John heard Mrs Hudson's overly-enthusiastic greeting one floor down. Poor Greg was probably being thoroughly interrogated as to his presence at Baker Street for a third night in a row, and by the faint blush his friend was still sporting when he walked through the front door, Mrs Hudson had gotten the wrong idea entirely again.

"Everything alright?" John asked innocently, taking the plastic bag Greg was holding limply in one hand from which drifted the smell of appetizing spices. He loved curry.

"Uh- Yeah. That landlady of yours… She- She just…" Greg stuttered, making gestures with his hands John couldn't make head nor tail of.

Greg gave up, apparently at a loss for words, and took off his vest, chucking it over a chair. John was suddenly very curious as to what the kind old lady had said to send a grown man into a sputtering mess, but he took pity on Greg who'd already had a hard day and pushed him towards the sofa.

"She's a bit overwhelming, yeah. Don't mind her, you get used to it after a while."

Greg nodded his head and absent mindedly undid his tie and a couple of his shirt's buttons, making himself at home.

"Long day?" John asked, handing him over one of the carton boxes.

"Yeah," Greg sighed. "We're not making much of a headway, but on the bright side there was no new victim found today. They were injected with snake venom, by the way, which confirms your Fury theory or it's one hell of a coincidence."

John hummed as he opened his box and inhaled the fragrant spices in the cloud of steam escaping.

"Do you think it's a coincidence there were three murders and three Furies?" John asked waving his fork at Greg as he spoke before digging into his meal.

The detective chewed on his meal as he started to relax, trying to organize his thoughts in a different manner.

"You think there are three killers, or that there will only be three killings, one for each Fury?" Greg asked back.

"Could go either way, I suppose, but three killers working together, using the same MO, that's rather rare, isn't it?"

"Unheard of, even, I'd say," Greg answered around a mouthful.

"Right, it would be easier if we could just rule that out, but imagine that is the case, who was killed by the vengeful, who by the grudging and who by the implacable?" John asked but his tone was playful now.

"The grudging would obviously be Leland, Greg pointed out. "He didn't technically kill anyone, although his selfish actions did. The number of people who hold a grudge over him must count in the hundreds, maybe even the thousands."

"That's a lot of suspects," John teased and received a nudge in the knee in retaliation that almost sent his box falling to the floor. "I'd say the vengeful would be Sommers. Melissa's father certainly wanted to get revenge on him, not that I blame him."

"So that leaves the implacable for the widow?"

"Well, it did happen ten years ago, and yet she was still given retribution," John pointed out.

"True, if she was effectively guilty. But it still begs the question of how these people were chosen, these cases aren't exactly recent. The widow was ten years ago, the embezzlement eight and Melissa disappeared five years ago. I didn't work on any of those cases myself though."

A gleam lit up in John's eye.

"Do you know anyone who did?" he asked.

"Off the top of my head, no. They're not exactly fresh cases and two of them were abandoned pretty quickly," Greg said glancing towards the neatly stacked copies of the victims, before they both reached for them at the same time, the dregs of their meal long forgotten.

Unfortunately, they could find nothing of the inspectors or officers who'd worked on the cases at the time.

"I'd understand it in the Sommers case, and there wasn't even the beginning of a case against Hill, but what happened to the Leland case?"

"That case was fishy from the beginning," John muttered. "The fact that it started in the criminal division, then transferred to the financial one and then just disappeared altogether? I don't like it."

"Can't blame you," Greg replied. "I think we'll just have to ask at the source then."

"What? Ask around Scotland Yard?"

"No," Greg said somberly. "The families are actually more inclined to remember who worked their case. Want to make the rounds with me tomorrow?"

John grinned, happy Greg had asked because he was frankly bored out of his mind, dawdling aimlessly around the flat now that he'd run out of things to research. It was always dangerous being bored when you had an addiction, so he nodded.

"In that case, I think that's enough shop talk for tonight," Greg said. "I was promised a relaxing evening."

John chuckled and they both settled back in the sofa. John pressed play.

"My best friend's wedding?" Greg asked incredulously, staring at the screen, then at John.

"What? No murders," he pointed out. "I checked."

"Never took you for a romantic," Greg snorted.

"That's because you've never been out on a date with me," John replied, waggling his eyebrows, thinking Greg would laugh but his eyes went wide, then the same faint blush graced his cheeks and John was hard pressed not to ask what the hell Mrs Hudson had told the poor man.

