2.

It's the meth dealer. Sherlock hasn't thought about him since John was admitted to the hospital, but now Lestrade is confident that he knows the man's identity, though they haven't been able to track him down. For that they need Sherlock.

Sherlock knows that Lestrade does need him, but he also knows that Lestrade is throwing him a bone, a much needed distraction. He doesn't think Lestrade realizes how perfect a distraction it is.

Sherlock can't believe he didn't think of it himself. If not for the meth dealer, he never would have taken John to the fen. If not for the fen, John would still be alive today. So he will find out where the meth dealer is and then he will kill him. Perhaps he will track Hairy Frank down and kill him too, just for good measure.

Simple.

He spends the whole night after the impromptu and unwelcome wake poring over the details. Martin Les is the man's name, and he might be the scum of the Earth but he is by no means unintelligent. A meth addict, yes, but also a PhD in chemistry and a nicely complicated network of people protecting and working for him. Maybe not so simple, then, but that makes it all the more delicious.

Maybe it's the lack of sleep or the dizzying, unrelenting concentration he has forced himself to maintain since Lestrade handed him the case, but Sherlock isn't particularly surprised when he turns away from his string map for a moment and finds John sitting in his old chair. Sherlock has been hearing his voice all night, chiding but distant, so in a way it makes sense.

He's wearing the jumper Sherlock got him for Christmas and sipping innocently at a cup of tea, as though he has been waiting all night for Sherlock to turn 'round. When he does, John raises an eyebrow.

"You're a mess," he says.

"And you're dead," says Sherlock, scowling as he brushes past John to shuffle through a stack of papers on the desk. "You shouldn't be here."

"Given up on shaving, have you? It doesn't suit you. You haven't the chin for it."

"What did I say?" Sherlock snaps.

"Right," says John. "Shouldn't be here. But I don't actually have anywhere better to be. So if it's all the same to you, I'll stay."

"Suit yourself," says Sherlock, heading back to the map.

If he ignores him, John will probably just go away.

"All right then," says John, "it's not as though I have things to do."

There is a crinkle, and Sherlock cannot resist glancing over his shoulder to see that John has picked up a newspaper and is thumbing through it with obvious deliberation, aware that Sherlock is watching him. Sherlock returns his attention to the map, trying to focus on the last known place Martin Les was rumored to have been seen.

"Hm," says John. "Rain. All. Week."

He punctuates each word with a click in the back of his throat, probably because he knows it drives Sherlock insane when he's trying to think. Sherlock cringes each time, but still does not turn around. In response, John makes a show of crinkling the newspaper every time he turns a page, until Sherlock's skin is positively crawling.

"Ho hum. Have you even read through the scanners this week? You haven't circled anything. Look here, a cat's gone missing from a family in Islington and they're certain they closed every door and window. That sounds right up your alley."

"I already have a case," says Sherlock, teeth grinding.

"Good one, is it?"

"Fascinating. Now would you mind terribly shutting up?"

"You're awfully focused for a man whose dead friend has just appeared in his living room."

"And you're awfully chipper for someone who's just died. Now, if you please, shut up."

"And why shouldn't I be chipper? Like I said, I haven't a thing to worry about. Except perhaps you. I guess some things don't change even when you're dead."

"I'm fine," says Sherlock, though he thinks if he has to say that word one more time he'll likely choke on it.

"You look it."

But Sherlock cannot take it anymore. "What part of shut up don't you understand?" he shouts, finally whirling.

John doesn't reply. By the time Sherlock has turned, he is gone, leaving nothing but a neatly folded newspaper exactly where Sherlock left it earlier.


Sherlock wouldn't have noticed that John hasn't emerged from his room all morning if he hadn't made a break with the meth. There's a chemical in it which gives it its potency, better than the dime-store cold medicine crap that had all but been eradicated in the UK but also a dead giveaway because it's only available from a single company—not just in the UK, but in the entire world. John doubts they've been supplying the maker—too much of a reputation risk—but they have to be getting it from somewhere, and there's only one distribution center near London. If they go, he might be able to determine how the chemical is acquired. Yet when he shouts for John and throws his coat on in a whirl, never to be deterred by the muggy weather, he receives no reply.

