Sherlock stumbled into the flat, clutching his side, and collapsed onto the living area rug, only just managing to lock the door behind him.
"Granger! Hermione are you home?" he called out quietly.
"Sherlock?" Hermione spoke at a normal volume. "What's wro—oh!"
"Gunshot, just a graze, but the –"
"Shut up and let me have a look at you." She pulled her wand out and started removing his clothes as she spoke. "This is not just a graze, Sherlock Holmes!"
There were few places that a bullet could hit a man as thin as Sherlock and not do serious damage. This one, fortunately of small caliber, had managed to lodge in his right tenth rib, after shattering the eleventh. "What the fuck were you doing? Standing on top of him?"
"Not important. They followed me, Granger! We have to get out of here."
"Yes, we do. We're going to St. Bart's right now, and then you're going to tell me exactly what you were doing and what went wrong." Someone began pounding on the door. "This is going to be uncomfortable," Hermione warned, and hauled Sherlock to his feet, holding him close and turning on the spot, pulling the two of them through the horrible compression of apparition-space and into a small supply closet off the St. Bart's morgue.
Sherlock collapsed into a mop bucket and nearly brought an entire shelf of sterilizing equipment down on top of himself. "What the bloody fuck was that?" he asked, just as Molly Hooper wrenched open the door.
"Hermione? Sherlock? What?"
"Not important, Molly," Hermione said in her most Sherlockian tone. "Sherlock's been shot. We need to get him up to Intake right away."
"Oh, but… how?"
"Can't say. Not won't, can't. Sorry, love, but this is rather urgent."
"I'm bleeding, Miss Hooper," Sherlock pointed out.
Molly sighed, looking back and forth between the two of them. And then she capitulated. "Sometimes you two are just alike, you know. Come on, then, I'll make sure the coast is clear."
…
They arrived back at the apartment several hours later to find it a complete shambles. Books and papers had been thrown about, ripped apart and burned. Dishes were smashed. The table and all of Sherlock's experiments had been overturned.
"Fucking idiots," Hermione muttered. "Pull the curtains, Sherlock."
"I can't, they've been shredded," he pointed out irritably. Hermione had informed the doctor of his history of opiate abuse, and he had consequently been given a much weaker painkiller than he preferred.
"Fine. Just a second." She stormed into her bedroom and returned with an armload of linens, pinning them over the broken windows and shredded curtains. She then, much to Sherlock's obvious delight (she hardly ever used magic in front of him, for the sake of her own sanity when faced with the interrogation which inevitably followed), proceeded to repair the torn papers and burned books. She vanished the remnants of his ruined experiments and restored the shattered glassware. The tableware followed suit. The table and chairs righted themselves. The couch, cushions torn to shreds, knitted itself back together. Bullets pulled themselves from the plaster, which smoothed itself back over, and even the bone fragments that were all that was left of the Desk Skull reformed, as though untouched. After a quick peek outside to make sure no one would notice, the glass that had fallen from the windows sealed them again and the curtains were restored to their former, un-shredded state.
"That was seriously impressive," Sherlock said. Hermione smiled. The most complimentary thing was that he had commented on something obvious.
"Yes, well, you're lucky I thought to put Damage Charms on everything when I moved in. Unfortunately I did the last update sweep on the first, so anything you've annotated or changed since then is gone, and I'm not even going to try to restore your laptop. Remember how magic and electricity don't do well together? The best thing that could happen is I'd wipe your hard drive."
"This is great, though. Thank you, Hermione." Sherlock sounded genuinely relieved that his books papers were not actually destroyed.
She collapsed onto the couch next to him. "You're very welcome, Sherlock."
They sat in silence for a long moment, then spoke at the same time. Hermione repeated herself first.
"I don't think I can live with you, anymore, Sherlock."
"Why not?"
"Sherlock, I'm pregnant. I'm going to have a baby in six months. I can't live with you if you're going to keep up the whole consulting detective thing – you make too many enemies – and I'd never ask you to give it up."
