Author's note: This is AU, not only since it disregards season 3, but because it includes Tobias Marshall, a character (aside from being named after an original ACD character) I created in the third chapter of "Whether Cheerful Or Somber". You don't have to read this story, though.

Aside from that, I am working on my style.

I don't own anything, please review.

Starting a new life wasn't easy, especially when one hadn't had one before.

And since Tobias Marshall not only had long forgotten what a "normal" life was supposed to be, but had also had no inclination to leave his old one behind, until two and a half weeks spent as the captive of a strange man, he wasn't exactly prepared for the task.

But he had decided to do it, anyway. He had been a good hit man, one of the best, but he chose to leave the money and the anonymity behind because his captor had brought him Christmas Dinner.

He was pathetic.

But he couldn't go back. Not because he had given him all the information he needed to ensure the arrest of the Tornton family; but because –

Because he had looked in the eyes of a man who was supposed to be his enemy and had seen a better man than he'd ever been.

He couldn't explain it. That was just how it was.

And now he was here, trying to build a new life, find a job, live like a man.

Sometimes, he wondered what his kidnapper was doing. It was ridiculous; he certainly hadn't spent enough time with the man to develop Stockholm's syndrome. Yet he found himself thinking about him, who he was, why he had captured him –

And, most importantly, why he hadn't killed him.

He could have. Tobias had given him the information he wanted. There was nothing holding him back.

He didn't kill him. He left the door open. He let Tobias get away.

And he didn't know why, and he didn't know why he cared. Just that he had got away should be enough.

It wasn't. And now, on top of trying to figure out how to talk to other people without asking them who they wanted killed, he was obsessed with a stranger.

He'd told him to call him John, but that certainly wasn't his real name.

Tobias had absolutely nothing to go on. He should stop thinking about it.

He couldn't.

The mystery was too fascinating.

He didn't even know where to start looking, though.

And then he got lucky.

He came home from the bar he worked at – how strange it was, to call anything his home, after he had spent years travelling around, but this flat was his, even if it was small – and turned on the television to see the news that the consulting detective Sherlock Holmes had returned from the dead.

He remembered that he had heard something about this story years ago, and that now and then he would catch the name during channel surfing or when he was going over the headlines of the day; but he had never seen Sherlock Holmes before, or if he had, it had been such a fleeting glance that his face hadn't registered.

Now, though, he saw him step out of a house – 221B Baker Street in London, according to the reporter, where he lived with his "flatmate", whatever that meant – and just knew.

He had a different hair and eye colour, of course.

But –

The movements; the form of his face; and this stare, this stare he had given Tobias so often during these few weeks.

Sherlock Holmes was John.

Sherlock Holmes was the stranger who had made him human, or something like it, again.

He didn't know how long he sat there, staring dumbly at the tv long after the news report had ended, but once the shock had worn off, he immediately went to his laptop.

He had to know more about this consulting detective.

A few hours later, he closed the laptop, his mind spinning.

He had been right. The man was far from ordinary.

He had invented his own job, convinced the police to let him work with them, picked up an ex-army doctor on the way, met a crazy man who wanted to cause chaos, defeated him, but at the cost of three years of his life, and now he was back solving cases like nothing had happened.

Tobias had met him during the years he had spent in hiding. It explained his disguise.

It might also explain why he'd needed the information. Tobias, while he had always kept out of the businesses of his various... employers wasn't an idiot, and he had heard the name Moriarty whispered at dark corners more than once. If a British guy was known among American criminals...

The consulting detective must have tried to destroy this organization, or whatever it was that Moriarty had built.

Tobias didn't doubt that he had succeeded.

That was it, then; the mystery solved. A consulting detective had turned a hit man into a bartender, a bartender who was rather content with his life, and he didn't have to think about it further.

Only he did think about Sherlock Holmes from time to time. He couldn't help it. He figured it was normal; after all, Tobias hadn't really had a conversation, a real conversation, with another human being for close to a decade before he came along, and it had changed him.

It would be strange if he didn't think about Sherlock Holmes, he told himself.

And then came the day where one of his old sources contacted him.

The only reason Tobias kept in contact with some of them was that he wanted to know if anyone had put a hit out on him, which was likely considering he had disappeared and an old patron might think that he had switched sides. And since he used burn phones, they wouldn't be able to locate him.

All he'd ever got out of his sources were offers for other jobs. He'd always declined. He'd never done anything else, though. If the employer found another hit man – it wasn't his problem.

Until it was.

Because this offer was shorter than most, and urgent enough that it hadn't only been sent to him, but was an open one – meaning that whoever made the kill would get the money.

Sherlock Holmes. 3 mio.$.

Tobias read the text and knew he had to act.