John opened his eyes to a brightly lit room and a comfortable bed. Had he dreamed Sherlock coming back? Had Lestrade really been over at the flat yesterday? Questions swirled in the man's mind. Sitting up in the bed he looked around. This wasn't his room. It was Sherlock's. John didn't remember falling asleep here. Lestrade…Lestrade had packed boxes yesterday. John's eyes went straight to the corner of the room, where the boxes lay packed and taped shut.

"That's one thing I know happened…but..Sherlock…" John said to himself as he crawled out of bed. His head was spinning, forcing him to sit back down. "John is that you I hear?" Mrs. Hudson's voice called from the living room. She rushed in and looked at him. "I see it hasn't worn off yet. Would you like some tea?" She asked in her motherly tone as usual.

"Uh, yeah. Uhm…Mrs. Hudson is there anyone else here in the flat?" John asked. Mrs. Hudson looked at him oddly. He braced himself for the blinding pain of realization that it was all a dream. "Of course. Sherlock's back, remember? Gave me quite a fright last night." She laughed and went to the kitchen. John's heart nearly leaped from his chest. It hadn't been a dream. He was really back.

John managed to get out of the bed without falling this time, and made his way to the sitting room. He stopped just before he made it there. His eyes fell on Sherlock's form, sitting at the table like he used to every morning three years before. "S-Sher.." His voice failed him. Sherlock looked up from his paper and smiled. "John, you're awake. Sorry I had to drug you. After I came in and Lestrade saw me, you went into a bit of a rage." John just stared at the man with unblinking eyes.

"You…you're alive." John said and tears threatened to spill over. He began to feel weak in the knees and he looked around the flat. Things were becoming distorted in his vision. Sherlock stood quickly and caught John just before he fell to the ground. "Mrs. Hudson I'm going to put him back in bed. The drugs are still in his system. Keep an eye out, I have to get something done." Sherlock stated and placed him back in the bed covering him up as you would a child. Before leaving the room he took a moment to look at John, the broken, shattered John. The John that used to be so lively before. The one who had been so excited when a case would come up, the only one who shared his same feelings. Sherlock sighed and left the room grabbing his coat.

John awoke two hours later to lunch by his bed. Not in the mood to eat he got up from the bed, finally able to walk, and made his way to the living room to see Sherlock sitting there again. John's heart began to race again and his vision blurred. Sherlock got up quickly and grabbed him by the arm. "John listen to me, just think. Keep your head clear. Remember when I told you about the mind palace? Go there, clear your mind now John." Through Sherlock's coaching John was able to calm down and his heart rate became normal, and his vision clear. "You were dead Sherlock." Was all he could say.

"No John, I was never dead. Only believed to be." Sherlock said calmly and quietly unsure of what could set the fragile man off. If John was scarred after war, it had only intensified at the detective's fake suicide. "I saw you jump." John's voice cracked although he tried his best to keep it together. Act like the soldier that he was…no is.

"Sherlock, why did you have to leave me?" His voice strained, trying not to falter. Sherlock sighed looking at his broken colleague, no, his broken friend. "If I didn't…If I didn't you, Mrs. Hudson, and Lestrade would be dead. I may seem cold but I do have a heart." Sherlock said. The last words he had spoken to John were that he was a fraud, but John knew better. In all reality, Sherlock had wished that John would have figured out Sherlock's plan, but his mind was still ordinary.

"You…you couldn't even tell me? I could've kept your secret!" John yelled, like he had the day he first came to the flat. His leg was still a problem them. Sherlock shook his head. "An actor acts best when he does not know he is acting." He said looking at the shorter man's face. The face seemed to have battled through many tough, endless nights. A face that had cried for hours that seemed to never cease. Sherlock noticed that his laugh lines were dwindling. John had not laughed since Sherlock died that day.

"I'm sorry John, really I am." At that moment in time, Sherlock wanted to tell him it all. Why he had come back. Why he needed to be in the flat. Why he had to risk his life to save John's. Sherlock could have lived with Lestrade's death, or even Mrs. Hudson's death on his shoulders, but not John's. Sherlock, while in isolation from the world, realized that his need for John went much deeper than any normal friendship. He had come to love him over the years, but how could he tell him that now? When John was probably so repulsed by him.

What Sherlock didn't know that the reason John mourned, cried his self to sleep, nearly took his own life, was because he too loved the detective. John cleared his throat. "I just wish you could have told me, maybe then…maybe then I wouldn't have…" John had to stop speaking before he said something that he would regret later on down the road; something that he couldn't come back from. Sherlock was just about to speak as Mrs. Hudson came in with a large tea tray.

"I've made you both tea. You're probably both under some stress. Especially you Sherlock. I don't have a clue as to how you're going to make a comeback." She left with at those words and went downstairs. Sherlock grabbed John a cup and fixed it the way he liked then fixed his own.

"It's not like it was easy doing that John." Sherlock said sitting in his own chair now stirring his tea. Just as John was about to respond Lestrade burst into the flat.

"Boy's, we have a case."