A/N: Well here it is, the sequel to Withdrawal. It won't be as long as the previous story.

I hope you like it. Special thank you to my Beta Saysesydo.

CHAPTER ONE

"Sherlock!" John called as he walked up the stairs to the flat, his hand painful under the weight of orange plastic shopping bags. "Some help would be good." He entered the living room to find it looking like a bomb's hit it, toys and papers strewn all over the place.

John marched into the kitchen, dropping the bags on the unnaturally clean table top. Gasping for breath, he headed into the bedroom to dispose of his jacket. The room wasn't much better than the living room. John's bed lay near the wall, made and tidy. Sherlock bed however was the completely opposite, the sheets a tangle and strewn all over the place. John couldn't believe that after a year of sharing a room with Sherlock he hadn't been able to get the man to clean up after his bloody self. He groaned as he bent down to lift the discarded sheet off the floor, dropping it back onto the center of the bed.

Life with Sherlock since he'd returned from the dead was so different from how it had been before. Not just because they shared a room, but having the children added a strange domestic element that hadn't been there before. Weekends were about them being a family, watching the afternoon movie on a Saturday, Sunday lunch with Mrs. Hudson and Harry. Taking the kids to the park, grocery shopping. All in all, as much as John hated to admit it, they were a normal family.

One thing that differed from what the world would consider normal was that their weekdays and sometimes nights were taken up with tracking down criminals and solving crimes for Scotland Yard, as well as the odd private case. Things hadn't gotten completely back to normal work wise for Sherlock. Some people still doubted his abilities. John still got spam and trolls attacking his blog, which was back on the top internet search list. But for the most part, they did their jobs and came home to their kids.

The only thing that cast a shadow over their lives, well, over his relationship with the detective, was that he was still struggling with his feeling for the man. Over the past year they'd been getting stronger and more confusing by the day. He'd been expecting them to fade away. He'd kinda hoped that they'd been a result of all the turmoil over Sherlock's return and everyone's insistence that they weren't just friends. But that hope had been proven floorless when after a few months of peace and normality, when everyone stopped mentioning it, he still found himself watching Sherlock longer than was considered appropriate, still lay awake every morning before getting up to see to Beth and Junior, smiling at the sleeping figure in the next bed. That's when he'd realised they were very much real, and very permanent.

Now he just tried to make his way through life with Sherlock without letting on. He knew he was still in denial, and he was fine with that. It wasn't like he got himself off with thoughts of the detective in his head. He still wasn't physically attached to him, well not to the point of actually doing anything about it. He was just emotionally attached. Which meant the likely hood of having a long term relationship with a woman was almost unthinkable. - That however didn't stop him dating. If you could really call it dating when you went out with girls you knew were easy.

John was pulled from his contemplation by a loud bang that had him racing out of the room and down the hall stairs. He burst into the basement flat to find Sherlock stood at the battered table, safety glasses covering his eyes and a smoking flask in his hand.

"Dammit Sherlock!" he yelled, "What the hell are you doing!"

Sherlock had turned the basement of 221B into his own little lab, much to Mrs. Hudson's frustration. But since they'd brought the house from her six months ago, she really couldn't complain. She still lived there, rent free. Sherlock had insisted on that. After all, the woman was family, and Baker Street would fall without her.

"Working obviously." Sherlock grumbled, placing the exploded test tube on the table.

"Working? And precisely what case requires you to blow the place up?"

Sherlock ignore the question and went back to his 'work'.

"Where are the kids?" John asked, walking around the table to see just what Sherlock was blowing up.

"Mary and Mrs. Hudson took them to the park. I needed to do this."

"As long as you're priorities are straight strait," John grumbled heading back to the door.

"I am fully aware of my priorities John," Sherlock sighed, turning to face his friend, pulling off his glass as he did so. "I was not aware they were meant to come in a specific order."

John met his gaze in the doorway. "For most 'normal' people they do."

"Enlighten me. What is the 'normal' order of priorities?"

