy. Your heart is beating for his name and your eyes snap open to see streets and shops and cars below but it's okay because Sherlock is here and Sherlock will save you.

Another tug and you're pulled safely away from the edge. A smile flutters across your mouth as you turn, Sherlock's name on your lips, and then "Mycroft?" you say.

Mycroft.

Mycroft stands in front of you, the fingers of one hand now curled around your arm. He looks desperate. No, he looks angry.

"You're not Sherlock." Your voice is grating.

"What did I tell you, John? I told you not to do anything like this!"

"I thought you were Sherlock."

"You don't understand how important it is that you do not do this."

"God, no."

"John, listen to me!"

The worried creases smooth from Mycroft's face as determination sets in and his spindly fingers, so like Sherlock's, grip tighter on your arm. You attempt to pry them off you and desperation sticks its claws in when you can't.

"Let go of me!"

But you're a suicide hazard now, of course he isn't letting go. Like a fish out of water, you struggle, and then you fight, trying to force your way back to the edge. But Mycroft won't let you. He tussles with your messy struggling, lip curled with annoyance. Well, if Mycroft won't let go, then he will have to come with you because you sure as hell aren't staying here anymore.

You're so close, so close your heel can almost taste the space that stretches on from safe ground. You find it surprising that Mycroft hasn't let you go yet, it's almost as though he would die for want of saving you. But wrong brother is all you can think.

"You can't do this! Sherlock did not die for you to kill yourself!" You can almost swear that Mycroft is stuck on repeat; he won't stop using those words. Sherlock did not die for you to kill yourself! Sherlock did not die for you to kill yourself!

Sherlock did not die for you to kill yourself.

"SHERLOCK IS DEAD. HE DID NOT CARE ABOUT ME WHEN HE DIED. HE MADE ME WATCH AND NOW HE'S DEAD." The words tear themselves from your body like a hurricane, they pull apart every piece of you that ever was and rearrange themselves into something twisted and horrible and broken.

You crumple against Mycroft, defeated. "I loved him so much and I thought – I thought maybe one day he could love me too and then he lied and he killed himself and I don't know why."

"Look, just go home and get some rest and–"

"Please, Mycroft, please let me have this."

"I can't."

"MYCROFT, PLEASE."

"Oh, for god's s– HE ISN'T DEAD."

"Y– What?"

Mycroft sighs heavily and his words run on one breathy exhalation. "He isn't dead, John."

It's like receiving a punch in the gut, the breath just whooshes out of you. You try to tell Mycroft that you don't understand but you can't, your mouth won't make the movement since it is too busy hanging open. Silence begins to nag at you and you still can't move or talk or think.

Mycroft looks terrified and wary. You want to ask him why.

"You're lying," you say, "you're lying to me. Sherlock wouldn't do this to me, not this."

"He did it to protect you. Moriarty threatened your life, Mrs Hudson's life, and Greg Lestrade's life, and he would have made good on that threat unless Sherlock jumped. So he did what Sherlock does exceptionally well, fooled everyone into thinking what he wanted you to think."

The blood through your veins feels very thick and stodgy all of a sudden, like cement, and it becomes harder and harder to breathe.

"No." You shake your head frantically. "No, no, no. If he's alive, why go to you and not me?"

"He wanted money, something he could hardly take from you."

Mycroft steps closer to you and, breathing laboriously, you put a hand against his chest and push him backwards.

"How long? How long have you known?"

"Since the beginning."

Disbelief coats itself in loud colours across your face, and hurt soon follows, and then anger and betrayal. A multitude of feelings are stabbing at your skin in tiny pin pricks until you are riddled with holes from which your nightmares ooze. Mycroft watches you warily, as a mouse watches a snake.

"Never in my life have I been through something like this. Never have I suffered like I have over this period of grief and you watched for entire months, months, as I barrelled headlong into depression. I was suicidal! I nearly killed myself as relief from the pain of still living and you knew, all along you knew that he was alive and well whilst you watched me get worse and worse!"

"I said he was alive, I never said he was well."

"You never said anything."

And then you are clutching your head, almost tearing your hair out, because this is too much for one day and you can't wrap your mind around the idea of Sherlock being really, truly, absolutely alive when he looks so very dead in your mind's eye. You're so desperate to believe in this story but hope can be incredibly dangerous territory and, whilst you strongly suspect Mycroft wouldn't lie to you, you hardly dare to have faith.

