CHAPTER ONE

In which there is a new case and a quite existential cab ride.

John was spending the night in his armchair by the fireplace reading a study on posttraumatic stress disorder. It wasn't really for himself, but for a patient he had taken on at the surgery. Sarah had transferred the woman to him, even though he wasn't working there anymore. He couldn't say no, mostly because he there was no way he could say no to Sarah, but also because felt oddly drawn to help the poor woman. She was a Palestinian refugee and had been in crossfire only a few months back, and John felt he could relate to her and even possibly be of help.

He had diagnosed himself to be cured a few years back, but in the wake of the affliction he found it absolutely fascinating to read about it, to immerse himself in the facts of the disorder he knew so well from first hand experience.

That was when he heard Sherlock's phone ring in the kitchen. It almost rang out, but was picked up at last second, just before it went to voicemail. There was a muffled conversation and a few seconds later the detective practically bounced into the room and beamed at the bewildered doctor.

"It's a suicide! Everything is in order! Lestrade has a hunch!"

He swooshed out, and John heard him stomp down the stairs and slam the front door behind him. A few seconds later it was opened again, and then Sherlock was back. He grabbed his coat, which he had forgotten in his excitement, and glanced over at John.

"Are you coming, or are you going to sit there all night with your stupid papers?"

"It is one o'clock in the morning. I've got work tomorrow. I'm not going to run around town tonight because of a suicide. And it's not a stupid paper!"

He was met with a pointed stare and a slightly elevated eyebrow, and he knew he couldn't argue with that.

"It's about PTSD. You remember that woman I'm helping?" he continued in a bargaining tone, and then sighed deeply. "Alright. Fine. Let me get my coat."

"Where are we going?" John asked when they had climbed into the cab.

"Belgravia. A middle-aged woman was found dead by the police. A single shot to the head, nice and clean."

Sherlock showed him a close-up picture of the dead woman on his phone that Lestrade had sent him, and John felt vaguely nauseous.

"Why are we going if there has been no crime?"

"Why, John, why? It's Belgravia!" Sherlock huffed at him, frustrated. "It's a nice neighbourhood. People who can afford living there are well off, and usually have neat and well-organized lives. Suicides in such places usually have fascinating causes. It's almost never due to depression or the like. If people like that get depressed they simply get the best psychiatrist they can find or they go to their other house in southern France for a while. No, it's always more complex! And if it isn't a suicide, it can be a very intricate murder. You have no idea how far this set of people can go to ensure the demise of a loved one. Absolutely fascinating! I assume you remember Primrose Hill?"

"Yes, how could I possibly forget? It was like a twisted version of 'The Mysterious Affair at Styles'."

"No, it most certainly was not. I don't understand your irrational affection for Agatha Christie. That book was transparent. And just because they used the same poison doesn't mean the cases are alike."

Fourteen members of a small academic society had inexplicably fallen ill at a dinner party at Primrose Hill a few years back, after having been served a very nice and very lethal vintage of Merlot. The wine had in fact been poisoned several decades earlier and had been intended for a visit from the king of Sweden, which had been cancelled at last minute. The whole dinner party affair could have been written off as an accident, if it wasn't so that the host had been very aware of the high dose of strychnine that the wine contained.

"Anyways, Lestrade promised me thirty minutes undisturbed at the scene, but I doubt it will take me that long. I would appreciate if you would take a look as well. Check the medicine cabinet and so on. It might be helpful."

John nodded, of course he would help. Why else would he have come along? Well, it was the only reason, if you excluded the fact that Sherlock practically had bullied him into it.

He leaned his head against the cool window, and looked at the cars and the city that they drove by. He really liked going places in cabs with Sherlock. It was as if the confined space under lengthy periods of time made him more humble and prone to consideration of other people's feelings. He was fairly sure that it was genuine, and not some ploy to get them both out of the cab emotionally intact. After being compared to a skull on a regular basis and their everyday life in general it was always quite refreshing to get to see this more humane aspect of his friend.

Things had changed considerably after Sherlock's supposed death and resurrection, The Reichenbach Affair, as John had named it in his head. When there was something going on Sherlock always made sure to ask if he was coming along, as if he couldn't be certain. At first John liked the change, but quickly came to doubt the reasons behind it. Deep down he knew that it was Sherlock's stunted way of apologizing for disappearing for three years, but at the same time he couldn't shake the feeling that he had stopped counting on him. It gnawed at his soul to be invited, and not to be back in their previous partnership. He missed the wild and frustrating spontaneity of those pre-Reichenbach days, but knew that they were long gone.

John had carefully constructed a barrier against certain feelings concerning the detective when he died. Feelings that he then realized had been there for a long time, but had never been acknowledged. But it had simply been too painful to start poking at them, at that point. If John didn't think about it, then it could almost be as if it never where. It was hard, but ultimately it worked.

But then Sherlock came back, and of course that barrier came crashing down, leaving him raw and bleeding inwardly again, and ridiculously close to actually voicing some of his thoughts or doing something about it.

He glanced over at his friend, who was occupied with his phone, no doubt doing research on the dead woman that was waiting for them or terrorizing the Metropolitan police on other business. In the bluish light the detectives face was smooth and John wanted nothing more than to touch him right then, just to stroke his cheek. He did his best to hide it. And he did quite well. Practice makes perfect, he thought. It had been almost a year since Sherlock came back.