He hadn't been able to bring himself to do it.
Four phone calls to Sherlock had gone straight to voicemail, and John had left useless messages before finally resorting to a text that probably wouldn't be read.
He's gone. It's fine. Come home.
He hated how plaintive it sounded, but at the same time, how cold and commanding. A brief smile touched his lips – Sherlock wouldn't have given that tone a second thought. The expression vanished almost before it was formed; the house had taken on that vacant feel again, too big, too much uncertainty filling up all the cracks and empty spaces.
John pressed his phone to his lips, eyes closed, whispering a silent prayer – to whom or what he didn't know. To Sherlock, really.
Can't you leave well enough alone? he asked, but it wasn't his partner he was talking to this time.
"Right," he said, the word falling flat in the silence that surrounded him. If Greg could get to Sherlock before one of Mycroft's people did, it would save them all a hell of a lot of headaches. The last thing they needed was for Mycroft to end up with a bloody and broken nose – or worse.
There were probably some stiff penalties for beating up the British government.
With a sigh, he steeled himself, and rung Lestrade's number.
"Greg," he greeted, pre-empting any conversation, "we have a problem."
"Jesus Christ, you're kidding." The weary, disbelieving curse was accompanied by a bang from downstairs – the front door slamming shut, echoing behind feet taking the stairs two at a time. Not enough time to register that Sherlock had come back before the detective was right there, in a swirl of wool and anger, plucking the phone from John's unresisting fingers.
"Piss off, Greg, I'm fine," he snapped before ending the call abruptly, pitching the phone onto John's chair without even looking round. John was caught in a teetering moment where the shock of Sherlock's presence was outweighed by surprise that he'd remembered Lestrade's name – or had guessed it correctly.
"How do you not know?" Sherlock demanded, towering over John, using his height the way he so often did – all of the irritation but none of the malice.
"What?" John demanded.
"How do you not know, John?" Sherlock snapped again, familiar frustration at being asked to repeat himself overlying the bright, crackling anger for just a moment. "About the Woman! How do you not know?"
"How didn't I know?" John replied, pushing himself to his feet, forcing Sherlock to give him some room – but not much, and the detective was right in his space, pinning him between the sofa and a tall, unyielding body. "Sherlock, how could I possibly have known–"
"Listen, John! I am not asking you why you didn't know, but how you don't know. How, John? Tell me how!"
"How what!" John yelled. "I don't know what the bloody hell you're talking about!"
"There's always a choice. Those were your words to me, John, the night Mrs. Hudson died, were they not?"
John nodded mechanically, searching Sherlock's features – dark and shuttered – for some hint as to what was going on, trying to keep up with someone who was, as always, five steps ahead.
"Why is it that mine is not obvious?"
"What?" John asked. Sherlock set his jaw, a sigh gusting from his nostrils. Breaking his hold on John's gaze, as if frustration made it impossible to sustain that link, however momentarily.
"You don't feel any sense of entitlement toward me?" Sherlock demanded, jabbing a finger toward the chair Mycroft had so recently occupied. "You? Since when, John? Because that seems new!"
"I don't–" John began, but fingers curled around the neck of his jumper, the snarl silencing him, making him draw back as much as he could without losing his footing.
"You're the only one with the right!"
He drew back slightly, involuntary surprise, lips parting with a reply that died at the dark, frustrated glint in Sherlock's eyes.
"Three days, John," Sherlock growled, the sound reverberating in the small space between them. "Three days lost in an uninhabited wilderness with no means of contacting anyone, nor any idea of why we were there!"
"You don't have to remind me!" John snapped, curt tone unable to complete repress the memory of confusion, of fear. The way each step had brought him closer to home, but also closer to knowing that the tenuous, almost suffocating, hope could be broken. That he might really have been alone this time. Knowing that he couldn't have face it. Not again. Not without spending each day after that half convinced it was a lie.
