Author's Notes: Here's another version of Sherlock's return. It's just been a plot-bunny in my mind for a little while, so I decided to type it up and share it. Enjoy and review!

The Last Year

Greg Lestrade had offered John a ride home from the station, the case they had just solved together having gone late into the night, but John had declined, happy to take a nightly stroll in the fresh air to clear his mind. He wasn't going back to 221B, where he still lived, but to Mary's. Mary was John's fiance, and the most perfect thing John had ever come into contact with. They would be married within the next four months, and John couldn't have been more excited to spend the rest of his life with the schoolteacher. She had filled a void in him when they met, and she had given him the strength to overcome his grief, the grief that was left by the person John's therapist would call the "other love of his life." John hadn't been in love with Sherlock Holmes, or at least not in the conventional sense, but he had adored the man. Two years had passed since his death, and Sherlock was still a part of him. Mary helped him to see that it wasn't a part John had to give up, just one he had to accept. The void would always be there, but at least it wasn't a void of darkness anymore. It could be a void of memories. Some happy, some frightening, some tragic. But they were his memories, and they were special.

John was halfway to Mary's when he heard the footsteps. Two men had come around the corner, and they were probably a third of the block behind him, judging by the sound. John glanced back. They were his age, one tall and one exceedingly short in comparison. They walked with great purpose-probably trying to focus on staying upright, it was a Saturday night after all. John kept walking, turning all the proper corners to Mary's. They didn't stray from the path he was leaving, and it didn't take long for John to realize that these two men were following him. He began to walk faster. They followed suit. So John began to run. The chase was on.

John took all of the turns that he could, racing into alleyways and trying to duck from their sight lines. But the taller man was able to keep up, and he wasn't going to escape them so easily. He was breathing deeply. John was much older than he had been before, and while his adrenaline was at its highest point, he didn't know if he could keep up this running for much longer. His mind filled with the possibilities of who these men were and what they wanted with him distracted him so much that he tripped over a crack in the sidewalk, but his body never made contact with the ground. Someone caught him. The men had caught him. He was dragged into an alley by who must have been the tall man-he was a little shorter up close-and his body was pressed up against a wall. His captor held him there and pressed a hand over his mouth. John's eyes were open, but he couldn't see the man, who had angled himself so his body was pressing against John's, but his face was over his shoulder. John tried to cry out, but he couldn't catch his breath. The man's arm was stretched out in the awkward position, and when John finally got a chance to inhale (his nostrils left charitably uncovered), a whiff of the man's deodorant overwhelmed his senses, and he started to cough. The man shushed him swiftly.

John still couldn't see his face, but it was becoming clear that his captor was not one of the men who had been chasing him. Straining his eyes, he was able to make out the hood of a dark sweater and a knit beanie cap. The fingers over his mouth were long, lanky, and they were perfectly positioned to give John a change to breath in his silence. He was being pushed against the wall, but there were no extremities digging into his body. His captor was gentle. Too gentle, in fact. John wasn't this man's hostage, he was being saved.

The footsteps of John's chasers, however, were coming closer, and John was still coughing. The man did not hush him again, but he repositioned his fingers so that his index finger rested against John's lips, willing him to be quiet. He turned John around and removed his coat, throwing it over himself. John couldn't turn his head enough to fully see, but he knew that the man had removed his cap to reveal short light hair as he ran back out onto the street, leading the criminals in the opposite direction. John turned and crouched down, watching his saviour's escape and the men who had been after him only moments ago. John had just been saved by a stranger, and he had no idea why he'd been in danger in the first place. Minutes passed before John was sure he was safe, and he was thankful that he had left his mobile in his pants pocket rather than his coat.

"Everything alright?" was the first thing Lestrade said as he answered. John was still breathing heavily as he responded:

"I'm fine, Greg...but I think I'll take you up on that right, if you don't mind."

It took five minutes for Lestrade to pull up next to the alley where John was waiting, still sitting against the wall. He reached out a hand to him. John picked up the beanie before standing, .

"Whose is that?"

John eyed the hat. "A man...he helped me. Pretended to be me and led some baddies that way." John pointed in the direction of his chasers. Lestrade raised an eyebrow.

"He took your coat?"

"Yes..." Instinctively, John reached into the waist of his pants and sighed. He'd left his revolver inside his coat, in a special pocket Mary had sown in it for him. Whoever this stranger was, John had just given him a gun.

"Can you describe him to me?"

John went through everything he could remember about the man. His height, his dreadfully slim frame, his military haircut. He even mentioned his scent. "His deodorant...it was Lynx brand."

"How could you tell?"

John shrugged. "Same one I've used for years." He didn't bother mentioning that he had started using the brand because he had found multiple un-opened travel size tubes of it in Sherlock's luggage when he was clearing out the dead man's things, and had become accustomed to the odour.