You realise Mycroft is calling your name, he even sounds worried, and it dawns on you how crazy you must look all crumpled over like a piece of scrap paper, holding fists against your head and possibly shouting. You try to stop but you can't push through all the Sherlocks in your brain to command that the rest of your body work and it all keeps building and building inside you until you hardly know what you're feeling anymore or whether it's a good or bad feeling.

And in the end, it's the very same build up that knocks you out.

When you come around, what can't have been more than ten minutes later, Mycroft already has you upright and strapped in in the back of a sleek car with him. He's looking straight ahead with a mobile phone held against his ear.

"I'm telling you he's gotten dangerous, come sort this out."

"Who's dangerous?" You ask, rubbing circles at your temples.

Mycroft quickly shuts of the call and slips the phone inside his suit jacket. "You." He says.

And then your previous conversation smacks you like a wrecking ball and you almost gasp, snapping your eyes to Mycroft's profile. He looks at you slowly with that old English gentleman way of his and begins to speak very slowly, as though you're some kind of frightened animal.

"I'm taking you to my house where you will rest and you will recuperate."

You open your mouth to object to this and to demand more about Sherlock. He puts his hand up to stop you.

"John, there's been a lot of strain on your mind recently and you're exhausted. You will rest and you will recuperate until Sherlock can come back, which is likely to be in a couple of weeks."

"Where is he?"

"France."

"Okay." You nod, turning to look out the window.

"No more questions?" He sounds surprised.

"No more questions."

"All right then."

The rest of the journey is passed in a silence, a simmering angry one on your part and a seemingly oblivious one on Mycroft's. You want to ask what Sherlock has been doing for all of this time and why and how he faked his death and lots and lots of similar questions all sharpening into one, whether he missed you at all. But your stubborn anger at him stops you from wanting to show that you care, even though it is desperately obvious, so you let the silence take over instead.

Mycroft's house is as grand as you would expect. A sweeping gravel driveway opens up to a house all of red brick and lots of large bay windows. You make a bet with yourself that it's full of pretentious modern art. The front porch is a large marble affair, very pearly and white, and once out of the car, you run your fingers along the cool smoothness of it.

Mycroft lets himself in and you trail behind, feeling very out of place among such grandeur. You pretend to admire one of the two gilt framed mirrors in the entrance hall until you catch your reflection; you look like a man with the world upon his shoulders and a quite a bit dishevelled too. A number of stately looking doors stem off from the hall and a curving staircase with a dainty handrail opens up in front of you both. A plush rug of red and gold begins at your feet and stretches to the foot of the stairs.

"Sherlock and I grew up here." Mycroft says and his voice is wistful. He turns to you and smiles though it doesn't touch his eyes. "I'll see to it that you're settled into a room. Wait here."

"Mycroft?" You call and he turns back to you. "What happened to your parents? It's just that I know you brought Sherlock up for the most part and they're never around and…"

His face closes off and when he speaks, he is blunt. "We don't know."

You don't see Mycroft for the rest of that day. A stiff lipped butler with a very stern haircut shows you to your room. You find it odd that the servant is much grander than you in your checked shirt with the buttons done up wrong and jeans that haven't been ironed for a while.

It's a fairly small sized room in comparison to the rest of the house, which suits you just fine. The bed is easily the size of a double and you sink into the mattress like it's a cloud. There's a chest of drawers and a wardrobe, both made of a dark coloured wood that looks very much like the rosewood of Sherlock's violin, and a sort of sofa made of twisted black metal and stiff red and gold cushions. You think it's more for decoration that anything else.

The butler, Carlton, tells you that dinner is served at seven. You almost laugh thinking of your life at 221B in comparison to Mycroft's life here. It occurs to you that Sherlock has had a taste of both these lives.

Sherlock.

The thought of him hurts your head. There is a kind of sick excitement and dread revolving around the thought of him now. You're not really sure how you feel, it's equal measures good and bad, but, whatever it is, you exist enraptured in it for the whole of that dreadful waiting period.

You don't join Mycroft for dinner and at some point Carlton brings up a leather suitcase the colour of fudge with your clothes and a wash bag inside. You don't go down for breakfast or dinner any day and after three days the hint is finally taken with meals brought up to your room on a tray.

