John had woken up barely a minute ago with a probably dream-caused craving for marmalade. (On toast, accompanied by tea, but those details were so ingrained into his normal breakfast routine as to be unnecessary.) He stumbled into the kitchen, rubbing his eyes, and stopped in midstep, foot in the air. His brain was slightly confused as to why his body had halted so, as the visual stimuli from his eyes had not included any unusual details. Everything in the kitchen was right, in the correct places; all was as it should be.
And then the part of his brain that had been honed to precisely and fatally aim at a just-spotted target pointed out that this was wrong – things shouldn't be where they should be. A single missing element had put the apartment – indeed, his life – off kilter for a year. That element, that annoying, exasperating, integral piece of life, had been missing from the kitchen every single morning for three hundred and fifty days. And so John had walked into this kitchen for three hundred and fifty mornings and noticed that all was not as it should be. The morning heart ache was as much a part of his routine as the first cup of tea.
Every morning for three hundred and fifty days Sherlock had not been lounging gracefully in his seat across the table, tea gone cool, staring intently at the letter John had received yesterday from Mycroft, fine jawline and cheekbones outlined by the early light, his dark curls falling across his eyes, he'd let them grow out, must not have been caring about his appearance, too wrapped up in . . . in . . . in . . . whatever the hell he'd been doing for nearly a year.
John put his foot down. He was now fully awake and fully alert and full of adrenaline.
Sherlock. Sherlock, my Sherlock, my bloody insufferable Sherlock, he's alive, my Sherlock, he's not dead and he's back and I Am Going To Kill Him.
Sherlock glanced up and read John. He knew what was wrong, of course. He'd been away for months, no communication, John thought he was gone for good and so had grieved. He was still mourning (the apartment was in a state of disarray that suggested periods of apathetic chaos followed by a need for normal, mundane, monotonous cleaning, but all of Sherlock's belongings were left as he had left them. Even had he not predicted it, John was obviously in mourning) for his friend, his partner. Slowly rearranging his life to exclude Sherlock.
The loss – the fall, the body, the funeral – had been the worst period of John's life. The loss, and the pain, and the longing, and the aching. He hadn't realised what he and Sherlock were until then, hadn't realised what their relationship meant.
Sherlock read all of this in John's face, as emotions flickered from confusion to murderous intent, and knew that he had to act quickly to counteract the effect of that anguish. Quickly, before the now-fully-awake man was close enough to act on that anguish.
He had to remind John of their bond, acknowledge the painful emotions he had experienced, remind him that he cared for his doctor, let him know that he would have much preferred not to spend those three hundred and fifty days apart, and somehow begin the process of healing John's heart.
He calculated that he would have time for three syllables between the point that John was close enough for the words to have maximum effect and the point when John would choose to strike.
Sherlock looked up into those blue eyes and smiled, a genuine, heartfelt smile.
"I've missed you."
And that was it – the three words that both validated John's grief and promised a better future. His anger turned into relief, his punch into an outstretched hand, and then he was embracing the taller man. John's face was buried in Sherlock's shoulder, arms tight around waists, and finally, everything was where it should be.