Frustrated, limbs stinging with the desire to go, to be there, Sherlock hurtles up the stairs and barges into John's unlocked room with an appropriately impatient speech ready on his lips, where it dies as soon as he sees the state of his flatmate. John is curled under piles of blankets which he must have dragged out of the closet sometime last night because they are as out of place in this weather as Sherlock's coat. The blankets, unlike the coat, are less likely a fashion statement. John is shivering and sweating, and he barely jumps when Sherlock flings the door open so fast it slams against the wall.

Sherlock freezes. The window is closed, and the room smells of stale sweat.

"What's going on?" he says.

John opens his eyes and squints up at Sherlock.

"You're the genius," he says, "deduce it."

"You're ill," says Sherlock, not moving from his place in the doorway.

"There's our detective," John rasps. He uncurls, turning over to lie on his back and closing his eyes again, but he continues to shiver.

"I thought you were over your cold," he says, unable to keep a note of accusation out of his voice. The distribution center continues to niggle at him, but for some indeterminate reason this revelation has clouded his resolve.

"Not a cold," says John. "Must be the flu. Explains the anosmia, though it's a rare symptom…"

"How can a doctor confuse a cold with the flu?" says Sherlock, wrinkling his nose. John does not so much as frown at his accusatory sneer, which makes a little electric jolt of fear surge through Sherlock's gut.

"Didn't," says John. "I must have gotten both. Sure it had nothing to do with being dunked in a pond before I'd had the chance to properly recover."

When Sherlock doesn't reply, John cracks a bleary eye and turns his head just enough to look.

"Oh, don't stand there looking like a lost toddler," he says. "You must have come up here for something."

"The meth. I may have a lead."

Sherlock hates this. John has been sick before (last week springs to mind), but rarely has he looked so ill, and Sherlock has always relied on John to take care of himself, being the doctor in their duo. But now John looks…very bad. The word convalescent comes to mind, and for whatever reason Sherlock hates that that is the term his brain first conjures. As though John is some invalid suffering from consumption one hundred years ago, and not a grown, otherwise healthy man with the flu.

He doesn't know what to do. So he says, "I don't know what to do."

John rolls his eyes and raises his arms to massage his temples.

"Honestly, Sherlock, the fact that you have no problem wrestling a meth addict but you can't figure out what to do when your mate is ill is…"

"Frustrating," Sherlock offers. "I know."

"I was going to say endearing, actually."

Sherlock smiles and John gives a rasping laugh. "Just get me some Lemsip and maybe some sports drink. I've still got my appointment tomorrow, so I can get something stronger if I'm still under the weather in the morning. And some paracetamol, this time. My head is killing me."

Sherlock, glad to have a task, nods dutifully. "Yes," he says. "Good. All right. I'll just…I'll be back in a moment, shall I?"

He turns to leave.

"Hang on," says John, "didn't you say you had a lead? Don't let anyone get away on my account."

"What? Oh, that? No, I—it can wait until you're feeling better."

It's true. This is not a murder; it is an ongoing drugs operation, and the evidence will be as much there tomorrow as it is today. He is still itching to go, but the discomfort he is feeling tugs at the base of his stomach every time he sees how sallow John looks. It really can wait.

Sherlock ducks out, returns half an hour later with the Lemsip and some electrolyte-enhanced sugar water. He forgets the paracetamol.


Sherlock had hoped John had left for good after his first dismissal, but it turns out that the hope was futile. John is there again later that evening, admonishing him for not eating dinner, and again in the morning, sitting on the edge of the bed and holding a razor. He leaves the apartment in the hope that somehow John is attached to the place and not to him (Silly of him, since John is now nothing more than a figment of his imagination) and runs into him at the sandwich shop. John slides into the seat across from him as easily as if he had been told to meet there for lunch and Sherlock nearly hurls his teacup across the room before he remembers that there are people watching him here, some of them probably Mycroft's. So he returns to the flat, where at least he can throw things without fear of institutionalization.

