Disclaimer: Sherlock is mine. The BBC signed the copyright over to me and I own all the rights.

Oh no...wait, that was in a dream I had last Thursday. Never mind. Guess I don't own anything after all ;-)

I stood under the tree, watching John talk to my headstone. Funny, the things people do. This was the first time I'd seen him in the week since I 'died', and the first time I thought it was probably safe for him to see me. Earlier that morning that I'd tracked down the last of Moriarty's assassins and persuaded him to embark on a career change. He's currently attempting to break the world record for Longest Time Spent At The Bottom Of The Thames Without Breathing Apparatus. I imagine he'll be down there for quite a while.

I'd still had to keep my head down a little, of course. Avoid the attention of the gutter press, that sort of thing. Luckily, this was easy. For one thing, they all thought I was dead. For another, not many reporters recognize me without The Hat.

I'd followed John here, keeping out of sight. I'd intended to make my return from the dead a little sooner, but part of me had hung back to eavesdrop on what he was saying, although since he was technically saying it to me, I don't suppose it would count as real eavesdropping. I won't bore you by repeating it, but it was...nice. Is that the word?

Yes. Nice. Nice to hear someone saying positive things about me for a change. I couldn't hang around here listening to my extended eulogy forever, though, and so I stepped out from underneath my tree and walked towards John, who was still apparently intent on having a conversation with my corpse. And they call me strange.

"Sherlock, just...please. If you can hear me, if you can find a way to...to come back from the dead—" this with a shaky laugh— "and if anyone's that clever, it's you, please...come back."

Since he didn't seem to have registered my presence, I reached out and put my hand on his shoulder.

"John—"

"YAAAH!"

Alright, that's not quite what he said, but phonetically I don't know how else to describe it and 'yaaah' is about as close as I can come. It was half a yell, half a...a squawk, I suppose. In the same way, I don't quite know how I'm to describe the way he jumped a foot into the air, arms flailing wildly, tripped over his own feet, fell on top of one Anna Parks and lay on his back staring up at me.

"A simple hello would have done," I informed him.

It's a little difficult to tell what he replied, since he was breathing so fast when he said it, but I believe it was something like, "I...you...b-bu-but...and then...and you...wha...?"

Nice to see his conversation was as riveting and insightful as ever. As I watched, he licked his lips, swallowed hard and finally formed a coherent sentence with what looked like real effort.

"You're...not dead?"

"As ever, John, your observational skills are honed as sharp as a block of cheese, although you do seem to have retained your talent for stating the obvious. And do try not to scuff my headstone; it cost nearly two thousand pounds. Have you no respect for the dead?" Glancing over his shoulder at Anna Parks' headstone, I added, "Well, clearly not, since you're sitting on one of them."

"Sherlock, I...what the hell are you doing being not dead? What happened?"

"I would have thought that was obvious, John. I faked my own death."

He stared at me for a long time, then said, "I'm taking you to my therapist. Right now!"

"Don't be absurd. I don't need a therapist. There's nothing traumatic about not being dead, John; people do it every day of their lives with no ill effects."

"Not for you; for me! If I go back and tell her you're still alive after I sat in her office and told her how upset I was that you were dead, she'll lock me in a rubber room and throw away the key!" John stared at me for a few seconds, then held out a hand. "You mind, uh..."

I reached down, he clasped my wrist and I hauled him to his feet, where he seemed a little reluctant to release his hold.

"More to the left," I told him.

"What? What is?"

"My pulse. You're a doctor, John, you should know that."

"Oh, I'm so sorry. I've never had a dead flatmate come back to life before, Sherlock, so...so please forgive me if I'm a little off-balance right now!"

I grimaced. "I did not 'come back to life'; I was never dead to begin with!"

"Does Mrs Hudson know?"

"Of course. I had to have someone there to make sure you didn't clear all my stuff away as part of the grieving process." I checked my watch, then glanced around in search of a restaurant. A small Chinese on the other side of the road looked promising and I turned back to John. "Lunch?"

"No! Sherlock, it...I don't understand. What really happened?"

I let an edge creep into my voice. I'd made more than enough allowances for his shock and I was hungry.

"I've told you what happened. I faked my own death, took care of the assassins who were set to kill a few people – including you, I might add – and now I'm back. I thought you'd be pleased."

I saw some of the manic emotion fade out of his eyes at that and he said, "Sherlock, I...I am pleased. It's just that...this is a lot to take in all at once, you know?"

No, I didn't know. If I really had died, his reaction would have been far more understandable. If our positions had been reversed, I suppose even my pulse would have quickened a little. But this had a perfectly logical explanation for it. Why was he getting so worked up?

"Does Mycroft know?"

"Of course. Who do you think paid for the headstone?"

"I..." John was quiet for a few minutes, then said, "I would have paid."

"He wouldn't have let you, even if I really had been dead. John, I haven't had a hot meal in at least a week, so I'm going into that restaurant over there. Are you coming, or would you rather stay here and keep telling the dead how wonderful I am? Not that I wasn't touched," I added, which was true. I'd never had anyone say things like that about me before, not really. I'm more used to being called a freak and told to piss off, and that's when people want to be nice to me.

"Sherlock, if you think I'm going to let you out of my sight—"

"Excellent. Come on." I led the way out of the graveyard, over the road and into the restaurant, John trailing along behind me.