John narrowed his gaze at the detective, unsure if Sherlock was actually ignorant or just playing such. "Fine. - Family, work, everything else," he said, marking the points with his fingers, a frustrated gleam in his gaze.

"I see," Sherlock smirked.

"Bastard."

Sherlock's laughter followed the doctor out of the small flat and up the stairs. He should have known the man was winding him up.

The detective appeared at the kitchen door a few minutes later, wiping his hands of a piece of rag and watching John put the shopping away. "How was work?" he asked causally.

"Same as always."

"Dull." Sherlock sighed.

"To you, yes." John replied, opening the fridge, glad that there was nothing but milk and cheese inside. Sherlock had his own fridge now in his lab/office, so there was never a risk of Beth getting hold of a disgusting body part. - Unless Sherlock purposely gave it to her, which had only happened once.

"Oh, don't pretend it doesn't bore you too John." Sherlock smirked, heading further into the kitchen.

John turned and looked up at his flat-mate who was stood a little too close for his liking. "I - I…enjoy helping people Sherlock. I became a doctor for a reason." he swallowed, swiftly skirting around the detective.

"You do more to help people as my assistant than you do as a doctor John." Sherlock started, turning as his friend moved around him. His brows furrowed. John had been skittish around him for month, and while Sherlock could read his friend like a book, he chose not to, which was very difficult at times. But he'd come to the conclusion that John needed a semblance of privacy, so he avoided watching the slightly older man's every move and expression. - At least if he could help it.

Sadly now was one of the moments he couldn't stop himself and had seen, just for an instant, the nervousness in him. The way he unconsciously pulled his lip between his teeth and the way he skirted around him with erratic breath. To say Sherlock was confused by this reaction would be a lie. He knew what it meant. - He just wasn't sure what it meant. So decided his best option was to ignore it. Whatever was troubling John would be dealt with in time, when the man was ready.

"I wouldn't say that Sherlock. I can save lives as a doctor."

"You save lives as a detective John. How many of the criminals we've stopped would have gone on to kill again?"

John glanced over at him from across the table, a spark of acknowledgement in his gaze.

"Besides John, you're just a part-time GP, it's not as if you're on the front lines again. Today alone you dealt with four cases of the common cold, two children with inner ear infections, a man with erectile dysfunction… and if I'm not mistaken, a young woman with what she suspected was a heart murmur but turns out she just wanted to get her clothes off in front of you." He looked John dead in the eye.

"But it could have been a heart murmur." John defended. "I could have saved her life."

Sherlock huffed with frustration. "And she could have saved you're time," he said a little too harshly as he marched into the living room. "I just don't see why you don't quit and come back to working with me full time."

John leant on the back of his chair. "Listen Sherlock, as much as I love solving cases, I need something else in my life. If there's something I've learnt, it's that I can't live in your pocket, I can't let you be everything."

The two men stared at each other across the room. Both knowing John was referencing the breakdown he'd had after losing Sherlock. How it had almost cost him his life.

Sherlock grunted finally. "Fine."

John smiled. "Fine." He turned and headed back to the kitchen. "Tea?"

"Please."

~SHERLOCK~

Sherlock was settled in his chair with his laptop, adding the data he'd collected from his experiment, John sat across from him a cup of tea pressed between his palms, when the familiar sound of the front door resounded through the house, followed swiftly by the sound of footsteps.

John glanced up over his mug as Sherlock logged off his computer and stood to relocated it to the desk. He dropped back down on his chair, steepled his fingers beneath his chin and waited.

John didn't even try to stop the smile spreading across his lips at the subtle excitement that rolled off Sherlock. The detective's joy at the return off the children always brought a smile to the doctor's face. Once he would never have believed Sherlock capable of the connection he shared with Beth and Junior. The only people he'd ever seen Sherlock be even the slightest bit nice to, other than him, and that depended on what he wanted, was Mrs. Hudson. So seeing the way he was with the children was rather a revelation that was still a little difficult to get used to at times, especially for those around them. Mycroft and Lestrade always seemed to look at Sherlock like he'd grown a second head when they walked in to find him playing with Beth. Mrs. Hudson on the other hand seemed not to even notice.