The truth of the matter is that you can't bring yourself to adhere to normalities when you're playing a waiting game for the biggest desire you could ever have wished for. Some days you flit around your room and into other rooms, a tornado of excitement in your body, imagining Sherlock once being in the very same rooms you're standing in now and how he will be there again even after all hope had been lost. You feel a curious sense of dazzling brilliance in your blood. Other days you fall to impatience and anger because he cruelly abandoned you, although these moods are usually rapidly consumed by the brilliance of miracles.

This is possibly the longest period of your life and then suddenly, after just six days, it is over.

Sherlock, being Sherlock, had no time for knocking and slipped in at two in the morning like a common thief in the night. You were in the ballroom at the time on one of your night time rambles, too unsettled for sleep. The grandest room the house had to offer, the length of it was interspersed with small balconies and heavy red drapery. The burnished marble floor went on and on, one long slippery dance floor beneath your socks. You watch the moulded ceiling as you spin round slowly, arms out and thinking as always about Sherlock and the future.

And then there are echoing footsteps on the polished floor and you stop spinning to look towards the door. "Sherl–" You breathe, voice dying as it is born. And it is Sherlock, finally. It's Sherlock looking at you as he always looked at you, his mouth is twisted into a small smile. He doesn't have his scarf because you have that at home but he is wearing the coat and the purple shirt and the suit and he is so perfectly there that you choke on nothing but air and he takes a tiny, infinitesimal step towards you.

"John." His voice is raw and torn like someone has ripped him in pieces and abandoned the tatters. You want to hold him together but you are falling apart yourself.

No, you fell apart a long time ago.

He holds out his arms to you and you to him and then you run and slip and collapse into him and his mouth is pressed into your hair as you sob into his shirt, his so familiar shirt that smells like home and violins and Sherlock. He holds you and holds you and holds you so tightly that you feel yourself becoming one person and you're happy with that.

You find your voice and "Sherlock," you say, "Sherlock. I missed you."

His fists are full of your pyjama top but his desperate fingers tighten still and your feet are almost off the floor. He kisses the top of your head and you understand that this is his way of saying he missed you too, very, very much.

You push up onto your toes and your fingers dance along his shoulders and up to hold his face in your hands. It delights you to feel how very alive he is. No longer a bloodless face, but a blushing one.

He touches his forehead to yours and you shut your eyes, revelling in this feeling of closeness as your hand pushes into his, palms flitting against each other, your fingers twining together. Your breath mingles as one and his glacial eyes flick down to your mouth and up again like a promise.

And suddenly your lips catch on his and you are lost. You are lost in the way he smiles beneath your mouth, the way his fingers move over your waist, your chest, your neck, and the way his kisses move to the corner of your lips and then your cheek and back again.

You are lost with the only person you will love for a lifetime to come and you're more than happy with that. But before any part of that life can begin, you have many questions.

"Sherlock, I think we should talk."

"Now?" He murmurs against your neck.

"M'hm." You say as you tip your head back, almost involuntarily giving in to your body's basest desire and allowing him full access. Your fingers grip onto the sides of his shirt beneath his coat and suit jacket, drawing you together. "Definitely now."

He goes back to holding either side of your head in his slim fingers and then kisses your face as all over as he can, making you a bit giddy and giggly, before letting go completely. "As you wish." He says. "We can talk in your room and then you should go to sleep, you look exhausted."

"People keep telling me that. I must look awful."

"On the contrary," he says with deadly seriousness, "you look beautiful. But then I am somewhat biased of course."

"Don't ever change." You laugh, grabbing hold of his hand. "C'mon, I'll show you which room is mine."

Traversing the halls with Sherlock you feel light like a weight has been lifted from your shoulders, resulting in a good spring in your step and a quickened pace. You keep a hold on his hand all the way there, never wanting to let go again. But you don't have to worry about that, he doesn't want to let yours go either.

As soon as you close the bedroom door behind you, Sherlock is taking his shoes off and telling you to get into bed. You clamber beneath the sheets, doing as you're told since the authoritative tone of his voice doesn't exactly invite protest, and watch as he hangs up his coat and jacket. He slips gracefully in beside you and you curl up close to one another.

"What do you want to talk about first?" He asks.

You speak about everything from Sherlock's year spent chasing down Moriarty's criminal network, to the easy collapse of Richard Brook, to the rise of 'I believe in Sherlock Holmes' fanatics. What you do not talk about are perhaps the more important things; the physical fall and survival of Sherlock Holmes and the mental fall and survival of John Watson.

