It's Mary who takes him home that night – John all set on getting answers from Mycroft, but for the time being he can't bring himself to care.
"You're safe," she murmurs soothingly, his head resting along the curve of her belly and her fingers buried in his hair. It's the same hand that pulled the trigger – feels like ages ago now – and he smiles at the notion that trained assassins and healers are far from being mutually exclusive.
"So are you," he mutters against her stomach, not bothering to conceal the relief in his voice. "All of you."
John and Mary – the people who matter the most to him. All of his life he's never been in love, nor will he ever be; that doesn't make him immune to sentiment, because as much as he tries to deny it he's only human in the end. Physical desire he doesn't understand at all, the distinction between romantic and platonic attraction quite confusing and frankly irrelevant in his opinion; he loves, that's all he knows – not just John and Mary, but Mrs Hudson and Molly and Lestrade as well.
(And then there's Mycroft, and Janine, and the Woman – it's all so complicated and yet ultimately simple, because he doesn't need labels the way most people do.)
So he sleeps, and dreams of bees.