"I should be calling the police. I should be calling the police. I should be calling the police." The thought ran through Tara's mind over and over again. But her hand, as if acting on it's own volition, auto-dialed the one number that was programmed into the phone. After only a single ring, it was picked up.

"Why are you calling me?" accused the baritone voice.

"There was a gun shot. There was a gun shot in the flat I am sure of it. Should I call the police? Should I go up? Should I..." She stammered out quickly.

"No! No...no...no..." the man on the other end of the line growled out. She could tell he was immediately on his feet and running. She heard a door slam the wall, then outside noise briefly, then the start of a loud engine right before the call cut out.

Tara stared at the phone in her hand for a minute, still trying to figure out her next move. Maybe someone else heard it and knows what to do? She thought desperately. But there was no one. The street returned to utter stillness after the shot broke the night. Still except for the violin music in the flat above.

But the thin man knew. And he was coming. For a moment the realization floated through her mind that it was strange he was never really that far away after all and yet still had her doing the watching for him.

So she waited and shivered from the cold and from fear in her alleyway. She looked down at the smashed mug at her feet and remembered him there handing it to her just a little while ago. And she remembered how he found her out and yet never accosted her about it or made a peep until tonight.

She shuddered harder and let herself acknowledge that she genuinely wanted him to be okay. Tears started to run down her face but she held the sobs at bay.

When she thought she couldn't possibly take another moment of waiting she heard a loud engine approaching fast. Since the shot rang out a few other wayward cars had come by but she heard the urgency of this one coming from blocks away. What she heard was a frantic motorcycle. It skidded around the corner of Baker so hard the driver had to throw one foot down to keep it from capsizing. The leather-clad thin driver was off the bike in front of 221B when it was still moving, letting the bike crash to the ground with the engine still idling. He leapt across the curb while discarding his helmet, revealing the head of reddish-brown curls Tara had last seen all those months ago.

He opened the door and took the stairs two at a time, yelling now "Joooohhhnnn!"

Again Tara's body was moving without the permission of her brain. She was running the same kind of dead-run at the tall man. She got to the open door of 221B as he reached the top of the stairs and whipped open the door, calling that name again, laced with anxiety and desperation.

She paused just momentarily at the doorway. She blinked once, and in that one blink's time she was bombarded with the alarm bells of her own thoughts and instincts of self-preservation. "This is crazy! What are you doing?! Just walk away! What will he do if he finds that you have followed him in?"

But quieter, there was the distinct thrill of crossing this threshold. She knew there was no way she was not going in there. And so her legs faithfully, quietly, started up the stairs. She stopped at the landing where she could just see in, pressing her back against the wall.

"John are you alright? I was told there was a gunshot!" The tall man rounded to the front of the stuffed chair where John was seated. She saw John's head lift to meet the thin man's gaze. Relief rolled off the thin man's frame but only momentarily. "Okay. So you are okay." The thin man was nodding his head as he said this, like he was trying to convince himself of the statement as well. But then his tone shifted and his eyes switched to analyzing mode. "Why was there a gunshot, John?" She saw his jaw clenching and his sharp features deeply shadowed by the street light coming in through the windows.

John lifted up his right arm, revealing the gun still in his grasp. He looked at it like he was puzzled that it was there. It wasn't pointed at anything in particular. It was just...there. In a far-away voice John remarked "Because I fired it, Sherlock."

Sherlock scrutinized John carefully, but so many of his own emotions flicked across in micro-expressions. He stepped forward and held out his hand. Very calmly he said "May I have it please, John."

"Sure, right." John replied and handed it to Sherlock, who grasped it by the muzzle and eased it out of John's hand.

Sherlock started to pace a bit, passing out of Tara's sight here and there. But she heard a few metallic clicks like something being taken apart.

"You changed your hair."

"What?" Said Sherlock, sounding annoyed.

"I said you changed your hair."

"Obviously. John..." A sigh and a long pause. Sherlock came back to standing directly in front of John and asked him, actually gently "John, why did you chamber the last bullet."

Sherlock's eyes looked wet and suddenly very very old. He swallowed hard. As John prepared to speak, Sherlock eased himself into the chair opposite John, fingers steepled under his lips.

In a flash Tara knew that was his chair. It was Sherlock's chair, right there across from John's. Her eyes lighted through the shadows of the room and saw things that matched John and things that more so matched Sherlock. "He takes sugar in his tea" she thought.