Once inside, I ordered the biggest meal on the menu. I ordered in Mandarin, which not only keeps me in practice but gets me much better service at all Chinese restaurants, and set about trying to eat every single prawn cracker in the bowl before the food arrived, while John sat opposite me and wiggled his chopsticks. I've given up trying to teach him how to use them, and when the food arrived – sweet and sour king prawns with rice, my favorite – I sent the waiter back with a request for some cutlery.

This earned me a glare from John when it arrived, but he took the cutlery. Well, he had to, really, otherwise he puts as much food on the floor or down the front as he does in his mouth.

Once my stomach was feeling a little more satisfied, I pushed my plate away and looked at John. I supposed he was entitled to some sort of explanation.

"John...I couldn't let your response be an act. If Moriarty had even suspected that the whole thing was faked and that you knew about it, he would have had you killed. You had to see it, and I had to let you see it. I would have come out of hiding sooner, except I had a little business to take care of."

John looked at me for a long time. Eventually he said, "What kind of little business?"

"Let's just say that those snipers Moriarty hired won't be bothering anyone for a long time." I pronged a piece of his duck with my chopsticks and swallowed it down, barely pausing to chew. Keeping my head down had entailed going back onto the streets of London, with all the diet – or lack thereof – which they offered. I couldn't wait until I was back at Baker Street and could have a long, hot shower, wash the stink of the back alleys off me, and wash my coat (this is not something I trust to Mrs Hudson, not after she shrank the last coat I had in the wash. Since this was the same day she found out about my eyeball collection, I'm not totally convinced this was an accident). I'd ducked my head in a fountain, just to get the worst of the grease out my hair, but I was looking forward to a real clean up.

"What about Lestrade? When are you going to tell him? Or does he know as well?"

"Of course not," I said around a mouthful of prawn toast. "Mycroft's going to lean on the papers, get them to print full retractions along with features about my deception and how everyone involved played along with me. Once that happens, I can walk into Scotland Yard any time I choose."

"You're looking forward to that, aren't you?"

"Yes." I was too. Quite apart from the fact that I like Lestrade, since he's smart enough to admit he's an idiot about certain things, I wanted to see Sally's and Anderson's faces when I strolled back in as though I'd never been away. I had a hunch that the sight would make up for every one of the past nights I'd spent freezing my backside off on the streets.

"Sherlock—" John whacked my approaching chopsticks with his fork before I could steal his last piece of duck— "why did you do it? What did Moriarty say to you?"

I opened my mouth, then closed it again. What was I supposed to say? He threatened to kill my friends if I didn't? No. I was sure that John would never believe I'd do something so...emotional.

I forced a smile onto my face and said, "Oh, what does it matter? I'm back."

John gave me a look. "Sherlock..."

"What? You thought I was dead. I'm not dead. This is supposed to be a celebratory meal!"

"For you it's a celebratory meal. For me, it's a celebratory forkful of rice, half a prawn cracker and a few pieces of duck and will you get your chopsticks away from my food!" John parried my chopsticks again, this time narrowly missing my hand. "Order another meal if you're still hungry!"

"Of course I'm hungry. This is the first good meal I've had since I went into hiding." I beckoned the waiter over and ordered some pork balls, then turned to John. "I hope you didn't throw out my experiments while I was gone."

John suddenly became very interested in the remains of his meal.

"Which ones?" I demanded.

"Um. The feet. And...your collection of eyeballs, um, grew a bit manky. There was this...sort of gray, jelly like film covering them, so I threw them out."

I glanced at him, interested. "Really? What kind of jelly?"

"You know—I knew you were going to ask me that, Sherlock. I just knew it."

"Did you save any of it?"

"No, I didn't, because I didn't know you were coming back! Anyway, I had no idea what it was. For all I knew, your eyeball collection could have been going moldy; you've had it long enough!"

I stopped waiting for my pork balls and looked at him, my mind turning. I keep my eyeball collection well watered – human eyes are naturally moist and letting them dry out can affect the results of any experiments – and I'd never seen anything like what John was describing. Eyeballs growing mold...what a fascinating idea. I'd have to try it some time, see if it was possible.

John scowled at me. "Sherlock..." he began.

"Oh, for god's sake!" I knew what was coming; it was what always came when he knew about my experiments in advance. "I know what you're going to say. It was a one-off. Just a simple test on the blood coagulation in thumbs compared to that in big toes at set times after death."

"It was a simple test on the blood coagulation in thumbs compared to that in big toes at set times after death that you carried out in my sock drawer!"

"Yes, because the optimum conditions for that particular phase of the experiment happened to be in your sock drawer." I grabbed one of my newly arrived pork balls and bit it in half.

"House rules, Sherlock. No experiments in any of my drawers. We agreed."

I frowned. "What? No we didn't."

"Yes, we did. We talked it out and we agreed on it yesterday."

"I was dead yesterday. At least, you thought I was."

"Yes. Well." John lifted his glass in a toast. "Not my fault you weren't listening."

I smiled a little at that and clicked my glass against his. "Agreed."

Satisfied, John drank his water and I sipped at mine, wondering as I did so whether there would be time for me to sneak my experiment in tooth erosion off the top of his wardrobe before he noticed...

Okay, I'm working on a full-length Sherlock fic, but since it's set after The Reichenbach Fall, I wanted to write this one first ;-) Hope you enjoyed it and if you read, please review!