A/N: I'm sorry if this sucks (which it probably does). I was horribly influenced by a drug called Post!Reichenbach feels and the song The Scientist by Cosplay.

Completely unedited – sorry for any errors. I hope the characters aren't OOC.

Enjoy.

"I'm back."

"Why?"

Not 'how'. Not 'when'. Not even a pause in wonder. His voice was steady and emotionless, and Sherlock hated that he couldn't read it anymore – the voice wasn't changed, but the rest was, and he didn't know what John felt. He didn't know, he didn't know, he didn't know.

When Sherlock replied, he saw how John's face fell – just for a moment, he could see what John was trying to hide, and it was just as painful as when he had jumped off the building.

"Because I'd be lost without my blogger."

"You refuse to tell me what's going on! Everything you tell me is bollocks; can't you just explain why you did it?! Bloody hell, Sherlock, can you at least tell me why you came back?! Tell me for real, this time. Was it just to fuck with me?! Because, I swear, if it was…" John stopped.

Sherlock pursed his lips. He had expected this for a long time – actually, John had kept his anger hidden (or, well, what he thought was hidden) for a longer time than anticipated. Six days, three hours and twenty-four minutes, to be exact. It was only natural that the outburst would come.

Something about it was so much worse than Sherlock imagined. He had always thought he would stand there, stoic and emotionless, while John yelled at him. He thought he would be able to zone it all out, think of something else. But it was all so terribly in focus, he saw every line of John's face and heard every tremble of anger in his voice painfully clear. Every word coming out of his mouth cut so deeply that Sherlock felt like he was slowly dissolving in to nothing.

John glared challengingly at Sherlock with those stormy grey eyes.

"There…" His voice cracked, and as John's eyes widened slightly in surprise (it was clear that he hadn't been expecting any affection, he was prepared to hate Sherlock even more for giving a bad respond or refusing to explain), he decided to stop trying so hard to hide his feelings. It was John. It didn't matter anymore. "There was nothing else I could do."

There was a quiver in his voice – not a loud one, but it was there, and John's face made it clear that he had heard it. Sherlock desperately hoped John understood – There was nothing else I could do because I needed to get home, there was nothing else I could do because there was simply nothing left to do.

There was nothing else I could do because I need you.

"That doesn't make any bloody sense!" John bellowed. The words from the whole, one-sided argument swirled around Sherlock's head too rapidly.

When he couldn't respond – explain – John just stared at him in silence, and then spun around on the spot and rushed in to his room. The door slammed shut.

Sherlock stood frozen, and he could hear John muttering curses. Something inside him twisted to a painful knot. He quietly murmured, as a reply to his flatmate's last question:

"Did it ever?"

The muttering from the other room stopped. Sherlock didn't stay to see if it was because John had heard him.

"I should hate you."

John examined Sherlock, who pursed his lips. He looked just like he had before; tousled black curls, piercing grey eyes, blue scarf, black coat, hands behind his back, straight posture, emotionless face. Everything was so painfully the same, but still so changed, and John felt like he slowly was being killed.

"You should." Sherlock agreed, his voice level.

"Why can't I hate you?"

"I'm sorry." The words sounded unfamiliar coming from Sherlock's mouth. John glared at him.

"That doesn't answer my question."

"I…I don't know. I'm sorry, John."

He caught his breath, because Sherlock sounded so broken. John stared at him, but his face looked the same as a moment before, besides from his eyes. His eyes were just as shattered as his voice.

"Did it hurt?"

The question just bubbled out of him. They were sitting in their flat, Sherlock typing on his computer and John sipping his tea and watching telly. He could easily have pretended the last three years hadn't happened, but it was harder now than a day ago, especially after the embarrassing… Incident with all the yelling the day before.

John kept his eyes at the screen, raising his cup to his lips, but he saw how Sherlock stopped typing and looked at him in the corner of his eye.

"Just…" Sherlock licked his lips, and if John hadn't known better, he could have sworn his flatmate was nervous or at loss of words. "Just as much as it did for you."

He ignored the painful tightening in his chest and nodded, keeping his face emotionless, still not looking at Sherlock. He thought he would feel better; he had always imagined Sherlock not caring at all after doing what he did, and his unexpected confession that it had hurt just as much as it had for John should have been satisfying. But it wasn't; he felt just as hollow as before.

"I'm sorry." He heard himself say.

Sherlock's light eyes lingered at him, masked as always. The painful knot in John's chest seemed to tighten.

"Why?" His flatmate asked, his voice neutral but tinged with confusion.

John shifted slightly, and this time, he locked eyes with Sherlock briefly before starting to speak.

"I… I don't want you to hurt."

