Thank you very much for your appreciation and your following and even favouriting! It's amazing, really.

I am doing my best to be quick before the beginning of the new year will make this entirely AU.

So, here's the second part.


We Keep Falling

One


Seven months, seventeen days later


Two years, ten months and four days.

Two years, ten months and four days.

Too long. Too much time.

Three days since his return to London, for three days he had been back here, in this city, his city, the city he knew so well.

One week since he had accomplished his mission, since he had uncovered the last member of Moriarty's vast network. Not really the last one, of course, but the last one with the potential to be a threat to John. One week since he had lured Sebastian Moran, Moriarty's second-in-command, into a trap, according to Mycroft's and his plans, lured him into a trap, presented himself as a bait and had waited, for Mycroft's men to take care of Moran. They had come. Eventually. Despite himself, Sherlock shuddered.

John, Mrs Hudson and Lestrade.

It was absurd, Sherlock knew that, but those three names, those names, had become like a mantra, the reason he had done what he had done, the reason to keep going.

Too long. It had been too long.

John.

John.

Sherlock coughed, raspily, and attempted to hold his breath, determined to swallow the sputum he had brought up.

Back to John. Back to his life, his normal life, back to how it had been, back to a home, to a life worth living, away from streets and hunger and hunting and being hunted…

No. Over. It was over.

He was back, back home, in London. In front of John's new flat.

New flat. John had a new flat. It had taken him three days to find out, without Mycroft's help. Without Mycroft, because this was something he had to do on his own, to come back to John.

Sherlock's heart gave a painful leap as he tried to remember John's face, every detail of his face.

Two years, ten months and four days.

His knees started buckling beneath him as he realised what this meant. So close, so close…

He did manage to steady himself before he could crumble to the floor, grabbing the side mirror of the car parked next to him.

So close.

After all this time.

It was stupid, he tried to convince himself, stupid to let sentiment rule his logical mind, but…

But in this moment, he wanted nothing more than to be back at 221B, with John, John keeping him safe and being kind and steady and solid, being his friend, and forget about everything. Just forget.

Brutally stifling another cough, Sherlock closed his eyes and leaned against the wall of the house, waiting for John.


"I had been looking forward to this weekend, John," Rose told him for the third time since they had met at the surgery he was working at.

Suppressing a sigh, he nodded, staring out of the window. "I know," he muttered. "I'm sorry, it's just… there's wave of flu going around, and they need me, and…"

In contrast to him, Rose did sigh. "I know, I know. Always working. Sometimes I wonder if you're actually in a relationship with your work and not with me. And then there's this DI you're helping with his cases…"

"Oh no, not that again," John interrupted. "It was just once, okay, and by the way, he's an old friend."

Rose only huffed.

John rested his forehead against the window of the cab. Great start of the evening. Rose and he had been a couple for a few months now, after they had met in a restaurant John used to spend his lunch breaks in. A few months.

He should propose to her, he assumed. Propose to her and marry her and lead a happy life with her. An ordinary life.

"So… what are we going to do, then?" she wanted to know, resting her hand on his thigh.

John still didn't look at her. "Watch a DVD?" he suggested.

Rose withdrew her hand. "Again? We did that last week…"

It was late already, and it was raining, and John really did not have the energy to entertain his girlfriend now. "Listen, Rose, I know you…"

"John," she protested. "I was hoping we could go out, have dinner, maybe, and…"

The lights were passing by outside, lights of street lamps and other cars driving into the opposite direction. The blur of life, the sound of life.

John sighed and finally turned his head. "Not today, Rose," he muttered and pressed a hasty kiss to her cheek.

She only sighed.


It was dark already, dark.

The dark always made him feel vulnerable, stupidly enough, vulnerable because he could never see who was sneaking up on him, or who was coming from behind.

On more than one occasion he had only barely escaped a knife directed at his heart, or a gun shot aimed at him because of a sheer sensation, because of the pure feeling of danger.

Sherlock had withdrawn, to the very edge of the house John was now living in, the hood of his jumper pulled over his head, arms crossed in front of his chest.