"But where would you go? You don't have a job, even," he pointed out, in the plaintive tones of someone who had never had to work a day in his life.
"I've been looking, and I do have savings, Sherlock. It's not as though I've been paying rent here, and Mycroft was paying my tuition."
"What? Why?"
"Oh, we made a bet when I first moved in: if I could manage you, he'd pay my tuition. If not, he'd find me another apartment, but I'd have to pay my own tuition. I'd say it worked out pretty well."
Sherlock glared half-seriously at his cousin. "So you were a spy!"
"Ha, no, I never told him anything about you. Just, you know, made sure you didn't OD on your benders, and provided a steady source of mystery to keep you more or less entertained for the last seven and a half years between cases."
"Sneaky bitch."
Hermione smirked. "I'm kind of surprised you didn't figure it out ages ago. The Great Sherlock Holmes, baffled for years by the Significantly Less Arrogant Hermione Granger."
"I did figure it out, you just lied about it when I caught you out," the man said with a petulant pout.
"Nonsense. You thought I was one of his agents. I really am your cousin. I just conned your brother out of thousands of pounds for doing something I would have done anyway."
Sherlock snorted. "Oh, yeah, you're family alright… You realize if you leave, I will be forced to go back to tormenting Mycroft with my behavior."
"Aww, here I thought I trained you to act like a normal person, and come to find out you always knew how."
Sherlock shook his head fiercely, dark curls flying in every direction. "Of course I knew how. I'm an excellent actor. You just keep things from getting boring. There's always something new I can think of to ask about the magical world, or magic itself. If you're not here, I'll get bored again."
"And go back to torturing Mycroft."
"Yes."
"What did you do when I was at work or school all the time for the last seven years, honestly? I know you are, in fact, capable of occupying yourself if you want to."
Sherlock ignored this. "But I've become accustomed to having someone to talk to about quantum physics at four in the morning."
"Get a flatmate."
"But Hermione, every potential flatmate in the world is an idiot." Sherlock said this earnestly, with a completely straight face. He might even have believed it.
"That's statistically impossible," Hermione objected. "Besides, you wouldn't want to live with a baby, anyway. None of your experiments in the past three years has been child-friendly, and they cry when you do things like play the violin at three am, and you have to feed and water them regularly… and there are diapers and things." Sherlock shuddered. "There's no way I'd let you experiment on my kid, and I know you'd want to. Plus I am looking for a job. The days of staying up all night talking about physics and magic are over, anyway. It's the end of an era, Sherlock. I have to move out."
"Hmmm… Hermione Granger, age thirty-two, finally leaves school, gets a job, keeps adult hours. A sign of the apocalypse indeed," Sherlock teased.
"I'm only thirty on my passport. And I had a job for almost four years before I moved here."
"Whatever." He waved a hand dismissively.
"Jackass."
"Witch."
"Narcissist."
"Psychopath."
"I am not!"
"Are too."
"Child."
"Mother."
"Yeah, that's weird, isn't it?"
"Very."
…
(Text conversation)
Mycroft: You know he's going to be insufferable as soon as you move out.
Hermione: So give him an allowance and make him get his own place. He's thirty-five years old. He is capable of taking care of himself, you just never make him do it.
Mycroft: I have my doubts regarding this capability of which you speak.
Hermione: You sent Anthea to buy milk for him while I was in Australia.
Mycroft: Point.
Mycroft: But he is irritating.
Hermione: Mycroft Joseph Holmes, need I remind you of your own age? It is time to put your foot down and stop letting Sherlock manipulate you into taking care of him.
Mycroft: Point.
Mycroft: Are you still looking for a job?
Hermione: You know I am.
Mycroft: I have a senior analyst's position open.
Hermione: You know I don't have the experience for that.
Mycroft: It's synthesizing information and writing reports. Moderate security clearance. You are qualified. I would not offer otherwise.
Hermione: Done. When do I start?
Mycroft: First of the month. I'll send a messenger in the morning with specifics and your contract.