He felt stupid, and he was pretty sure his face was red, and the way Sherlock stared at him didn't make it any better. It seemed like forever before the consulting detective suddenly said:

"That's not a very clever thing to want."

It had gone three years, and John couldn't really expect Sherlock to be exactly the same, but the fact that he couldn't read his flatmate's body language and voice anymore bothered him much more than it should. His voice was emotionless, level, steady. John let his tongue slide across his dry lips, before answering:

"I know."

"How are you holding up?" Lestrade asked a few weeks later. His eyes were at Sherlock, who swirled around the murder victim and aggressively deduced the situation. John and the detective inspector were standing a bit further away, watching carefully.

It was their first case since Sherlock had come back. Lestrade had texted Sherlock a day ago, after ignoring him since he told the detective inspector he was back and got punched in the face.

"I'm… Trying." John answered truthfully. He darted out his tongue and let it slide across his dry lips. He kept his eyes at Sherlock, but he saw Lestrade glancing at him out of the corner of his eye.

"Is it easier than it was without him?"

John opened his mouth automatically to say 'yes', but the word got stuck in his throat. Was it? It didn't feel like it. It hurt just as much as without him.

Lestrade nodded in to the silence, and John got the feeling that he understood. He was Sherlock's friend, too.

"It gets better, eventually." Lestrade said, somewhat sadly. John stared at him. "The process of a heart piecing together is just as painful as the process of it breaking."

The doctor inhaled sharply, but nodded, because he knew it was true.

Sherlock was back on the rooftop, completely certain of what to do. He was just going to jump, and everything would be fine. He would survive, Lestrade would survive, Mrs. Hudson would survive – John would survive.

But when he turned around to look at Moriarty's bleeding corpse again, it wasn't there. He frantically looked everywhere, before he finally saw him, down on the ground with John. Holding an arm around John's neck and a gun to his head.

"Is this what you want?" Moriarty hissed, an evil grin spreading on his face. "Jump and die for real, Sherlock Holmes, and I'll maybe let him live. Maybe."

The look of panic on John's face was enough for Sherlock to decide. He stepped closer to the edge and threw away the phone.

John's face drained more colour, and his eyes widened in distress. He fought against Moriarty, trying to rip away the consulting criminal's arm from his neck, but it was useless. Sherlock closed his eyes.

You got to stop fighting, John. Everything will be alright. You'll survive.

He could hear John trying to say something, but the more he tried, the more Moriarty tightened his grip. If Sherlock didn't jump soon, John would be strangled.

Just as he reached out his arms and started to fall, John screamed.

"No, no-don't, Sher-SHERLOCK!"

Barely a second later, the sound of a bullet being fired off ringed in the air.

Sherlock jerked awake.

It was probably the dream, he tried to tell himself. It was just the dream-John screaming.

But his body wouldn't listen to his mind, and before he knew it, he had jumped out of bed and almost fell running for the door. His heart was beating unnaturally fast, and he couldn't breathe or see in the dark.

In that moment, he felt fear just as intense as when he had seen John by the pool wearing the explosive vest. It was paralyzing him, slowly making his body not working. He almost slipped over his feet at least five times before he reached the door to John's room, and jerked it open with a loud bang.

John bolted up right, and for a moment, he had the same look of panic in his eyes as in Sherlock's dream, but it disappeared when he saw the consulting detective, breathing hard in the doorway.

"Sherlock?" He asked carefully, his voice still rough with sleep. "What's wrong?"

Sherlock stared at him. Breathe in, breathe out. John's okay. Breathe in, breathe out.

"Sherlock?" John's voice grew worried. "Sherlock, what's wrong?"

Breathe in, breathe out.

He felt his knees buckle beneath him.

"Sherlock!" It was a growl now, but not of anger. John climbed out of his bed and ran to Sherlock's side. He managed to catch his flatmate before he fell. "Sherlock, what's going on?!"

"You're okay." Sherlock breathed out before everything went black and his body went slack in John's arms.

After coming home from the hospital, where they said that Sherlock's blackout had been purely out of overwhelming and panic, they never talked about it again.

"I need you. I need you, I need you, I need you."

John repeated the words while trying to rip off the chains. It was useless, especially in the darkness of the empty warehouse. Every single noise he made echoed loudly.

"I need you, Sherlock, I need you, wake up, I need you." He chanted, trying to push down the rising panic and work faster.

In some way, after what seemed like way too long, John finally managed to get him down. Sherlock's slack body fell down to the ground, and the doctor sank down next to him.

He quickly ripped open the consulting detective's tattered, soaked shirt to reveal the bloody wound. It was deep and absolutely horrible, and the saner, professional part of him knew exactly how much chance of surviving there was. But John pushed that away and took of his jumper, ripping it to pieces with the intention of trying to keep the wound from bleeding so much.

