…My mum had a good laugh at me, she heard me shouting "YOU COMPLETE ASSHOLE SHERLOCK HOLMES!" at my laptop and when she called me downstairs I was sobbing. I wrote this before the rest of this fic. THIS is what happens when I stay up till five AM, forget my medicine, and then watch a heart-wrenching episode of my favourite television show.

John again!

Sherlock Holmes is a complete and utter asshole. That dick should be dead, dead, dead, six feet under dead. Under the ground where I sat, actually. I might just put him there myself. So why am I crying? I should be punching him. I should be the happiest person alive. I should be doing something besides crying—I'm a soldier, for God's sake.

"John, John, I am so sorry. I had to do it, I'm so sorry. I wanted so, so badly to return." He was insisting, grey eyes soft for once as he scanned my face. My jacket was unzipped and he was setting the shot of whiskey on the ground beside me—I must've started to go into emotional shock. I should punch him.

"You want to punch me, I can tell. Go ahead, I deserve it."

"Don't tempt me." I groaned, taking a steadying breath.

"If I'd realised the effect my reappearance would have on you, I would've waited until after the case was resolv—"

I grabbed a fist full of the scarf he was wearing and glared at him, pulling it tightly. "The hell you would've waited one more second to come back."

He laughed shakily. "Can you handle hearing the story now, or shall I wait until I have more time to explain and you're coping better with the shock?"

"Tell me now, Sherlock!" I sat up straighter and controlled my breathing. "How did you survive that fall? Why did you jump?"

"After I left you on the street, I went to see Molly Hooper. She'd guessed that I knew I was going to die and I needed to tell someone who would actually listen to me and do as I said. I sent her to find Mycroft. He sent you the phone call to get you out of there, because I had arranged to meet Moriarty on the rooftop.

"If you'd been there… I don't know what he would've done to you if you'd been there. We spoke. There is no code, John, and there never was one. He just bribed people to open the doors. Then he told me I was going to jump a disgraced man, or you would die. And Mrs. Hudson would die. And Lestrade would. I stepped onto the ledge, and I admit my thoughts were spinning. But I realised that as long as he lived, there'd be another way. So I challenged him, and at first he didn't believe I would do anything.

"So I reminded him that while I may work for the police, I am no saint; I told him I was like him, and he knew what he would do in that situation. And then he did something even I wouldn't do. He put a gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger.

"Now my only option was to jump. But I knew my brother had to be on the way, so I stalled it. I started talking to you so the sniper waiting for me to either jump or for him to shoot you would have to wait until you came into view."

"Then… why didn't you just tell me what was really going on?"

"John, if I jumped off the building and there was suspicion of duress and my arch enemy was behind me, they'd examine the body. I wouldn't actually be dead—if my plan worked—and I couldn't exactly be cut open. If I were actually faking the detective thing, it would provide motive, means, opportunity, everything they needed to feel sure it was suicide. No one double checks a suicide victim. And the whole… business… with saving you."

"I… I saw you jump. It was you. I saw you lying on the ground."

"Yes, yes, a cyclist accidentally bumped into you. It took you a minute and twenty-two seconds to reach the scene. Plenty of time for a group of Mycroft's people to drug me, pour blood on the sidewalk, and then pretend to be nurse staff and bystanders. They were waiting to catch me with a truck full of blankets, which pulled away from the scene. The sniper didn't see this because we were below his vantage point.

"Even still, I sprained a wrist and definitely reacted badly to the shock of falling so far. The last I heard you were saying "I'm a doctor!" and shoving people out of your way."

"I… I checked your pulse."

"Yes, Mycroft told me, while struggling with three nurses and panicking and only for a split second. Even if my heartbeat wasn't sluggish from the sedatives, you wouldn't have felt it beating."

Alright, now that everything made sense, time to return from logic to sentiment. "Oh, I see. One small question, Sherlock…"

"Yes?"

"Why did you wait THREE YEARS TO COME BACK?"

"I needed you to grieve. Otherwise Moran would've realised I survived and he'd have carried out Moriarty's orders and shot you anyway."

I gaped at him. "Who's Moran?" He'd mentioned a sniper, but if he had a name, why hadn't he (oh, I dunno!) KILLED him?

"Moriarty's second in command. I've been trying to catch the clever bastard for years, but there's really no way to catch him for past crimes. I'm dead and a fraud and completely without evidence. So I've been waiting for him to slip up. And he did, not too long ago, because old habits die hard."

"That's the case? Wait… Is this to do with that Adair murder?"

"Yes. The one you were looking at today. I'm going to be working it all out before I go back to—"

"You're not going anywhere!"

"John," He said with the patience of one speaking to a small child, "I am supposed to be dead. Even without actual enemies, London will never be safe for me. All those wronged fans who hate me now. All those people I helped out who now believe I was a con artist. I have no choice—I can't just resume being a consulting detective like I didn't commit suicide after admitting I was a fraud."

"Well, prove it to them. Do your observing. Solve random crimes. Don't you have any proof? Surely you can prove that Rich Brook never existed, that no child ever saw his shows? He didn't exist, though, right?"

"You sound like Molly… Rich Brook in German is 'Reichenbach,' if you really want to know. He was an identity created to rub it in my face that he was brilliant enough to convince everyone I was a fraud while still telling me silently that I may not be a fraud, but that I was alone in a world full of idiots."

"That's… That's brilliant! It might even create that bit of doubt like Moriarty did when he tried to change the public opinion, which is of course crucial."

"Enough, John!" Sherlock said firmly. "I can't come back. You know it, so don't get your and Mrs. Hudson's hopes up."

I sighed and closed my eyes, resolving to talk to Molly about telling the public anyway. "Alright. How do we solve the case, then?"

"I have already solved it."

"Then what do you need me for?"

"Do you still have your handgun?"

"Of course!" I'd half-expected to be attacked by Moriarty's men after the fact anyway. I knew Moriarty was real, I could just tell.

I'd wondered for a while after his death (or whatever the hell I was supposed to call it now, since I knew he hadn't actually died) why I believed in him even after he insisted that I shouldn't. I think it was his voice on the phone. It had cracked slightly. Now I had a feeling he'd actually been afraid that his brother wouldn't get there in time. Mycroft wasn't exactly reliable.

And there was the day at the pool. The look on Sherlock's face when I stepped out in the bomb jacket had proven beyond a doubt he was genuinely shocked. I'd heard him lie before, and he's really quite terrible at it.

"Sherlock?"

"What?" He asked, turning around in that ridiculous swishy trench coat to look down at me.

"I always believed in you."

Notice that they've started using one another's names? Chyeah. And for those of you in the "PUNCH HIM ALREADY" boat, fear not.