Hello readers, I hope you're liking the story thus far! Reviews and feedback are always welcomed and appreciated of course. Chapter one and two are sort of introductory, although there's a bit more going on in this one than the last. Chapter three and four are a work in progress so be patient, I promise there are some great twists and turns to come. Thanks to anyone reading this, I really appreciate it being my first fic and all. Enjoy!

Chapter 2

Sherlock stared at the lifeless body on the floor for a long time. He bent down and recovered the syringe protruding from the man's neck, checking his pulse at the same time. As he expected there wasn't one to be found. This was it, the last one, and he was really dead. His chest no longer rose or fell. His heart and lungs were permanently still. He would never be getting up, and he was the last one. That thought kept echoing in Sherlock's mind, over and over and over. He knew he should be glad, but he was tired, and that's the only thing he felt.

All other emotions had gone numb over the past three years. Every once in awhile, when he was in hiding and didn't interact with anyone for days, thoughts crept into his mind. Small fragments of emotion that found their way to the surface, but they never remained there long. Sherlock always found a way to bury them again, beneath the 15 bodies he'd dedicated the last three years of his life collecting. Buried under secrecy, and murder, and his one and only objective- to eliminate moriarty's network. There were no room for emotions when you woke up every morning fighting for you life, taking on a new identity, a new town, a new country. Constantly moving, traveling. There was no rest, no time to stop and feel sorry for himself. He always had somewhere to go, someone to hunt, a risk to take. But now… well, what now? It had been a long time since he'd had to ask himself such a trivial question.

Sherlock hastily began to clean up the crime scene. He knew precisely what would be searched and how, so erasing his trail was never difficult. No matter where he traveled, all over the world police were the same moronic idiots. Always seeing, but never observing. There was no blood to take care of, Sherlock was too smart for that. Instead, he used an untraceable poison calle aconite. Natural, comes from plants. It almost brought him joy to think about how confused the detectives probably got about his victims.

He gave the scene one last look over, and it was just barely beginning to sink in. That it was genuinely all over. And that aggravating thought was back bouncing around Sherlock's head. What now? He didn't even remember what life was like before this. For a split second he reminisced about how good it use to feel coming back to 221B after tedious casework, and enjoying a nice cup of tea in his favorite armchair, and John sitting opposite him…

Sherlock shivered as the memory of John set off a series explosions in his mind. He missed everything about his old life, but he missed John the most. Everything seemed so distant now, it was hard to remind himself that any of it had ever been real. That he had ever fit into that life at all..

He began to walk toward the door, when suddenly he found himself needing to grab the back of a chair for support. It was as if all his strength had fled his body as once, and he felt his balance wavering considerably. The walls began to dance around him, spinning and shining. Black dots were obscuring his vision, floating around the room. What was happening? Had his hand slipped when injecting the poison? He looked down at his arms for any sign of the syringe pricking him, but his eyes couldn't focus on anything. His arms were just pale blobs, and he couldn't make out any details. Not a freckle, not a scar, not a hair. Nothing. He squinted at them, brought them closer to his eyes, but that only made him dizzy.

Sherlock snapped his head back up, panicked. He looked around the room frantically, but it was still shivering and swaying. Pain blossomed across his knees, and he realized that they had buckled beneath him.

Oh, sherlock thought to himself as he realized what this was. How could he be so stupid? He couldn't remember if it had been four or five days since he'd eaten or drank anything, but either way he was now paying the dire consequences. In order to kill the owner of this house, he'd had to break in several days before he knew they would be returning. Patiently crouched in the same position, allowing himself no more than 15 minutes of sleep at a time. He'd thought of everything and anything he might need, but overlooked the most basic of all necessities. Food. Water. Someone was bound to discover this mess soon, and then Sherlock would be caught. Locked away for the rest of his life.

Sherlock suddenly noticed a figure standing in the doorway- or at least he thought he did. Whoever it might be was unrecognizable, and Sherlock didn't have any guesses. His vision was fading fast, but he was certain he saw someone there. He tried to call out, but couldn't seem to form any words. From his knees, Sherlock felt himself start to lean sideways. He couldn't steady himself anymore, so he just let himself start to fall. He gave up. He could definitely hear the figure saying something now, and they were much closer, but Sherlock couldn't make it out. It all sounded as if he were drifting along underwater, drowning in the shimmering, fading walls. It all went black, and he didn't know whether or not his eyes were open any more.