"Are you mad at Mycroft for telling?" You ask softly.

"No. You wouldn't be here if he hadn't."

"I suppose not."

The conversation misses a beat as Sherlock pauses; his features twist into a deep regret. "He says you were hell-bent on jumping."

"I suppose I was." You reply thoughtfully.

"And on the verge of a psychotic breakdown."

"I don't know about that one."

"You wouldn't. The crazy person never knows he's crazy."

"Yes, well, maybe the crazy person wouldn't be crazy if he hadn't been abandoned."

You realise the mistake you have made after the words are out and Sherlock huddles in closer to you with a thousand apologies playing across his face.

"I'm sorry." He says. "I am so sorry. I didn't know you would be quite so affected."

You easily pull Sherlock into your arms and his limbs twine around your body like vines. His hair tickles your chin and you bury your nose in it, catching the scent of his familiar shampoo. You kiss the top of his head lightly and then your shoulder begins to pool with wetness and you realise that Sherlock is silently crying. It's both terrifying and humanising. Your fingers trace patterns on his back.

"I'm not going to tell you that it's okay because it isn't." You murmur. "I know that what you did was a good thing, a very good thing, but I can't forgive you leaving me out for as long as you did. Maybe one day but not right now."

He lifts his head from your shoulder to look you straight in the eye. "I don't ask you for forgiveness, John, just acceptance."

"I think you already have that."

"Good because you wouldn't get rid of me either way."

You chuckle and knot your hands in his collar. "Oh, c'mere." You say, pulling his face towards you and pressing your lips very resolutely to his. Sherlock responds exceptionally well, drawing shivers down your spine.

"Not gay then?" He says against your mouth.

"Apparently I've been proven wrong."

Sherlock rubs his nose on yours like an affectionate puppy and then pulls back a little and watches your face. He has the universe in his eyes. You lick your lips nervously, wondering if he's waiting for you to say something else.

You can see him working himself up to say something and when he speaks the words fall from his mouth with a flood of nervous energy.

"I love you."

A grin spreads across your face like a beacon and Sherlock is swept up in your light.

"I love you too."

His warm hands sweep over your stomach, rucking up your pyjama top, and then round your sides to pull you on top of him. He hugs you to him, brushing his lips over your forehead. "Go to sleep now, John." He whispers.

And with the weight of your detective beneath you, you do.

The next day is a bit of blur, everything moves very fast. You wake up with Sherlock in what is possibly the absolute best morning of your life. He finds tiny ways to touch you almost all the time, exploring the person he has missed for so long and he smiles constantly. For the first time in your life you feel absolutely loved.

You make it down to breakfast with Mycroft. He greets Sherlock warmly, happy to have his brother back under his protection again. He raises his eyebrows when Sherlock holds his hand in yours but doesn't look surprised, he extends his congratulations to you both and offers you a seat at the table. You're unaware of what half the food actually is which makes Sherlock laugh.

And then it's packed and back home.

You arrive back at 221 Baker Street where Mrs Hudson smiles to see you and screams to see Sherlock. You make tea whilst he consoles her, apologising profusely. She hugs him for a very long time and then they share a secret look, smiling over to you like little rays of sunshine.

Greg comes over not long after; he's a little hostile to Sherlock but delighted at the obvious change in you. He describes waking up in the flat some nights ago to find you had disappeared then receiving a phone call from Mycroft in the early hours of the morning to say you had attempted suicide but were fine now and also, the biggest shock, that Sherlock would be coming back very soon.

Thankfully, he parts with Sherlock on much better terms that when he arrived.

Late in the afternoon Sherlock digs out his long missed violin, desperate to play. You watch him draw long, lengthy notes from it at the window. The music fills up the flat, beautifully wrapping up the quiet with low, sultry sounds. It is exquisite. Sherlock looks completely at home here and Sherlock is what makes this flat a home; instead of housing the empty grey silence of before, it is now warm and comfortable and everything it used to be way back when.

Eventually Sherlock carefully puts the violin away and collapses into his armchair opposite you. His gaze flits over your face and catches onto yours. He smiles, beaming at you from ear to ear in a way he very rarely used to. It is gratifying to see someone usually so distant from everybody so drawn to you, it makes you feel warm and loved.

A dazzling grin almost splits your face in two as you look at Sherlock Holmes, the one who you loved, lost, and regained stronger than ever.

"Happy?" He asks.

"Infinitely."