"I need you, you fucking bastard. I need you, you can't do this to me again. I need you, I need you, I need you." He muttered while his hands flew over Sherlock's body. His face was paler than ever, and his eyes closed; he was barely breathing either, and even though he was unconscious, he must have been in horrible pain, because his body almost shivered.

"Why would someone fucking do this to you, Sherlock?!" John said, his voice louder now. "Stab you and hit you and hurt you and hang you like this here. Who the fuck would do that? I swear, I'll find them and kill them. I'll kill them slowly and painfully."

He kept talking to Sherlock, saying the things he usually never would say if the consulting detective wasn't unconscious.

It was the panic making him babble. He had never felt such intense panic since Sherlock's fall. The feeling of how he suddenly went completely cold and couldn't move, the surge as his stomach dropped to the floor, the repeated no no no no NO ringing in his head. It was all back now.

Before he met Sherlock, he never had felt that. He had felt mind-numbing panic in the war, of course, but this wasn't the same. This was…

This was worse.

"I fucking need you, Sherlock." His voice was hoarse now. "You can't do this to me again. You can't leave me. Bloody fuck, if you even dare to think about it, I promise I'll punch the living fuck out of you."

Sherlock winced in pain as John tightly wrapped another piece of cloth around his chest to stop the bleeding. His eyelids twitched.

When there was absolutely nothing else to do, John shifted so he cradled Sherlock's head in his lap. He twisted the tousled, dark curls around his fingers and kept talking.

"Wake up, please. Please. I know I've already asked for a miracle, but one more, please. Don't be dead. Again." A short, ironic laughter slipped out of his mouth. "Don't do this to me. Please, Sherlock, please."

John's voice was steady and his face stoic. Because even if this was Sherlock, and that changed everything, he had seen death, and he had seen Sherlock's death before too. He had been an army doctor, and then a consulting detective's companion. He was practically used to death.

Despite for his eyes. His eyes showed everything he felt.

"I remember that night when you ran in to my room in the middle of the night. Your face… It was indescribable, Sherlock. I've never seen you look like that. And you wouldn't answer me when I asked what was wrong, and bloody hell, Sherlock, you scared the living fuck out of me. Then you just suddenly fell, and before you blacked out, you said 'you're okay'. And then we never talked about it again, and I don't understand, Sherlock, why did you do that? Why did you say that? Of course I was okay. I was asleep." He raised his head to stare at the ceiling, blinking rapidly with smiling painfully. "I never asked. You can't leave before you've explained. Don't leave without telling me the truth, Sherlock. Please. I need you. Answer me, please."

John didn't look at Sherlock's slack body. He stared at the ceiling, and he couldn't hold back the tears anymore. They quietly trickled their way down his cheeks, and he didn't stop it, because he hadn't cried since that day three years ago by Sherlock's grave, and he needed to do this.

"I need you."

It was raspy and quiet, filled with pain, but it was definitely there and it was Sherlock's voice. John's head snapped down, and he stared as Sherlock's eyes opened a little. Sherlock swallowed, and it was clear that the effort to speak drained his powers horribly.

"Shh." John said, but he was feeling such incredible relief that new tears welled up in his eyes. "Don't speak. You're going to be okay."

"I need you, John." Sherlock continued stubbornly, his voice so hoarse and quiet it could have been John's imagination.

"I…" When the doctor opened his mouth, all that came out was a strangled sob. He couldn't help it, and a moment later, his whole body was rocking with silent sobbing.

"Are you okay?" The consulting detective asked. There was something in his light, pale eyes; a flare of something soft and fierce at the same time. He looked like he wanted to say something else, but he couldn't.

"I... I'm okay." John replied, and he wiped away the tears and smiled a watery smile down at Sherlock. "Are you okay?"

"Yes." Sherlock croaked. The slightest hint of a smile flashed over his face as the corner of his lips twitched upwards.

"I'm going to call Lestrade to come get us with an ambulance." The doctor assured his flatmate. "We'll be okay again."

Sherlock sucked in a breath and seemed to try to nod, but his eyes closed again and he went slack.

Only ten minutes later, Lestrade, his team, four doctors and a few policemen found John still cradling Sherlock's head in his lap, muttering soft words under his breath.

When they returned to 221B Baker Street, Sherlock finally explained everything.

He knew he owed it to John. And it wasn't just that; he wanted John to know.

Sherlock needed John.

One evening, when Sherlock was sprawled out on the couch, typing on John's laptop and John was sitting in his usual armchair and sipping tea while watching telly, he realized that it didn't feel strange anymore. It felt like before, before everything.

In the end, Lestrade had been right.

Huh, John thought. He glanced at Sherlock, and a smile slowly spread on his face.

It does get better, eventually.