The disbelief when he'd seen figures in the distance, compounded when he'd realized one of them was a tall, dark shadow. The impossibility of it, the conviction – fear – that he'd be proven wrong even when he could see that it was Sherlock crossing the distance between them.
The harsh, protracted moment before he'd been able to curl his hands into the heavy fabric of Sherlock's coat, half certain the illusion would vanish like mist, leaving him with nothing.
Shock at the reality, at being able to stand when confronted with a body – real, warm, smelly, shaking, weak, but somehow holding them up.
"Why am I not allowed the luxury of thinking the same?" Sherlock demanded.
John's lips formed a question, the words evaporating before they were voiced. Searching Sherlock's eyes again, looking for some hint that he'd misunderstood, or was being mislead.
"But–"
"What conclusion should I have reached, John, given the facts I had? We were all three together, then Lestrade and I were in the middle of nowhere."
"That doesn't mean–"
"Did you tell yourself that?" Sherlock interrupted. John nodded quickly; he had – over and over and over until it had stuck in a loop in his mind, trying to quell the fear that had only grown stronger with each step.
"Drugged and dehydrated and starving – yet by your own admission, you were better off than we were, with fuel for fire and enough experience to snare small game. You said it to me, out there. 'You're alive'."
John nodded, feeling stuck on the motion, scrambling to keep up as if he were several sentences behind in the conversation – or missing a key piece, which he thought might be true.
"Drugged and dehydrated and starving, John! Why would I have thought any differently?"
John stared, aware that he wasn't doing much else, trying desperately to follow Sherlock's path – not because he didn't understand – or at least he thought he might – but because it was Sherlock, who had so often worked on no food or drink, who had subjected himself to drugging on a regular basis, for whom this had been normal.
Not normal, he realized, meeting a piercing glower.
Nothing about that situation had been normal.
You saved her life, he wanted to say, certain that Sherlock had caught the words in his expression even when he pursed his lips against them. A decision Mycroft hated – but one both he and Sherlock's brother should have seen coming. Would have, if they'd had the right information.
Sherlock had saved her life, and she'd tossed his into the middle of nowhere like it meant nothing. A pawn in a game she was playing that they didn't understand. Not yet. Minor players whose fates she hadn't known – and hadn't been interested in.
"Why is she here?" Sherlock hissed. "Not here," he jabbed a finger in the small space between them, "here." The same finger against John's forehead, a tiny, warm point of contact. "Why are you giving her anything?"
I thought you were dead. He heard his own voice saying it, and Sherlock's, overlapping until they were indistinguishable, and it hit him like a train, the past two weeks suddenly illuminated for him, throwing his misconception into stark contrast with reality. Everything that had been about him, that he'd been misattributing to her since Sherlock had pieced it together that first night home, smoking a cigarette on the stairs.
The livid, barely restrained reaction to the x-ray. The stubborn, almost petulant refusal to take cases. Being accompanied to work, a close presence tracking his every move.
He'd misread Sherlock entirely. His reactions. The reasons behind them.
It wasn't betrayal. Nor hurt.
Fury.
Three years ago, at an abandoned pool at midnight, he'd watched shock fade to horror when he'd opened his coat, movements dictated by the sing-song voice in his ear, slowed by the cold feeling in his stomach.
Moriarty had stopped being an interesting game in that wrenching, suspended moment.
When it became a choice. The choice Sherlock had just thrown at him, the one John had understood until she had come back– But that's stupid, he realized, because Sherlock had known she'd been alive the whole time, and he'd made the decision all the same.
"Why do you imagine I'm waiting for something better to come along?" Sherlock demanded. "I've never had to do that, John."
John closed his eyes, exhaling hard.
He'd told Mycroft he didn't doubt Sherlock's loyalties.
It had felt like a lie then, a buried uncertainty as to whom Sherlock would actually choose.
You're an idiot, John told himself, a sodding, stupid, bloody fucking lucky idiot.
He opened his eyes again when a hand wrapped around the back of his neck, lightly, not confining. He tilted his head back slightly, enough to better meet Sherlock's eyes, and to increase the contact.