But he could feel someone catch him under his arms and guide him safely to the floor before he hit, and his head was on something soft now… or being held… he couldn't tell. Sherlock started to feel himself slipping out of consciousness, and he could hear someone speaking again. It was only muffled sounds to him, no words, but it sounded so familiar. So dream like. It even felt right to drift off to it...

Sherlock woke up in a room that seemed familiar, but in a deja vu sort of way. Not as though he had actually been there- not recently, anyway. It was an office, and a large one. Thousands of books lined the walls, but it had been emptied of most furniture. Sherlock could see the imprint on the carpet of where a desk had sat previously, but the office seemed to have recently transformed into a miniature hospital. Sherlock soon realized that it was set up for him, given he was laying on a cot. There was a portable i.v. hooked up to his arm, a large monitor next to his head showing his heart rate (which was beating normally) and his temperature (slightly above average). There was also an extensive supply of morphine that no doubt, Sherlock deduced from his grogginess, was being pumped into his system. It had been shut off temporarily though.

After taking in the rest of the room, Sherlock's eyes finally settled on a figure slumped over in rather uncomfortable looking plastic chair next to his bed. He was asleep. It took Sherlock less than a second to figure out who it was, but it took much longer for him to actually believe it.

"John?" He tried to say, but it came out as a feeble cough. Sherlock felt shock for a brief moment, and almost a bit of happiness too before he pushed it all down. He wasn't going to allow emotions to take over him. He'd seen what it does to people. They babble on and on, and they cry, hug, laugh, and cry more. It's embarrassing to say the least. So, he just stared at John for a long time. His head was in one hand, and the other was lying limply across his lap. His mouth was slightly open, and Sherlock could hear him breathing. It sounded just like it always did. Sherlock closed his eyes and listened, enjoyed the familiar inhaling and exhaling- no. He immediately pushed the memory away just as quickly as it had come.

He opened his eyes and went back to studying John, every aspect of him. He had noticed the weight loss immediately- not intentional. Probably forgetting a meal at least once a day. He noticed the dark purple half moons under John's eyes, and the deeper wrinkles in his face. His hair had grayed more, and he hadn't shaved in since at least yesterday- maybe the day before.

But despite all this, he looked so youthful in his sleep. So young, and fragile. He was an image of pure innocence to Sherlock. He looked more peaceful and happy now than sherlock had ever really seen him, and that made him sad.

Suddenly, like a tidal wave, everything hit Sherlock at once. The memories, the emotions, everything he'd been trying to hard to keep at bay. As he sat there in his makeshift hospital bed, staring at John and hearing his deep slow breaths, watching his innocent sleepy movements, it suddenly broke a dam inside him. He couldn't stop the water rushing out, overflowing, destroying everything in it's path. A flood. A wild fire. A hurricane. There was no difference between them.

All the memories Sherlock had from baker street, when he first met John, how badly he wanted to impress him, when he finally had someone to accept him, it didn't matter how many years he'd gone without friends now that he had John, the late night cases, all of the dinners, the adventure, the thrill of the chase, even their fighting was something he'd missed so so much. Everything flooded his brain so quickly he couldn't possibly escape it. He tried to push it back down but there were too many- too many wonderful amazing memories and he wanted them back. And it hurt.

And even though John was asleep he turned away from him as hot tears pricked at his eyes. They forced themselves out, and a few cascaded down the length of his face, down his neck, settling into his collar bones. The beeping from the monitor grew faster and faster, matching Sherlock's increasing heart rate. His heart was burning. He would rather someone cut it out of his chest than experience this.

And suddenly, the light on the supply of morphine turned green and began to flow again into his bloodstream. Sherlock felt himself relaxing at once. The tears stopped flowing, his breathing slowed, his mind grew foggy once again. It was bliss.

Just before he drifted back off to sleep though, he looked back at John. Part of him felt terrified that he might not be there when he woke up next time. No, sherlock thought, I don't want to go. turn it off… He didn't want to go to sleep, not if it meant losing John, but just as his fingers reached the i.v. in his arm to rip it out, he was drifting. Too far gone. John's steady deep breaths were like a metronome, pulling sherlock to join him in sleep.