"You were gone Sherlock. You were...dead." He took a few breaths for composure.

"I saw it myself. You told me all those silly things that weren't true. Then you said goodbye and I saw you fall. I saw you bleed on the sidewalk. I saw the medical reports. These are things I should take as fact, right? But a short time later I stood by your grave and I did a very stupid thing. I asked you for an absolutely impossible miracle. It wasn't just words. I really asked you to do this miracle for me. And I had faith in you, Sherlock. Always, since that moment the request left me lips I expected you to deliver on that miracle."

John dropped his gaze from Sherlock now and he started to fiddle with the stitching on his chair. "But the thing is, that's crazy. I went back to my therapist and I told her about it. She said it was part of denial and that made sense on a very logical level. I mean, I am a doctor and I know about grieving. She said I would move out of that phase over time. I would accept things. But I never did. I stopped going to see her after I saw her concern when I told her I thought I was being watched. She would have sent me to the loony bin, and rightfully so. I went out there to your grave every week trying to convince myself of the reality of the situation and all I found was more fodder for my possible delusion that you had your network out keeping tabs on me. And at work, and here on Baker Street. All over this city I felt eyes on me."

John seemed to have to make himself look back at Sherlock in front of him now. Tara found she was barely breathing. When he started again his tone was strangely matter-of-fact.

"So that left me with two conclusions. #1.) I was right. You were not dead and had people reporting back to you about my welfare. Or, # 2.) I was, in fact, crazy, and imagining all of it."

John swallowed then continued. "So I started testing my theory, and upping the ante. I walked up to people on the street who were there too often and looked for too long. I accused. Sometimes these people then were suddenly gone and replaced by other eyes. Out with the old soldier at the pub I threw myself in front of a bloody car just to catch Sarge in a lie. But in the end all of those observations were nothing without... without..."

"The final proof" Sherlock added.

"Exactly. Someone once told me that the brilliant ones like to get caught. So I decided that tonight was the night. I made sure that the Tea Girl was at her post"

"The tea girl?" Sherlock interjected.

"That's what I call her to myself. Your girl here on Baker Street. Mrs. Hudson is out visiting her sister and the Tea Girl was here, so tonight was the night. If I was right, and you showed up or something, anything, then I was not indeed crazy. If I was wrong..."

John took a few deep breaths, like someone trying not to succumb to seasickness.

"If I was wrong, and the night just continued on in silence. Then that would mean I imagined it all. I would have to face that I imagined it all and I had no right to keep finding my little bits of evidence that the impossible was going to happen at any minute. I probably could have dealt with that if that was all, but here's the rub, Sherlock, here's where I stopped being a logical doctor about the whole thing. I knew I would rather go one being bloody delusional than to give on on hoping for that impossible miracle. But the those two states of awareness can't exist at the same time. One can't know that one is insane and consciously choose to be insane all at the same time. Once you see the man behind the curtain, and realize it is just you, you can't pull the curtain back again and go back to believing in the wizard."

"John, why did you chamber the last bullet" Sherlock asked again.

"You know why, Sherlock."

"John." Sherlock said steadily, as he rose from his chair and took a step forward. John stood also and they were now face to face a mere few feet apart. "You are not crazy. I am here. I can explain it all to you and it will all make sense..."

"I don't care how you did it, Sherlock." John cut in suddenly, shaking his head defiantly, yet almost breaking down. "I really don't care how you did it right now. I just need to know that this is real. I need to know that you are really here" he ended in a whisper.

John's hand twitched then slowly started to move. Sherlock's simultaneously slowly raised a trembling hand. Then suddenly they each shot forward and grasped each other, hand over wrist with the other hands closing over those. Both men clung to the other for dear life. They each readjusted their grips stronger and harder on the other, making sure this was real. The two men heaved great gulping gasping breaths, like one would just breaking the water's surface after almost giving up and letting the waves overtake them. Tara could see it now in both of them. Each had been almost drowning in their own way. And now they were both saved.

SHJWSHJWSHJWSHJWSHJWSHJWHSJW SHJWSHJWSHJWSHJWSHJWSHJW

I hope that came out like I was picturing it in my head all this week. Please do let me know what you think. I am chuffed to bits by all the follows, favorites, and reviews. They really do make my day.

PS - You may have noticed, I did not mark this fic as "complete" yet.