John wondered often if it Sherlock's absence from their lives, his three years travelling alone - Well, relatively alone, that woman was never mentioned. - had anything to do with the change in him. John would most defiantly say it was a change. Sherlock wasn't the same man he'd been when he'd taken that step off the hospital roof.

John stared at Sherlock contemplating just what had changed about the man. Trying to put his finger on it specifically, but he couldn't. Sherlock was still so much the man he'd first met, rude, obnoxious, arrogant and utterly overwhelming. But at the same time there was a calmness about him that was only brought out when Beth was with him.

John was still contemplating that thought when said two and a half year old came rushing into the room. Heading as always straight for Sherlock's lap. John watched with a warm smile as the little girl practically leapt into it. At first, John would admit, Beth's ease and almost instant choice of Sherlock as her favourite had put his nose out of joint. After all, he'd been the one to raise her for the first year and a half before Sherlock bloody Holmes marched back into their lives, but the look on both their faces more than made up for it.

"Sheelock." Beth cheered as she rushed to the detective.

He looked down at her with a passive stare that to anyone who didn't know him could be mistaken for contempt or disgust, but that's only because they didn't look into his eyes to see the pure joy that shone in the unique bluish green. Sherlock didn't lift the girl, he just opened his arms so they were resting on the armrests, shifted his long lanky body and waited for the little girl to climb into his lap. John smiled into his mug for a moment before turning as Mrs. Hudson and Mary, their nanny, strolled in. A small boy in Mary's arms.

"How was the park?" John asked causally, as Mary put Junior on his feet and the boy toddled towards John. While Sherlock had Beth's full attention on a daily bases, John had Juniors.

"It was alright," Mary smiled, "Mrs. H was scared we wouldn't have a house to come back to." She laughed, dropping down on the couch.

"Believe me, dearie, my concerns are well founded." the older woman sighed, glancing at Sherlock who sat listening as Beth rambled on about what she'd seen at the park. A soft content smile slowly spreading over her face at the sight.

"You almost didn't." John laughed; lifting the one year old into his lap.

Mary laughed and Mrs. Hudson rolled her eyes. "Do you boys need anything?"

"No thank you Mrs. Hudson, we're fine."

"Alright dearies. See you later." Then the older woman strolled out of the living room and down the stairs to her flat.

Mary got to her feet and looked at the small family with a grin. "Well, I'll be going too, leave you all to your family afternoon."

John rolled his eyes at her. Mary was his worst enemy when it came to their 'family'. He was more than sure she was pushing the word and all it meant on purpose to get some kind of reaction, though he wasn't sure what. Hopefully she didn't know about his….crush, for lack of a better word. Though the way she looked at him sometimes said she suspected.

"Thanks Mary."

She was heading for the door when John suddenly remembered.

"Oh, Mary, sorry but will you be about to stay late next Friday." John felt Sherlock's questioning gaze burn into the side of his face. He also felt it deduce his reasons for asking maybe to extend her work hours. He kept his focus on Mary, not wanting to see the look in the man's eyes. "I….erm….have a date."

Mary seemed to be surprised by the news, though he couldn't think why, he did go out on dates. But every time he mentioned it a shadow passed over the red-heads gaze. "Oh." she glanced at Sherlock for a second but nodded. "Sure."

"Thanks." John smiled tightly with a nod.

"Well, I'll see you…Monday."

"Bye," they all said in chorus, making the young woman smile.

John turned back to Sherlock, meeting his genius gaze and knew he'd already figured out that the woman he was seeing was a divorced mother of two, a teacher at the local primary school that he'd met through the surgery. Where her son had come because on a sprained ankle three weeks before and that he'd bumped into her while getting the shopping. He waited for the revelation, with added insult but there was only silence. Sherlock turning his attention back to the little girl in his lap and John couldn't ignore the clench of his gut.

A/N: Well, how was that for an opening chapter?