"You are by far the most inconvenient hallucination I have ever had," says Sherlock. He has not spoken to John all day, but finally he is too distracted to work, and they have been sitting in their respective chairs for nearly an hour of silence, Sherlock brooding, John sipping a cup of tea that seems to have appeared out of nowhere.

"This from the man who once tried to leap out a window at Oxford, convinced he was a blue heron," says John.

"I never told you that."

"Mycroft did. What was the drug of choice then? LSD?"

"I'm not on LSD now," says Sherlock, feeling fairly confident that he is not.

"I'm not a hallucination."

"Oh please," says Sherlock. "I am not going to call you a ghost. I don't subscribe to the pseudoscience of the paranormal, as you well know."

"Why label it?" says John, shrugging. "Why does it matter what I am?"

"Because what you are is dead," says Sherlock. He sighs heavily and sinks low in the chair, slinging his legs over one of the armrests. "Out with it then. What do I have to do to get you to go away?"

John tilts his head, curious. "Is that what you want me to do?"

Sherlock growls lowly, because he does not have an answer, and he is so, so sick of it.

"What do you want, John? I'm busy, and you are distracting me."

"From killing Martin Les? You know it's not his fault, Sherlock."

"Fine," says Sherlock, because he thinks concession might shut John up, as it sometimes did when he was alive. "But he's still not a very good person."

"Not a good reason for you to kill him."

Sherlock steeples his fingers under his chin and stares at the ceiling for a long moment before replying. His voice is a little quieter when he does, almost gentle.

"Why are you here, John?"

"I'm worried about you," says John without hesitation.

"I did fine before you. I did fine when I was tracking Moriarty's network. I think I've proven myself functional."

"I'm worried you blame yourself."

Sherlock presses his lips together and does not reply.

John lets out a long, slow breath before he pushes himself to his feet and takes a step to cover the gap between their chairs. Much to Sherlock's surprise and displeasure, John claps a very warm hand on his shoulder.

"Sherlock, my friend," he says, "you really need a shave."

And he walks off, up the stairs to John's old room, as though nothing has happened, as though he has not just left a prickling sensation on Sherlock's shoulder where his very unreal hand made contact, and, for some reason, behind Sherlock's eyes as well.


John is not better by the morning. He looks, in fact, worse by the time Sherlock peers in to check on him, his face gaunt and pale, the red around his eyes vivid even though his face is scrunched in obvious pain.

"Head," he says when Sherlock takes a tentative step into the room, as though in reply to Sherlock's wondering look, even though he can't see it. "Jesus, I haven't had a headache like this since…" He trails off.

"I can have Mycroft send a car to take you to the doctor," says Sherlock. This is as close to showing concern as he is willing to come, and he hopes John catches it, because most days Sherlock would rather climb into a crate of feral cats than ring Mycroft. He hesitates, then adds, "I would go with you, but…"

John cracks an eye just long enough to look Sherlock up and down, then snaps it shut.

"You're dressed early."

"It's Lestrade," Sherlock says. "He's caught up on the meth, asked me to meet him at the distribution center. I was hoping to be ahead of the police on this, I've grown too accustomed to their shoddy investigational skills."

John waves a hand and goes back to lying stiffly in the bed, face scrunched in pain.

"Go," he says, "and don't worry about the car, I'll take a cab."

Sherlock nods curtly and makes to leave. He pauses at the door to cast a glance over his shoulder, almost says something, and decides better of it. The crime scene beckons.

Four hours later, however, Sherlock is seething, hoarse from shouting, and ready to tear into John, regardless of how ill he is. Lestrade has already sat on the receiving end of his wrath, resulting in an unceremonious dismissal from the distribution center, but Sherlock was right, and Lestrade knew it.

The police—the idiotic, bumbling, simpletons who made up London's police force—had already been there by the time Sherlock arrived. There, outside of the center, lights flashing, rolling yellow tape out over everything in sight.