John turned back to the telly and tried following whatever was happening between Julia Roberts and Cameron Diaz, but it was a lot of silly nonsense so his imagination wandered off as it often would when he had too many things on his mind: the murders, Greg, Sherlock… but he was happy to note that, right now, a drink wasn't even in the top three. John mentally high-fived himself before he felt a weight slowly crashing into him, forcing him to return to reality. Greg had fallen asleep and gravity was slowly but surely toppling him over. John got off the sofa before he was smothered to death by the heavier man and eased Greg down, frowning when he realized the sofa was not long enough to accommodate Greg the way it did for him. Greg would not be getting the good night's sleep he desperately needed this way. He hated waking him up but it was for his own good.

"Greg? Hey, Greg, wake up. You can't sleep here," John said, jostling his shoulder gentil, to which Greg replied by grunting and feebly batting a hand his way as if he was an annoying mosquito.

"Fine," John chuckled. "Have it your way, but don't come complaining to me in the morning."

The taller man was bound to wake up with stiff muscles, but John did what he could to make him comfortable, undoing his tie the rest of the way and sliding it from his neck before hanging it to the back of the chair where he'd left his vest. Then the shoes. John considered his suit trousers. They were going to be wrinkled beyond repair if he slept in them, but it was one thing seeing Greg in his briefs in the morning and quite another to undress him down to his briefs himself at night. He doubted Greg would appreciate it, and he didn't want to make things between them more awkward than Mrs Hudson had visibly managed to make them. John draped the blanket over his sleeping form and then carefully slid the fluffy pillow he usually slept with under Greg's head, giving a satisfied nod that he'd done everything he could possibly do to make his guest comfortable. Turning on his heels, John steeled himself to sleep in his own room, thing he had been avoiding since Sherlock… wasn't there anymore, when he thought he heard Greg call him softly.

"Greg?" he called back, tiptoeing to his side, but his friend was fast asleep, holding onto his pillow like a lifeline and snuggling into it to the point John wondered how he was able to breathe properly. John stared at him for a full minute, taking in his unusually relaxed and unguarded face, before he realized it was a very creepy thing to do. Hell, it was something he had caught Sherlock doing to him, but the mad genius always had the excuse of it being an experiment, so what was his excuse?

Confused, John retraced his steps to the stairs and quietly climbed up to his own bed. Maybe he'd misheard Greg. A mumbled "John" could be confused with a lot of other words, but even if he had said his name and was dreaming of him… John's mind stalled at the very idea, then rebooted… Even if Greg was dreaming of him, they had been spending a lot of time together these last few days, so maybe he was dreaming of them chasing down the killer together, running around London to catch the Fury. That made John smile. He hadn't felt this close to anyone since Sherlock, but even he could see it was doing him some good to reconnect to another human being. Not that Greg hadn't tried before, because he had: he'd visited, often, lectured and ranted at John when he found him drunk, and he'd been positively livid when he'd found his gun out of its drawer… But John had always pushed him away before…

What had changed?

Time?

Was he finished grieving? John felt the hollow pain in his chest pulse and knew that wasn't so. He thought he might never finish grieving for Sherlock: he'd been his best friend, had shined so bright and turned his life around like it was nothing where everyone else had failed… No, he'd always have a Sherlock-shaped hole in his heart, but the edges weren't as ragged now.

Time.

John couldn't fight against the inexorable passing of time, dulling the ache, the grief, the regrets, and he shouldn't want to. His subconscious must have understood that before he did, and that's why he'd let Greg in this time around. Well... That and Greg's ignominious emotional blackmail. But John was glad for it because he felt better, more like his old self. Greg was kind, patient and he understood about Sherlock like no one else did. And, just because John's friendship with Greg was growing didn't mean he was replacing Sherlock, that wasn't possible.

John finally drifted off to sleep, dreaming of chases on the moonlit rooftops of the city with Sherlock and Greg.

He woke up with a start when he heard a crash downstairs.

Sherlock!

In his hurry to rush downstairs, he got tangled in the bedsheets and crashed to the floor, cursing loudly, but at least it woke him up enough to realize it couldn't be Sherlock. It never would be Sherlock. Waking up in his old bedroom had confused him, muddled dream and reality.