Lestrade drove John to Mary's in peace after having him describe the men who had chased him. They said a brief goodnight and John entered the house with his spare key. It was late, and Mary was already asleep, so he tucked himself into the bed next to her. She sighed happily as he reached his arm around her waist and pressed his body against hers, her warmth comforting him as much as his did her. As he drifted off to sleep, he couldn't help thinking about that man-the one who had saved him from almost certain death. That man, and the way he smelled.

John was without a weapon for over a week after that, mentally berating himself for letting the stranger take his coat. He thought often about his moments of peril and the oddness of his rescue, but it wasn't until he walked into 221B and saw his revolver on the coffee table that his mind grew clear. He snatched the gun and hid it in his waistband, old habits returning to him, and he ran out of the flat. Mrs. Hudson questioned him as he left, but he didn't have time to answer her. The gun had still been warm when he picked it up. His saviour couldn't have gotten far.

John rushed through the alleys, questioning the number of homeless he came across on his way as to whether they had seen a man in his coat. It was winter, and the man was probably still wearing it. Racing through the alleys, and on a tip from a girl too young not to have a roof over her head, John finally reached the stranger. The man wasn't facing him, but John could see the cigarette smoke wafting away from his body. The man had tensed up, and just as John was about to speak, he began to run away. John chased him this time, but he couldn't last long, having run enough already. He stopped and pulled out his gun.

"Stop, damn it! Stop, or I'll shoot!" he yelled, cocking his weapon. The man paused, but then started away again at a walking pace. He wasn't afraid of being shot it, evidently. John decided to try a different angle. Aiming the gun at his temple, he shouted: "I never said I was pointing this at you!"

And the man stopped. Froze in his tracks. John saw his head twitch, as if he wanted to turn around, but he stopped himself. John pulled the gun away from his face.

"No...I...I wouldn't, you know." He disarmed the weapon and tucked it back into his waistband. "I never would...never even thought to, not really." John didn't know why he was explaining himself this way. He wanted the man to know that he would never kill himself, that things would never get that bad. "I just thought you might...if you thought I was going to hurt myself, I thought you might stop." John chuckled, thinking himself ridiculous. "It worked, didn't it?"

The man gave him no response, but he started to walk away again, leaving John alone in the alley, still laughing awkwardly.

"Thanks for bringing this back..." he mumbled, tapping at his revolved, but the man had already ducked around a corner.

John didn't see the stranger again until a week before the wedding. He had just come out of a fitting for his suit, one that he had gone to with Greg, but it was close to 221B, and John decided to walk home alone again. It was only recently that there had been some action in London: a man had been put in jail, and John recognized him from his photograph as the shorter of the two men who had been after him. Their captor was unknown. To everyone but John, of course. Before reaching the flat, John turned into that familiar alley, and he was unsurprised to find the man in his coat once again, facing away from him, smoking a cigarette. The man did not try to escape him this time, but remained still, never giving John the courtesy of his glance.

"You should try and stop that," John told him, referring to his smoking. "It's not good for you. But you already knew that."

The man's response was to drop the cigarette onto the ground and stamp his foot over it, working it into ash. John grinned.

"The hair's a nice touch," he told him, running a hand through his own short strands. "Flattering, really."

He thought he could make out an amued scoff from the stranger, who was still wearing his coat. It was massive on him, his thin legs making him look like a child underneath the layers of fabric above them. Even the baggy jeans couldn't hide his size.

"You should eat something."

No response. The man took a step away from John.

"Don't go!" John hissed desperately. The man stopped for a second. "Come back." John was begging. The man stayed paused for a minute as John tried to find something to say. "The wedding's next Sunday. You should come."

This time the man really started to walk away. Slowly but sturdily, he put one foot in front of the other and started to leave John once again, but he was stopped by the doctor's next words:

"That isn't a 'no,'" he informed the stranger. "This, what you're doing: it's not a refusal. You'll come back...just...not yet," John decided, his mind jumbled as he searched for the right words to express himself. "Not quite time yet."

The stranger didn't attend the wedding. In fact, John didn't see him again for another five months, making an even nine since the first time they had met on the night of John's attack. The newspapers were filled with action: gunshots, with no way of telling who was firing them. No casualties, just a mysterious battle with nothing to detail them. Lestrade had invited John to the crime scene, and he'd made a joke about them needing Sherlock Holmes to figure out what had gone on. John had chuckled at the joke with his Best Man, but it was not entirely genuine.