"Are you all morons, or were you just specially selected for this particular crime scene?" Sherlock had bellowed as soon as he arrived.

"It's procedure, Sherlock," Lestrade had said, trying to herd him away from the bemused and rapidly angering faces of his officers. "We found evidence—"

"Well it doesn't matter now, does it?" Sherlock shouted. "You think the kingpin doesn't have eyes on this place? Wherever that evidence was going to lead us will already have been cleared out if anyone involved has half an ounce of sense, which is more than I can say for any of your lot!"

There had been more arguing, of course, but it was halfhearted and sheepish on Lestrade's part because he knew Sherlock was right. Their one lead was down the drain because the police couldn't be bothered with a bit of discretion.

Correction: their one lead was down the drain because John Watson had fallen inconveniently ill. If they had gone yesterday, when Sherlock wanted, they wouldn't have run into this problem.

Sherlock slams into the hallway at 221B some time later, unsure whether he is going to shut John out for a few days or if he is going to curse at him the moment he sees him. He generally doesn't know, in these situations, not until he arrives in the throes of the thing, and so he isn't particularly worried about which will happen. He is running on anger and frustration, and as a result he almost doesn't see Mrs. Hudson when, upon his loud entrance, she bursts into the hallway with a rolling pin in her hand.

"Were you going to attack me?" he says, reading into her stance and her white-knuckled hold on the pin and scowling. "Perhaps your niece is right about putting you in the home, Mrs. Hudson, if you can't even remember that I live here."

There is more vehemence behind it than he really intends, but he doesn't care much at the moment. Mrs. Hudson, far from being offended, presses a hand to her heart.

"Sherlock!" she says, breathless. "Goodness! I didn't realize you'd gone out, I thought you must be a burglar."

"As I said—"

"Has John got company then?" says Mrs. Hudson, fanning herself comically and ineffectively with the rolling pin and ignoring his grimace. Sherlock wants to be yelling, maybe throwing things, not standing halfway up the stairs chatting with the landlady. But he pauses.

"Company?"

He scans the entrance for signs that someone other than himself has crossed the foyer today, finds none. In fact, it doesn't even look as though John has gone out, which is odd, because he should have had his doctor's appointment by now.

"Of course he hasn't had company," Sherlock snaps. "Who would want to visit him?"

Mrs. Hudson shrugs innocently. "Well, I don't know about that. Only I thought I heard you two having a bit of a row, that's why I thought you were in. Perhaps he's arguing with his mobile?"

"Arguing—?"

But then Sherlock hears it. Just above, behind closed doors, there is the sound of someone—John—shouting heatedly. Mrs. Hudson points to the ceiling with a look that says "see?" and nods once, as though confirming an unspoken agreement.

"I'll just make you two a nice pot of tea, shall I?"

She disappears.

Sherlock proceeds more slowly up the rest of the stairs, curiosity edging out anger—for now—and pauses at the threshold to hear what John is saying.

"—going to kill you when he sees you, and the better for it. Stop laughing! Stop it! If you think he won't know, you'll—"

His voice becomes muffled, as if he has wandered into another room. Sherlock's first theory—that he was talking to Harry—flies out the window, because from the sound of things John is shouting at someone in the room, someone he does not think Sherlock will want to see. Sherlock hesitates no longer; he pushes into the flat and strides into the living room to find—

Nothing. There is no one there, not even John, not until he comes striding out of the hallway brandishing, of all ridiculous things, a safety razor, held aloft as though it is a sword.

Sherlock immediately knows that something is wrong with John. Very, very wrong. He is dressed in just his bathrobe, with pants and a thin white t-shirt underneath, both soaked almost to transparency with sweat. John's eyes are wide and unfocused, his pupils far too large, and he is trembling from head to foot. Sherlock can't recall ever seeing anyone look so pale, least of all John.

John, for his part, halts as soon as he sees Sherlock.

