Disclaimer: Not mine. All respects paid to Sir Doyle, the BBC, and writers Steve Moffat and Mark Gatiss.

A/N: Many thanks to those are are leaving feedback for both this and 'First Impressions'. I appreciate all the thoughts and reflections I have received.

Sherlock

Friend.

"So the shooter, no sign?"

"Cleared off before we got here. But a guy like that would have had enemies, I suppose, one of them could have been following him. But…" Lestrade sighed, heaving his shoulders in a shrug, "got nothing to go on."

Sherlock shot him an incredulous look. Was the man blind? There was a plethora of information tucked within the crime itself. He could feel his brain shift, from sorting through the cabbie's last, baffling confession: "Moriarty!" to solving this small puzzle. "Oh, I wouldn't say that."

Lestrade's lined face radiated exasperation as he made to sit down next to Sherlock on the back of the ambulance. "Okaaay. Gimme."

Sherlock rose, and the D.I. changed angle to walk with him instead. "The bullet you just dug out of the wall is from a handgun. Kill shot over that kind of a distance from that kind of a weapon – it's a crack shot you're looking for, but not just a marksman. Fighter. His hands couldn't have shaken at all, so clearly he's acclimatized to violence. He didn't fire until I was in immediate danger, though, so strong moral principle. You're looking for a man probably with a history of military service and…" just across the police line, his eyes caught on John Watson, hands clasped behind his back in a typical soldier's stance.

As if he could feel Sherlock's gaze, John turned to look directly at him, honest face radiating a quiet, bystander's confusion. A little too well. Crack shot. History of military service.

"…nerves of steel…" Sherlock's mouth was still running. But he knew.

He quirked an eyebrow at the doctor, and John glanced away, finding some detail about the building's façade that fascinated him.

"Actually, do you know what," he turned back to Lestrade abruptly, hoping the D.I. displayed his usual thickness and didn't pursue the consulting detective's wholly out-of-character about-face, "ignore me."

"Sorry?"

"Ignore all of that. It's just the, uh…" he hated to give credence to any of their moronic theories, but this time their ignorance would serve him well, "the shock talking."

He was already walking away. "Where are you going?" Lestrade called.

"I just…" Need to ask John why he would do such a thing. For a man he's just met, for me, why would he kill someone to save me from myself… "…need to talk about the…the rent."

"I've still got questions for you!"

"Oh, what now?" he spun in exasperation, his own questions for John whirling in his brain. He didn't have time for Lestrade's boring and oh-so-predictable queries. "I'm in shock – look, I've got a blanket!" He shook it at the officer.

"Sherlock!"

"And…I just caught you a serial killer." Lestrade raised his eyebrows. He wasn't that thick. 'Caught' was a strong term for Sherlock's endgame tonight. "More or less," the consulting detective begrudgingly admitted.

The D.I. heaved another sigh, clearly realizing that he wasn't going to win tonight. "Okaaay. We'll pull you in tomorrow. Off you go."

Sherlock ducked under the police tape, disposing of the shock blanket in a handy panda car.

John seemed surprised that he'd come directly over, but stepped up as Sherlock crossed the barrier. "Um…" he cleared his throat, glanced down the row, clearly looking for a logical way to explain his presence. "Sergeant Donovan has just been explaining everything. Two pills. It's a dreadful business, isn't it? Dreadful." Those blue eyes stared up into his guilelessly.

All the questions seemed to have disappeared from his tongue, if not his brain. Sherlock couldn't get a single one of them out. "Good shot," he managed.

A flicker of surprise, swiftly covered. John would definitely be able to fool Lestrade – if the D.I. even thought of coming after him in the first place. "Yes, yes, must have been," the doctor recovered with aplomb, "through that window."

Don't cover up for me, John, Sherlock thought with amusement, gazing down at the smaller man. You won't succeed. "Well, you'd know."

The ex-army man's response to this was to go still, navy eyes meeting Sherlock's steady grey, measuring him. The detective could see the knowledge that John wasn't going to fool him take shape in the doctor's eyes, saw him bow to the inevitable. "Did you get the powder burns out of your fingers? I don't suppose you'd serve time for this, but let's avoid the court case."

It was only after he'd spoken that he realized what he'd said. "Let's." Let us. Us. In the past twenty-four hours, not only had Dr. John Watson joined him in his flat, he'd joined Sherlock in his life.

Sherlock hadn't been part of an 'us' since Mycroft had left for secondary school as a boy.

Suddenly, the question of why John had willingly shot another, albeit a serial killer, to save him was irrelevant. It was doubtless classified in the military man's head under things you do for a friend.

It was part of being an 'us'.

888

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