"Yeah," he said. "Me neither."
A ghost of a smile on Sherlock's lips, thumb stroking carefully along the line where neck met shoulder, coming nowhere close to the injury. She'd done that, and John knew exactly how angry he'd be if their situations had been reversed. He'd lived it.
A physical injury, an emotional manipulation.
It made no difference.
He reached up with his good hand – carefully – to curl his fingers over Sherlock's.
"Right. I get it."
Another brief smile, a quiet, derisive snort asking if he really did, then the expression vanished, replaced by stony seriousness in Sherlock's eyes and the angles of his face. John kept his own expression open, letting Sherlock search it until something shifted behind pale eyes, finding the truth in the statement.
"But not entitlement," John said, giving his head a shake. "'Claim' would be a better word."
It certainly would for how Sherlock felt him about him – and his things, and his time, and his personal space. The smile was back on the detective's lips; John traced it with a thumb, watching a shadow of desire flicker for a moment. Amazed that it was his, telling himself not to be so stupid about it ever again.
"What do we do now?" John asked. "For the case, I mean."
He got no answer as Sherlock's eyes narrowed, searching and assessing – something that looked like hesitation around the edges of his expression. Not, John thought, about him. About the case itself, or about his injury.
He let Sherlock decide.
"That depends," the detective said, "on how you feel about parking garages."
The bright floodlights and the police presence slowed Sherlock down for one brief moment until irritation that the world didn't wait on his whims was replaced by the surprise at the police being several steps ahead of him. John cupped Sherlock's elbow gently, just long enough for the touch to register, but it didn't slacken the quick pace as shoes clicked assuredly over the surface of the emptied lot, long stride taking him right toward Hassard.
"Where's Lestrade?" he demanded without preamble. Hassard gestured to the PC Sherlock had interrupted, sending him off to join the others prowling the gaping, echoing space, torches swinging light into darkened corners missed by the floodlights.
"Interviewing the other security guard," she replied. Sherlock pursed his lips against comment, giving a soft, annoyed sigh; Hassard looked past him at John, raising her eyebrows.
"Good to see you, John. How's the shoulder?"
"It's all right," John replied, taking care not to shrug along with the statement, aware that Sherlock was restraining himself against fidgeting.
"We're looking for the point of entry," Hassard said, beckoning to both of them, supplying them with torches of their own. "The main lifts are probably out of the question, but we're looking into them all the same. Stratham – that's the tech you harassed earlier, Sherlock – says their cameras weren't tampered with, nor was the key card mechanism overridden. Best bet's the service lift – or the stairs, but nine flights up with one body and down with another? Even if you're trained, that's a hell of a hike."
"Mm," Sherlock hummed non-committally, swinging his torch in the direction of the service lift. John gave Hassard a commiserative look when the detective strode away, leaving them both to catch up.
"We know Douglas was a mountaineer and that Sarraf was a spelunker – no reason to assume the killers weren't as well trained."
"I'm not," Hassard said, giving her head a small shake. "I've got people searching the stairwell, too. I think it's less likely – the lift would be easier."
"Yes," Sherlock murmured in his half-listening voice, crouching to examine the card mechanism for the lift. "And easier to forge or obtain a card for this lift than the main ones or the stairs."
"Exactly."
"But how did they get in?" he demanded, standing and turning in one smooth movement, torch swinging up to catch Hassard in the face, moving back down abruptly when she held up a hand to shield her eyes.
"Easy," she protested, blinking hard; John gave Sherlock a pointed glare, and the detective at least pretended to look abashed. "We don't know – we're working on it. Looking into every car and delivery vehicle registered in and out that day. The ones that were here at the time – including Douglas' – are in the forensics impound, but so far nothing."
"Douglas drove himself?" John asked.
"Of course he did," Sherlock replied before Hassard could. "You saw his office, John, and his accomplishments. A man like that? He took pride in self sufficiency. His wife on the other hand… she does have a driver."
