At five o'clock, Evie's alarm went off.

At five-oh-five, it went off again.

And again, at five ten.

At quarter past, Evie rolled out of bed. She made herself a coffee, brushed her teeth. Half past saw her braiding her hair, and she'd gotten changed and done her make up by twenty to. Before she left, she heard the sounds of John waking up to begin his morning ritual – coffee, shower, picking up some clothes form the floor, sniff testing them, approving them, and leaving 221 by six thirty. Everything following routine.

What didn't follow routine, however, was the wall of noise and light as she opened the front door. She squinted, blinded by the camera flashes and unable to discern a single voice amongst the mass. People thrust microphones and recorders at her, all clambering for her attention. Is it true Sherlock Holmes is alive? What was the gunshot heard here last night? Who are you? Are you Watson's girlfriend? Are you Sherlock's girlfriend-

She was pulled inside by the back of her shirt and someone reached over her to shut the door against the tangle of happenings outside.

'So the vultures have descended,' Sherlock noted.

'God,' Evie breathed. 'Is it going to be like that every single time I want to leave the apartment?'

'Of course not.'

She sighed in relief.

'It will also occur anytime you try and enter the building as well.'

She groaned. 'Great,' she muttered. 'I assume this is because of your resurrection?'

'It's not a resurrection. I was never dead.'

'Right,' she muttered. 'Of course.' She peeked through the blinds to the mob of reporters outside. 'How am I supposed to get to work now?' She lamented.

He turned away from her and walked down the hall. 'This way,' he ordered. She rolled her eyes and followed him to the back door.

221, like all other houses on the street, had a small back garden. Well, garden would be quite a generous name for what it was – a tiny patch of scraggly grass, blocked from the sun by surrounding buildings and enclosed by high fences to keep out snooping neighbours. Sherlock stopped by the back wall, and looked at Evie.

'What am I supposed to do?' She asked. 'Scale it?'

'Yes.'

'I can't reach the top.'

He bent his knees and linked his fingers together.

'You're joking.'

'Well,' he said impatiently, giving her that look, one she had already become accustomed to since making his acquaintance barely two days before – that contemptuous ordinary people look. 'It's either this or you can brave the media out front. I daresay that wall would be friendlier company.'

She scowled, but placed her foot in his hands nonetheless. 'Fine,' she grumbled, tossing her bag over the wall, 'but eyes front.'

He gave her the look again, and hoisted her up so she could get a strong grip on the top of the wall and pull herself over. She landed ungraciously on the other side, with a thump and a loud 'oof'.

Straightening her blouse, she called back over the wall.

'Thanks, Sherlock.' She dusted off her bag and swung it on her shoulder. 'Listen,' she continued, 'I know that we got off on the wrong foot yesterday and things were kind of tense. I did take out my... frustrations with my brother out on you, even though our situations were different. But I think you took it too far, too.' She gave him a moment, to see if he would apologise. He didn't, so she went on. 'Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that I'm sorry for being out of line yesterday, and I think that we should try harder to get along because John is important to us both and I know neither of us want to make him unhappy.'

There was only silence from the other side of the wall.

'Right,' she muttered. 'He went back inside.'

The dirt of the unpaved path crunched beneath her feet as she walked away. Sherlock stood upright, dusted the dirt from his shoulder and returned to the house.

She tried to make it back over the wall, she really did, but her physical strength had always left something to be desired. Even though she could get her fingers hooked over the edge, she had nowhere near enough upper body power to pull herself up and over. Grumbling to herself, she rounded the block again, hoping that maybe the reporters had gone.

They hadn't. It seemed that as soon as she rounded the corner, some sixth sense unique to journalists alerted them to her presence. They flocked to her like seagulls to a solitary chip, and she batted away the microphones thrust at her face and squinted in the glare of her cameras.

'What's your name?' One asked. She kept her head low and forged on ahead.

'What do you know about the return of Sherlock Holmes?'

'Are you romantically involved with John Watson?'

'Are you involved with Sherlock Holmes?'

She had almost reached the door. She fumbled for her key, bring pressed against at all sides by eager paparazzi. She managed to get it in the lock, open the door and slam it behind her. Safely on the other side, she heaved a huge sigh.

'You came in through the front door.'

She jumped, not having seen Sherlock standing at the bottom of the stairs.

'Yeah,' she breathed, pulling herself off the wall. 'I couldn't pull myself over the wall.' She shrugged off her coat and hung it over her arm. 'Is John home?'

'Not yet.'

