The second time he saw Sherlock was when he threw him out of the flat.

"Get out!"

"John, please. I can explain." Sherlock almost, almost looked sorry.

John knew better than to fall for those wide puppy dog eyes. "Out! Out!" He reached for his gun when Sherlock didn't move. "Just get out!

Sherlock backed up as soon as John's fingers closed around the butt of the pistol. "John, please, just hear me out. Let me explain."

"Explain? Explain!" John was shouting and he knew his neighbours would complain and he'd get another letter from his landlord and he didn't care. "You don't get to explain! You jumped off a building! You died! You do not get to explain!" His fingers trembled on the trigger. He double checked the safety. He wanted to shoot Sherlock, just wanted to be sure it was somewhere painful and lasting. Like the kneecaps.

"John, it's me. I'm alive and I'm sorry for what I put you through, but I can explain everything if you just put down the gun."

"What you put me through?" John kicked the nearest armchair. "What you put ME through?" Sherlock took another step back, into the hallway. Mycroft edged away fro the door, hands out from his sides. "You made me bury you! I held your bloody funeral!"

"John, I did it to protect you. Moriarty had snipers. Unless I died, you would." Sherlock's voice was calm, like he wasn't being threatened at gunpoint by a hysterical crack shot. "Don't you understand? I had to fake my death, or I'd be holding your funeral."

"We couldn't have talked about it first?" John was livid. Protect him? Sherlock had done all this to protect him? "Moriarty was dead! Shot himself! Unless you were so concerned about your ego that you failed to observe that!" It was a low blow, and John knew it.

Sherlock's face lost all colour. "John, I..."

"Just leave. Get out." He fell into the armchair. Well, onto the armrest of said armchair. He'd misjudged his position. "Just need to be on my own. Again." He closed his eyes, listening to the scuffle of shoes on the floor and Mycroft's soft voice.

"Give him time, Sherlock. He took it hard." John didn't catch Sherlock's rapid reply. Mycroft was closer, and speaking louder. "He's only human...you broke his heart... You made him watch, Sherlock! I've listened to the tapes... Of course I had them bugged!...How did you expect this to happen? It's been two years and you just thought he'd welcome you back into his life? After what you did, I've though about killing you myself."

There was a long pause, and then Mycroft's voice again. "I'm here for John, because you weren't." John didn't know what that meant. Why was Mycroft here for him?

Then there was the sound of large soled shoes on the stairs and finally silence. He took several heavy breathes before he even thought about opening his eyes.

Soft fingers brushed against his hand the hand holding the gun. He snapped to attention, eyes flying open, legs bunching to jump out of the chair.

Sherlock's eyes were warm in his ever pale face. "Put down the gun, John." His voice was low, quiet, pleading even. John didn't want to, he wanted to make Sherlock pay for all he had done, but Sherlock managed to gently pull the pistol out of his grip, staring into John's face with his eyes wide the entire time. Once he had the gun free of John's fingers, he threw it away, sending it skidding across the floor. "Hear me out, please."

John was glaring daggers at the detective but he kept his mouth shut.

"I was wrong. I should have told you the truth. I should have trusted you." Sherlock was balanced on his toes, legs folded underneath him but not touching the ground. Just like he would kneel in front of a body. "I have no excuse for that. It was wrong, not to talk it over with you, and I can only pray for your forgiveness."

John nodded. He still couldn't bring himself to speak, not anymore, not while his former flatmate and formerly dead best friend was sitting so close to him. So close and so very much alive.

Sherlock seemed to accept the nod as John's acceptance of his apology. "As to why I couldn't simply walk off that roof, it comes back to around to Moriarty. I had no way of knowing if you were already in a sniper's sights. He had everything planned so perfectly." Sherlock shook his head. For another man, it would have been a sign of regret over his lack of choices. John knew that for Sherlock, it was regret that Moriarty was gone and he would no longer be around to challenge Sherlock. "There was no way I could walk off that roof without placing you in extreme danger."

"Stop this." John cut Sherlock off just as he was about to start a new sentence.

"Stop what?" Sherlock's face was so close to him, so near.

"Stop talking. Stop trying to explain what you did." John managed, somehow, to get to his feet and walk around to the other side of the chair without touching Sherlock. Sherlock, in turn, stayed was he was, rocking slightly. "Stop telling me that you did it to protect me, because that was two years ago and you haven't said anything to me since then." His voice had lost it's angry edge. He was strangely calm, even though a part of him wanted to be yelling again. "You disappeared, Sherlock. Not a single word, not a visit, not even a hint that you were still alive. Nothing."

"I didn't leave completely." Sherlock looked down at his hands. "I visited. You and Mrs. Hudson. Just to make sure you were alright. Let you see me, if only out of the corner of your eye."

"You...visited?"

"Yes. I came very close to telling you the truth. Stood in one place for too long. I was sure that you knew it was me."

"When...?" All the times he'd thought he'd seen Sherlock in the crowd, all the glimpses of him out of the corner of his eyes.

"When you visited for the letter that Mrs. Hudson had found. I stood across the street and waited for you to come out. I watched you and you saw me watching. You saw me. I hadn't meant for that to happen, not then."

"You...you...you..." John sputtered. "You..."

Sherlock smirked. "You're drooling, John." He took the armchair John had left, sitting just as he used to in their Baker street flat.

He shut his mouth. "I was so alone. Just so I know, do you care about that at all?" He was getting mad again, voice rising in volume.

"John, I had to do it. It was the only way."

"You offed yourself to save me."

"In a certain way of phrasing it, I did. I was also acting to ruin Moriarty's last act against. I bested him. He died, but I didn't. I lived and you lived and Mrs. Hudson lived and Lestrade lived. Moriarty failed to consider the fact that I would fake my death. If everyone believed I was dead, then he'd call the snipers off. I had the time and freedom necessary to track down the remains of his web." Sherlock was, there was no other word for it, beaming with pride. "Consulting detective beats the consulting criminal."

"God, Sherlock, were you this stuck up when you were off doing whatever the bloody hell you were doing?"

"I traveled the globe and hunted down all of Moriarty's associates."

"Jesus!" John smacked his own forehead. That actually hurt.

"Is there a problem?"

"I just don't want the world believing that you're..." John didn't know how to phrase what he was feeling.

"That I am what?"

"Such an annoying dick all the time." Sherlock just lifted his eyebrows. John had had enough. He stomped over to the door of the flat, through it open, and pointed at the hallway. "Leave, Sherlock. Now."

Sherlock did, without saying another word.