"John? You alright?" came Greg's voice from the staircase along with his heavy footsteps and finally his face peering in through the doorway just as John managed to untangle himself.

The git looked torn between wanting to laugh at seeing him sprawled on the floor and wanting to come over to help, but decided on the more neutral:

"What happened?"

John glared pointedly at him before heaving himself up, rubbing his sore bum and elbows.

"Somebody was making a racket downstairs and it sort of startled me awake."

"Oh, jeez. I'm sorry, John," Greg said, but a chuckle escaped him. "Really sorry," he added, but his laughter nullified the apology as far as he was concerned.

"What the hell are you doing down there anyway?" John asked, throwing on his tartan dressing gown.

"Erm...spring cleaning?" Greg replied evasively as he followed John down the stairs.

John whirled around because Greg was clearly lying to him but all he could see from this vantage point, being shorter and a couple of steps down, was the vast expanse of Greg's chest. He huffed and to Greg's obvious amusement, shuffled past him to climb three steps so he was one step taller and at eye level. John thought of taking another step up so he could glare down at Greg, but decided that would be a bit too childish.

"What were you doing?" John demanded, staring into Greg's dark eyes.

"Throwing away the bottles," Greg confessed. "I meant to do it sooner… I didn't think they'd be one hiding in the bison skull though. I only checked to be thorough so it kind of startled me and escaped my grasp and well, you know the rest..."

John groaned. That was a very good, very expensive -for him- bottle of whisky. He'd been saving it from Mrs Hudson's sneaky purges for a bad night- No… he was over that, he wouldn't go down that path again, but he might if he had the opportunity, a reason to… and the means.

"Thanks," John said, hanging his head in shame as his anger deflated like a pierced balloon, because he knew he couldn't have done it himself.

Greg lifted John's chin and smiled fondly at him.

"Hey, I didn't mean to shove it in your face," he said. "I'm rather proud of how you've pulled yourself together lately."

"Thanks to you and your emotional blackmail," John snorted. "Come on, I'll cook you my speciality for breakfast while you clean up the mess you made."

"Speciality? What's that?" Greg asked eagerly, obviously hungry.

"Toasts," John deadpanned, enjoying the sound of Greg's hearty laughter.

"Yoohoo, boys? Are you decent?" Mrs Hudson called when they were clearing off the table of toast crumbs, spatters of jam and empty cups.

John looked at Greg and rolled his eyes.

"One day I'm gonna shriek we're not just for the hell of it," John muttered.

"I bet she'd walk in anyway," Greg whispered before loudly greeting his landlady who beamed at him.

"Oh, John, I just wanted to warn you a journalist came by. I told her to bugger off, of course. It was that nasty one who started that whole thing with poor Sherlock."

"Kitty Riley?" Greg asked somberly.

"That's the one, dear. Honestly, what kind of a name is 'Kitty' anyway? How she expects to be taken seriously, I don't know. But you be careful, John. If she starts sniffing around here, I'm sure it won't be long before she starts bothering you, too. No respect, those people, I tell you, no respect at all."

"Thank you, Mrs Hudson. I'll look out for her, I promise," John said, cutting her off as soon as he could because it looked like she was ready to go on one of her very long and detailed rants. "Could you get me some milk if you go to the shops today?"

Diversion tactic number three: send her on a mission.

"Of course, John. But just this once, mind," she chirped and left after patting Greg's arm affectionately.

Diversion tactic successful.

John slumped back in his chair and ran a hand through his hair. Why the hell was Kitty Riley sniffing around Baker Street again? Why now? Hadn't she done enough damage already? Did she want to take down the blogger after she'd taken down the consulting detective?

"I'm sorry, John," Greg said, crouching in front of his chair to look up at him with concern. "I think that's my fault. I told her off yesterday after the press conference for being such a shitty journalist, and now she's asking after you."

Greg worried his lip, a deep furrow forming between his knitted brows.

"That's okay, Greg. I'm sure she would have come by sooner or later anyway," he replied with a weak smile, patting his shoulder.

Greg didn't seem convinced, but he nodded and got up, pulling John out of his chair.

"Let's go solve a murder," Greg said with mock cheer, clapping his hands loudly, and John had to smile at that because it sounded so incongruous, and wouldn't be anything to look forward to for most people but them.

"Let's," John agreed and his smile felt more genuine this time around.