'Good.' She stood awkwardly. It was easy enough to talk to him on either sides of a thick brick wall, where she couldn't be seen in all her uncomfortable glory, but a lot harder when they were standing a mere five feet from each other.

'Would you like to come in for a bite to eat?' She blurted.

'I'm not hungry,' he deadpanned.

'Right.' She shifted on her feet. 'Some tea then?'

He swept past her, through the door she had just unlocked. 'Coffee,' he said, 'black, two sugars.'

She pursed her lips, lest she say anything unpleasant and start another fight. She filled the kettle and switched it on, watching him from the other side of her kitchen counter as he demonstrated a complete disregard for her furniture, putting his feet onto her coffee table.

'Right,' she muttered. She entered her bedroom, picked up the object she was looking for, and returned. His eyes followed her as she crossed the room, coming to stand before him.

'Here,' she held it out to him. He snatched it from her hands, placing it on his lap and unclipping the case.

'I've been taking care of it,' she told him. 'Played regularly. The strings were replaced a few weeks ago, and some new rosin in the case, too.'

He took it into his hands, studying it with a critical eye. He ran a finger along the varnished wood, plucked the A string and his lips tightened. I can't keep it perfectly tuned every second of the Goddamn day, she wanted to say, but she forced herself silent. After an inspection of the bow, he put the instrument away without a word, and Evie gathered that her violin-sitting job had been satisfactory.

'Classically trained,' he said, in a way that was not so much a question as a statement.

'Yes,' she answered. The kettle came to a boil and she returned to the kitchen. She flicked it off, and opened her cupboards to get a mug. She was going to grab a plain blue one, but she thought about how Sherlock had demanded the coffee, rather then asked, and her hand swerved to collect a mug on which a pink kitten with a bow on it's head was depicted saying the words "Purr-fect coffee!" She put in the instant coffee, added the water, and then stirred in the sugar.

When she offered it to him, he didn't comment on the kitten mug, instead accepting without thanks. She sat down opposite, him on the lounge, and she on one of her kitchen chairs, straddling the back and using it as a platform to rest her folded arms.

'Okay,' she started, 'I'm sorry that I was so rude yesterday. You were right, I did take out some of my problems with my brother on you. The situations were incomparable. But I also think you were kind of rude to me, too.'

'If you've brought me in here to babble about your feelings, then I have better things to do with my time,' he droned.

She took in a deep breath and grit her teeth. 'Okay then,' she said, 'message received. Put it behind us. But I wanted to talk to you about John.'

'What about him?' The irritation he was expressing was almost palpable. 'The fact that he's now got himself an apparently steady girlfriend?'

'I thought he hadn't told you yet-'

'He didn't need to tell me. I saw. The amount of care he puts into his appearance, his cologne, how frequently he checks his phone, all suggest that he's now in a serious relationship. In addition to that, there is a tooth brush in the bathroom that belong to neither of us, a woman's hair in the drain and a coffee mug with flowers on it in the cupboard, along with Chinese tea. We both know John drinks mainly black tea, more specifically Earl Grey.'

'His cologne?'

'Yes,' he sighed in impatience, 'it's repugnant. John would never buy himself anything like that. It was a gift. He wears it to please Miss Morstan.'

She couldn't help but be impressed. 'How did you know her name?'

'She left a few of her books in the flat. One of them, Julius Caesar, annotated by hand. A book, part of the syllabus for the A-Levels. A teacher, is she not?'

Evie let out a low whistle. 'John was right,' she said. 'You are brilliant.' She shook her head. 'But I didn't want to talk to you about Mary. Well, I did. Kind of.' He watched her, unmoving. 'Sherlock, while you were gone, it was really difficult for John to move on. It took him a long time to mourn. But in the past few months, he's really started to get on with his life.'

'Is there a point to this?' The consulting detective drawled.

'Yes, there is. The point I'm trying to make, is that you can't just come back all of a sudden and expect to just slip back into your old life, like nothing has changed. You can't pick John up like he's some book you put down, like he's faithfully held your page and waited for you to reappear so his life can resume. He's changed, his life has changed and... well, you can't ask him to throw it all away so that you two can go back to dashing around London solving crimes.'

'Well,' Sherlock said, placing his untouched coffee onto the table and standing, 'if you're done forcing your opinion onto the world, then I'll be off.'

She sighed in exasperation, 'Sherlock-' She tried, but he'd already left her apartment. She abandoned her own tea and went to the door. 'Sherlock, wait.'

He did so.

'He was faithful,' she said. 'He'll never tell you this, so I will. He never believed you were a fraud, even if the whole world did. He really cares for you. You're his best friend. Just... don't forget that.'