He had expected to have to go out looking for his mysterious saviour, but as John walked home, he saw the lanky man waiting for him in the alley directly next to his new house, his back turned as usual, but without a cigarette. "You've been waiting for me?" he asked, knowing the man wouldn't answer. "Nice of you not to make me look." John walked into the alley. He was so close to the man, mere meters separating them. He wanted to try and bridge the gap, but the man's stance was one of preparation. He was ready to bolt if necessary. "You've quit, I take it?" John was referencing his smoking habits. "Good for you." And then, without him realizing it, John started to fill the stranger in on everything. The wedding, the reception, the first time Mary thought she was pregnant, but it turned out that she wasn't. The second time Mary thought she was pregnant, and how she absolutely was, and how she was only two months along. So early in the marriage, and yet John was already dangerously close to being a father. John talked about his hopes, his fears, and his excitement. He was ready for the challenge. John talked about his work at the clinic during the week, and his cases with Lestrade on the weekends. John told this stranger everything, and the man simply stood and listened, his shoulders occasionally shaking with silent laughter when John made a joke, or his fists clenching when John told him of the harder moments. Finally, John couldn't think of anything more to say. He fell silent.

"Your turn," he prodded the man, to no avail. This time, it was John who turned to leave. "Don't be long, now," he said as his goodbye, and went home to his pregnant wife.

Another month, and this time, John found his stranger in the midsts of action, a black ski mask covering his face as he battled a man hand-to-hand. Lestrade's team had been called in to break up the strange battle, but John's friend had gotten away, leaving his enemy unconscious on the street. Lestrade brought John over to inspect the criminal.

"Is this the one who was chasing you?" he asked John, who shook his head. He wondered if this man had been after him, too.

It wasn't until the next morning, on John's way to work, that he found himself pulling over to his favourite alleyway, but he didn't find his friend there. Instead, he found the young girl he had seen all those months before. She couldn't have been more than fourteen years-old, and she wasn't dressed for the weather, which had gotten cold again. It would be snowing soon. John reached into his pocket. "Here," he said, handing her the beanie that his saviour had dropped when his own coat was stolen. Upon further inspection of the girl, he removed his coat, and gave that to her, too. She looked up at him gratefully, but gave the coat back. "It's alright...if I need anything, he'll get it for me." She was talking about the stranger.

John smiled. "Well then, you can give that back to him," he told her, gesturing to the beanie. "And tell him...tell him I'm getting impatient."

She grinned, too. "He knows. He won't be much longer."

John only saw his stranger once after that, and they didn't get much of a chance to talk-well, for John to talk, anyway. He looked like he was on his way somewhere, and John could see the reflection of light off a weapon in his waistband as he sauntered away from him. After a quick greeting and a couple of quips, John yelled out to him:

"I can help you, you know! You don't have to do this alone!" Of course, the man kept walking. John could only mumble, "Be careful."

For the next week, John read every corner of every newspaper, and he watched every single news channel. Mary thought he had gone mad, but she humoured her husband. The baby was another four months away, and she was showing. John would often watch the news while rubbing her belly, trying to feel for the life inside. He was so excited for the child, eager for it. But he was eager for something else, too.

Finally, one evening, he opened the newspaper. A man named Sebastian Moran had been found unconscious in the middle of a crime scene not so far from John's clinic. He was a crimelord, and he'd been a close follower of Jim Moriarty. The crime in question made it clear that Jim Moriarty was absolutely real, and that Sherlock Holmes was not a fraud. John couldn't contain his happiness, and ran to lift Mary into the air as he danced around their kitchen. She laughed at him, glad for his glee, and he told her to go back to the living room so he could bring them some dinner. John had just finished making a salad when he heard a knock at the door. He froze. He heard Mary sauntering back into the kitchen, and her small voice:

"John, love...there's someone here to see you." It was clear from her tone that she knew exactly who this visitor was, and that she didn't know if she wanted to leave John alone with him.

"It's alright, Mary. Go sit down, I'll be finished supper in a few more minutes."

He heard his wife leave him in the kitchen, and soon after, he heard the different footsteps that came into it. The stranger said nothing, as usual, but John could tell that he was facing him, waiting for him to react. John busied himself over the stove, frying up some beef patties. He toasted the buns. He went into the cupboard for the tea. He did all of this, but he never looked behind him at the stranger who had entered his home. His heart was beating faster than he knew it could, and while every ounce of him wanted to turn around, he couldn't bring himself to do it. Was it painful? Not exactly. John just felt weak. When the cooking was finished, and their meal was prepared, John paused at the dish cabinet. He took a deep breath.

And he pulled out three plates. Three sets of utensils. Three cups. He piled them all up in his arms and took another breath.

And he turned around.

And he took a few short steps.

And he handed them to Sherlock Holmes.

Sherlock hadn't come back all at once. He hadn't made his return any grand gesture or production. He came back in shifts, preparing John. Protecting him not only from those who were after him, but from his own denial. Easing himself back into life. Easing John back into living.

"Took you long enough," Sherlock joked, and John didn't know whether he should be angry or amused. He decided to laugh, because he was happy. He laughed, because he was ready for this. He was about to eat dinner with his two best friends, and for the first time in years, he could feel whole.