No, he reminded himself and barely resisted the urge to glance over his shoulder for the third time in one minute. No, he didn't need to, he was safe now, safe, not being followed anymore, not…

Relax, he told himself. Appear normal.

And failed.

It was dark already, and it was raining, drizzling, ever so softly.

Sherlock didn't mind. Didn't care, rather. He had spent many hours in the rain during these almost three years - a few minutes or even hours more didn't matter to him.

John.

He was going to see John again.

John. His friend.

Friend.

Sherlock still remembered that one night when he had given in, when he had dialled John's number, alone, feverish, shivering, only scarcely succeeding in not throwing up everything he had ingested in the past two days. Had given in, for once, in his weakest moment, and had called John.

His voicemail, rather, because it had been in the middle of the night for John, too, and he had probably been asleep, hadn't heard his mobile, hadn't answered.

Sherlock had never attempted it again afterwards, cursing himself for his stupidity, for his weakness, and vomiting in fact, only seconds later.

He would get back to John, see him again, that was what he had been holding on to, what had kept him from calling his friend - friend - again and possibly endangering John. Or from giving in, simply stopping, ceasing.

Would get back. He was back, now, finally, after all those months.

Finally.

A cab appeared in the street, the first cab in hours.

John.

John.

Sherlock's heart sped up as the light of the cab blinded him, making a step away from the solid wall behind him, from the wall having kept him upright.

His legs were trembling and buckling once more, but he didn't care. Not long, he didn't have to hold on much longer, only a few minutes…

And then John would be back.


They had spent the rest of the journey in the cab in such uncomfortable silence that John was actually happy when they finally reached his flat.

Rose left it to him to pay the driver, as she always did, and already got out, standing in the rain like a soaked puppy.

"Hurry up, John!" she demanded. "It's freezing out here."

John waited patiently until the cabbie had passed him the change and then climbed out of the car, too, much more slowly than Rose, not exactly eager to spend the evening in front of the telly, together with her chattering, instead of in his warm and cosy bed, sleeping.

He shouldn't work that much, probably. But then, what use was there in sitting around at home, on his own?

"John!" she demanded, waiting next to the front door.

"Coming," he muttered, pulling his coat collar up against the wind and the rain.

That was when too many things happened at once.

Rose shrieked, a hooded figure suddenly dissolved from the wall of the house while the cab drove away, and another voice said his name.

Another voice.

John froze on the spot.

"John!" Rose squealed again. "Who is that? Do you know him?"

Know him.

John still couldn't move.

"John…," the hooded figure repeated.

That voice.

No. That was not possible.

No.

The hood disappeared and revealed short hair, short, dark hair, a pale face with bright eyes, a straight nose, and cheekbones… cheekbones…

"No," John breathed and stumbled backwards. "That's not possible, that's… you're dead!"

"John!" Rose squeaked again.

John didn't pay attention to her.

"John…," the hallucination in front of him whispered, its voice trembling. "John, I'm… I'm sorry."

Sorry.

No. It couldn't be. It was impossible. Impossible.

"It's…," he croaked, still absolutely shocked.

"John!" Rose protested.

"Shut up!" he shouted at her, entirely fixed on the dead man approaching him.

"You're… you're dead," he repeated, slowly extending a hand towards the face he had never expected to see again.

"I'm not," the figure replied, hoarsely, staring at John.

John's knees started to give way beneath him and he would have, he assumed, collapsed to the concrete and fainted if it hadn't been for the street lamp conveniently next to him.

He blinked, once, twice, three times. The figure was still there. "You see him, too?" he addressed Rose, without even looking at her.

"What? Yes, yes, of course! Who is that, John?" she whined. "John, I want to go inside…"

John's breath hitched in his throat.

No. That wasn't possible.

And yet, it seemed so.

"Sherlock," he whispered before his legs gave in.


Thank you for reading.

Here we are, then, getting closer to the actual reunion. Curious about reactions? ;)

Please let me know what you think.