Part Ten: An Armful of Bony, Shuddering Friend
He entered the semi-dark room, and his eyes were immediately drawn to the figure in the bed. He drew closer, studied the sleeping form that he saw there. Tears sprang to his eyes.
Oh my God. It really is him.
Slowly, he approached the bed. Sherlock appeared to be asleep or unconscious. He was propped up on several pillows, with the head of the bed raised slightly. His hair, a lot longer than he'd worn it in the past - actual ringlets rather than curls - hid part of his face, but the profile and the features were unmistakable. Dark purple shadows stained the areas under his eyes, and he looked thinner than John ever remembered seeing him.
He sat on the bed, swallowed hard. Hesitantly, he reached out a hand, brushed back some of the tangled curls. "Sherlock?" he murmured, all anger having fled.
Eyelids twitched briefly, then opened to reveal the pale eyes underneath. They roved briefly, then Sherlock blinked a couple of times and his gaze seemed to fix on John's face. Their eyes met, and John was treated to the sight of several naked emotions chasing themselves across his friend's face.
First, a smile... sunny and sweet, the smile that John remembered from the happy days, the times of shared adventure and shared risk, the same expression that had graced Sherlock's face when they'd giggled together in Buckingham Palace and when they'd solved an impossible case and were giddy with success. Then... doubt, mixed with fear, replaced the joyous grin.
"John... oh, God, how is it that you're here? You aren't supposed to ... you can't know..." He took a deep and shaky breath. "Oh. Oh, that wasn't supposed to happen. I asked for you, but I didn't know what I was saying. I didn't know!" The outburst ended in what was almost a sob. "You... you still think I'm dead. Thought I was dead. You were safer that way."
John let out a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding. "I'm here because you need me." He reached for his friend's hand, enclosed those long fingers in his own stubbier digits. "I wasn't doing anything much," he said with deliberate lightness, ignoring the tears that were threatening to spring forth and the emotion that was trying to clog his voice.
"John..." Tears ran from the corners of both of Sherlock's eyes, coursing sluggishly into the pillow. For a moment, John wondered why he didn't raise his free hand to wipe them away, then realized that there were soft fabric restraints on both of his friend's wrists. He cursed quietly, then started to fumble with the ties.
"Let me get those off of you." In a few seconds he had the restraints off... and then in a few more seconds he had an armful of bony, shuddering friend as Sherlock launched himself off the pillows at him. "Hey... easy, there, I'm not going anywhere."
Sherlock buried his face in John's jumper and wrapped his arms around him so tight John could hardly breathe. He slipped his own arms about his friend and rested his chin on that head of dark hair, closing his eyes and breathing deeply. "I'm here," he said. "I'm not a bad dream, or a hallucination." He hugged Sherlock close, noting the way that the shoulder blades jutted forth from his back through the thin fabric. If he had always been slender before, he was positively skeletal now. "It's all right," he murmured, not certain if he was reassuring Sherlock or speaking to himself. "It's really all right now."
There followed a few minutes in which John was fairly certain that Sherlock was crying against his chest, and trying hard to hide it, but the uneven respirations and occasional gulp gave him away. With his own emotions in such tumult - anger, betrayal, relief, and inexpressible joy all fighting for a principal role - he didn't try to hurry things along, but instead welcomed the chance to close his own eyes and simply drink in the feeling of holding his presumed-dead and miraculously-alive dearest friend. Later... the explanations can come later.
At last he felt a subtle shift in Sherlock's posture, a slight drawing-back, and he loosened his own grip on his friend's shoulders and carefully, reluctantly, removed his arms and lowered him back to the bed. He smiled slightly to see the red-rimmed eyes and other evidence of emotion on that so-familiar face. Grew a heart while you were gone, did you?
Sherlock scrubbed at his face with the back of his hand, obviously self-conscious. "How... how did you find me?"
"Your brother sent for me. He said you'd been asking for me, that ... that you were having trouble with your memory." He took Sherlock's hand again, squeezed it. "What is the last thing you remember?"
Sherlock's eyes closed again, and for a moment John thought he might have fallen asleep. But they fluttered back open, with a faraway look. "I'm... not really sure, John. I know I'm at Mycroft's house. But I don't know how I got here."
"Try," urged John. "He says you showed up ill, that you collapsed on his doorstep from some kind of overdose. You don't remember that?"
A quick head shake. "No. I think... I remember bits and pieces since I ... since I jumped. Since I had to fake my death. Actually, rather more than bits and pieces, but John, it wasn't exactly a happy time."
John squeezed his friend's hand again. "I can imagine. Well, no, I can't, because I don't really understand what you were doing. Mycroft seems to think you were close to being finished, coming home again."
"Yes... close to my goals." Sherlock closed his eyes and winced. "I remember... I remember, I think, stopping here for a night, talking to Mycroft about something I was going to do. Enlisting his help, even. But..." he trailed off, and reached up with his free hand to rub at his temples. "I'm sorry. But it hurts. My head hurts when I try to think about it."
Indeed, to John's practised eye, he looked pale, sweaty, ill. When he opened his eyes again they were dark with pain. "I'm sorry," he whispered again. "I can't seem to get any closer than that."
"Then don't." John ran his free hand through Sherlock's sweaty and tousled curls. "Go to sleep. I'm going to go talk with your brother. I'll be back."