Sherlock can deduce a man's infidelity from his deodorant, can guess a woman's password from her heartbeat. He can locate a child from a shoeprint and sense disease in a cabbie. Sherlock can see everything.

But never before had he seen the stages of grief in a skull. Not until he returned to the flat one day to tell John he was alive.

He sits in the armchair by the window, clutching the old piece of bone in one hand, his fingers running over the cracks—reading them.

Stage one—denial. The skull gives off a dull sheen. John has polished it daily, just as Sherlock used to. Sherlock did it to keep a dead man from turning to dust; John did it to keep another dead man alive.

Stage two—anger. Sherlock studies the jagged line on the crown, notes the slightest dent in a wall across the room. John threw it with all the strength he could muster, if Sherlock's mental measurements of the fractures are accurate. And of course, they are.

Stage three—bargaining. The shards of bone have been reassembled and glued with artistic precision. John promised he'd pull himself together, fix his own brokenness if only Sherlock would return.

John has not reached the stage of acceptance. Perhaps it is selfish not to allow him that closure, and a normal life. But Sherlock Holmes has never claimed to be an angel. He longs for his companion.

And then, quite suddenly, John is in the flat. And in that first moment of astonishment, Sherlock sees John's injured knee tremble ever so slightly. He's always keeping an eye on that knee, even though he knows it was a psychosomatic limp— can't seem to stop himself from noticing and checking and caring.

For the first time, John's soldier exterior fully melts away, and he starts to collapse in shock, only Sherlock's already across the room. He catches him a foot from the floor, and their eyes lock. Because Sherlock took the leap off of St. Bart's, but he would never let John fall.