"Sherlock!" he says. "There you are! I thought you were never going to come back." Before Sherlock can reply, John turns to the corner by the window and says to no one, "I told you he'd be here, you smarmy bastard, so get that stupid grin off your face and get on your feet!"

Sherlock's stomach drops to the soles of his feet. All traces of anger are immediately wiped away, replaced by a fear so acute it is almost blinding. There is no one in the corner.

A thousand possibilities rise to his mind at once and are just as quickly catalogued in order of likelihood. Fever delusions. Poison. Head injury. None of the top answers are any less urgent than the others, and so he reaches for his mobile before he says anything to John.

"Sherlock?" says John. "Why are you just standing there? He's laughing at us, Sherlock! I tried to ring, but look!" He pulls his own mobile out of the pocket of his bathrobe and shakes it at Sherlock. "Dead. Of course. Oh, good, you've got yours. Call Lestrade, tell him to send everyone."

Without taking his eyes off of John, Sherlock dials and presses the phone to his ear. When a voice answers, far-off and tinny, he says, "Yes, I need an ambulance at 221B Baker Street, as fast as possible."

He hangs up and tucks the phone into his pocket while John blinks at him.

"What are you doing?" says John. "Why aren't you stopping him?"

"Stopping who?" says Sherlock, glancing into the corner. It remains empty.

"Moriarty. He's right there, he says he's come to kill you!"

Sherlock's chest goes cold, but he retains himself enough to hold a hand out toward John in a gesture which says please do not lose your head any more than you already have and begins to move slowly toward him.

"Moriarty isn't here, John," he says, "he's dead."

John gives a humorless laugh. "Yeah, but so are you."

"I faked mine, John. Come here, you need to sit down."

"See!" John shouts, pointing at the corner. "Did you hear that? He's right though, isn't he? If you could fake it, why couldn't he?"

"Because even Moriarty couldn't fake a bullet to the skull. John, you need to sit down."

John blinks, frowning. "Sherlock?" he says. "What's wrong? You look ill."

Sherlock, baffled, decides to run with it. "Yes," he says, "yes, John, I am feeling peaky. Perhaps we should sit down?"

"Yes, all right," says John, "but if you've gone and gotten yourself ill from one of your molds, I am throwing every last bit of it out, Sherlock."

John stomps over to the couch and sits, the invisible Moriarty apparently forgotten. As soon as he does it is as if the spell has been broken. He slumps forward with a groan, his head in his hands, and begins shaking even more violently.

Sherlock is kneeling in front of him in an instant, grabbing his wrist to check his pulse and Jesus, John is burning up, his skin like a windowpane on a hot summer day. His pulse is thready and erratic, and he moans when Sherlock takes his chin in his hand to lift his head so he can peer into his eyes.

"Jesus, my head," he mumbles. "Aren't you supposed to be at a crime scene?"

"That was hours ago, you imbecile. Didn't you see the doctor?"

John shakes his head and groans again, lifting a hand to massage his neck as though it is stiff.

"Couldn't make it," he says. "Tried to call, but I forgot to charge the mobile last night…God, I feel bloody awful."

He tilts to put his head back in his hands and almost pitches to the floor but for the fact that Sherlock is there to catch him, lift him back to the couch, and, not knowing what else to do, leverage his own body so his legs are underneath John's head as the latter reclines on the cushions.

They sit in silence for a moment, John's eyes closed, his breaths uneven and shallow. Sherlock, comfortable with a gun pressed to his temple, is at an utter loss at what to do here. When Mrs. Hudson appears a moment later with a platter of tea, he waves her away with a hiss to go open the doors for the paramedics and then rests his cool hand on John's forehead.

"Sherlock?" John mumbles.

"Yes?" Sherlock tries not to sound too panicked, too eager.

"I think I need to go to the hospital."

Sherlock has nothing to say to this, so he pets John's hair awkwardly and reaches out so that he can keep track of John's pulse even as he slips further toward unconsciousness.

It's such a boring, pointless thing for him to say that later Sherlock won't be able to believe those were the last words John Watson ever spoke to him as a living being.