"We're checking into that, too," Hassard said, and John felt a moment of pity for her and Lestrade – the net seemed cast so wide, especially now.
"Good," Sherlock murmured, distracted again, wandering off, getting no more than a few steps before calling John's name. With an apologetic look at Hassard, he fell into step behind the detective, who was moving slowly across the space between the service lift and the block that housed the main lifts and the stairs. Curious police officers watched them go by; John ignored them through practiced habit, knowing Sherlock noticed them only as potential obstacles – if at all.
"Shut the lights off!"
"What?" Hassard demanded.
"The floodlights! Shut them off!"
John watched the DI argue with herself, defeated with a sigh, and she repeated the order to her people. Darkness fled back in, broken by torch light and the dimmer lights of the parking garage. Eyes closed, John counted to five slowly in his head before letting himself see again, finding Sherlock instinctively.
"What is it?" he murmured.
A raised hand stilled any further questions; Sherlock could feel them poised on John's lips, a light pressure in the air around them, as if unvoiced words had a weight of their own.
They always did, with John.
Easier now to judge the character of that weight, now that he had all the facts.
The facts about John, because there was something missing here – something more than Douglas' body. John's suspended words were questions about what Sherlock was seeing, but he didn't know yet, moving slowly across the asphalt, feet registering information through the soles of his shoes, cataloguing and assessing, but this wasn't what was important.
Hiding in plain sight. He understood that so thoroughly, had used assumptions and misapprehensions to move through the world, dead, for nine months, and there was something hiding here, a shadow in the wrong place, empty space where there should be none.
Not any of the police officers, whom Hassard had mercifully silenced, and he could feel the weight of their gazes, lighter than John's expectations. Not a person. A thing. The floodlights made it too obvious, let gaze skitter past it without registering it. Something expected that no one saw, because it meant nothing, it looked as if it belonged.
A slow pace tracing the path between the main lifts and the service lift. Barred, rectangular entrances, brushed steel or painted into anonymity. Stairs marked with a "way out" sign that announced their presence, key card reader undamaged here. Burnished metallic glint of two lifts. Lift service access doors, maintenance closets.
Torch light glanced over the "way out" sign before swinging toward the garage's exit, automated arm down, holding them in.
Way out, he thought, counting the doors carefully, slowly, refusing to let his mind slip past what seemed banal, insignificant.
"Amanda," he called when he was certain, "do you have the blueprints for the building?"
"Yeah," she replied. A brief discussion with a constable – necessary logistics – but it was John beside him that was the important data point, a second beam of light joining his, hovering on chipped black paint. John moved aside, but there was no real sense of distance as Hassard stood between them, architectural map spread between her hands.
"That's the maintenance access for the service lift," Sherlock said, illuminating the door with his torch. "The one on the other side is a custodial closet – storage, probably. What's this one?" Back to the one right in front of them, standing closed like a mute shadow.
She shook her head, the light from John's torch moving slightly across the page as if searching for an answer.
"It's on here, but it's not marked."
"We should find out," Sherlock said, arching an eyebrow.
"Yep," Hassard agreed. "Hang on. I think there's someone who might know."
"Sure, I know," Singer replied, glancing between the three of them as if confused. "It used to lead down to some old service tunnels that ran under the buildings in this area."
"And no one thought that was worth mentioning?" Hassard snapped.
"They haven't been used in– well, decades as far as I know. There's nothing down there."
"If you don't know how long it's been since they were used, how do you know nothing's down there?" Sherlock asked dryly, unable to entirely resist the urge to shine the beam of his torch at the guard's face.
"The door's all bricked up on the other side," Singer said, squinting in the light, and a quiet cough from John made Sherlock sigh but lower the torch.
"Why not on this side?" Hassard asked. The guard shrugged, shaking his head.
"Inspector, would you take a bet on whether or not that seal is still standing?" Sherlock asked.
"Not a chance," Hassard replied, glancing over her shoulder. "Johnson! Flores! Get a kit. If it's blocked behind – even partially – we'll have to take that door down."
