Sherlock knows he should be angry, but the fact is he can't find the energy.

"I had it under control," he murmurs in Mycroft's general direction, not bothering to look up from the patch of floor he's sitting on. Mycroft stands, because Mycroft probably doesn't want to get his suit dirty.

"Oh, entirely." Mycroft has a face suited to sarcasm. It's a family trait. "Forgive me for making precautions. After the Spanish…fiasco…"

"You used me."

"I sent you to find Moran. I never said I wouldn't be following you."

"I could have managed. You didn't have to let your goons…" He's too tired to finish the sentence, so he lets it drop off the end of his tongue like dried-out bubblegum.

"Shoot him? I disagree. What were you going to do, push him down the stairs?"

"Yes." He says it just to be contrary, to be defiant, to show he's not beaten, but he can't summon the vigour to put conviction in his speech, and he knows it.

Mycroft rolls his eyes. "Go home, Sherlock. There's nothing more for you do here."

Sherlock looks at him blankly. His neck is throbbing, grinding on his nerves. It's infuriating.

"I said, go home. It's over." Mycroft pokes Sherlock's toe with his umbrella. "Home."

"I don't have a home." He almost laughs; a hysterical, dreamy grin spreads across his face. "I haven't had a home for three years."

Mycroft gives him a look he usually reserves for the less intelligent and more pathetic members of society.

"You have John."

John is standing in front of the mirror, probing his neck and frowning – the bloody thing's hurting him like hell, driving him mad – when he hears the stairs creaking. Loudly. Mrs Hudson is too light to creak when she comes up the stairs, and she always moves slowly because of her hip. The fact the door's not locked makes him uncomfortable. He's been feeling edgy ever since a spasm of terror, pure absolute terror, had knocked him from his chair to the floor and made him kneel for minutes, hours, he doesn't know how long.

It could be anyone – anyone taller or heavier than Mrs Hudson, who walks quickly. Greg, perhaps. Not Mycroft, he's too graceful to move rapidly. John knows he should call out, but he doesn't. Perhaps it's the sensation of a noose tightening around his neck that makes him paranoid, or perhaps it's a simple gut instinct, but he remains silent. His gun is upstairs, and he knows it's too late to get it; there's a shadow showing under the door, and if he can see them, they will be able to see him the second he crosses the room. The kitchen light is off, and he retreats to the relative safety of the darkness, reaching for the nearest weapon he can find – a vase his aunt gave him for Christmas, which is so ugly he can't bring himself to put it in the lounge. He's trying not to breathe, but it's difficult; the ghost is back in full force, gasping in his ears. He wishes it would pick its timing more conveniently.

The person outside knocks, not on the door, but on the frame; the sound produced is solid rather than hollow. John doesn't know anyone who does that, not since Sherlock…better not think about that.

The handle turns. John retreats even further into the darkness, until he's hidden around the side of the kitchen archway. If it was someone he knew they would have called out to him by now. This person wants to surprise him, wants to hurt him. He holds his breath, and his eyes begin to water from the effort.

Footsteps sound softly on the carpet, so softly he wouldn't have heard them if he hadn't been listening carefully. The person moves around the lounge, passing twice in front of the entrance to the kitchen. John can't make out their face in the dim light; they're wearing a hooded jacket, and the hood is pulled up around their shoulders, obscuring his view. Any second now, they're going to come to the kitchen.

The person touches a hand to the fireplace, and then moves swiftly towards where John is standing. John panics; they're moving faster than he'd expected, and he assumes they must have worked out where he's standing, have heard his breathing, heard the ghost's breathing. Their face becomes a blur; their hands, which are tensed into fists, pose a threat. So John strikes first.

The vase shatters when he slams it down on their head, effectively bringing them up short with a harsh cry he barely hears; he has no more than a heartbeat before he feels a sharp pain that sends a spike through his temples, and his vision blurs as he staggers forwards, ending up on all fours, gasping, trying desperately not to lose consciousness. He doesn't understand; nothing had touched him, there's no reason for him to feel so dizzy. He's vaguely aware that the intruder has fallen to their knees, swearing, arms wrapped over their head. If he hadn't been able to see exactly where their hands were for himself, he would have thought they were trying to strangle him. His throat feels so tight he can barely breathe. His pulse kicks angrily in his neck.

"Get back!" he snarls as the person begins to unwind their arms. He grabs for a piece of the shattered vase and holds it out in front of him. "You're not getting anything from me. Go, before I call the police."

He gets the impression he'd be far more assertive if his head weren't throbbing so much. He thinks about standing up, but everything spins, and he hastily gives up on the idea. Better to stay down – he can still be threatening on their level, and collapsing won't do him any good.

"Please."

It's not a word he's been expecting, and he blinks in the darkness. Their voice is familiar, something close and painful that reminds him of buttered toast on a cold morning, the kind of breakfast he used to eat before Sherlock had pulled the rug out from under his life. The sort of voice that had belonged to Sherlock. He grips the piece of vase more tightly, until it cuts into his palm and becomes damp with blood.

"Get out. Whoever you are, get out."

"John, please…"

"Get out!" He won't be tricked by the voice; he won't let it affect him. He can't breathe, he can't swallow, he can't do anything apart from shout, and even that is becoming more difficult. His eyes are streaming from the effort of remaining steady. "Get out of my home right now!"

"You know it's me."

It's getting a closer look at the hands that sends realisation through him like a double spark; bursts of fear and ecstasy and anger, one exploding somewhere at the top of his head, one in his chest. The person's hands are slim, bony, long-fingered. John knows them very well; in the past he'd spent far too long patching them up with stitches and antiseptic cream and bandages. They have more scars now, but the one that was done with a flick knife across the knuckles, no more than three years and four months ago, is one he recognises. No-one else has one like it.

"Sherlock."

He doesn't believe it's the ghost, because vases don't shatter when you bring them down on a ghost's head, and he doubts an apparition could have so much solid detail about it; the scar, the jutting knuckles, the cheekbones he recognises only because he knows they should be there. Sherlock's face has gotten so thin it's almost hollow.

He feels pity. And rage. And pain.

"John, I can explain."

"Don't bother." John sits back on his heels, finally dropping the pottery shard with a soft click onto the lino. And then, because he can't stop himself, he brings both hands up to his neck and holds it, swallowing dryly. The sensation of his palms against his skin doesn't do anything to ease the agony shooting through his muscles, spine, throat, every single inch of his head and neck. He's so distracted he can barely string together a coherent sentence. "You tricked me. It was all fake. Of course. Why should you care?"

"Don't say…"

"Say what? That you didn't care?" He gets to his feet, and he realises he's had this speech nestling inside him, lodged like a traitor at the back of his mind. He's a soldier; he always has a backup plan, no matter how improbable the need for it may be.

"John…"

John doesn't go into his speech – Sherlock's pronunciation of his name stops him. Sherlock sounds so tired, so resigned, that it makes John suddenly exhausted, as if someone's placed a millstone on his head. Sherlock doesn't need a lecture, and John doesn't want to give it. He files Plan B away.

"Get out."

Sherlock stares at him. "John, it's me."

"I know." He's not crazy. He knows perfectly well who it is. "Get out."

"John, I can-"

John loses patience, grasps Sherlock by the shoulder and hauls him roughly to his feet with a guttural snarl. "I said get out! I don't want you here, I don't need you here."

His hand brushes Sherlock's skin, and it's like he's been burned. The noose around his neck tightens. But he has to do this; he has to get Sherlock away from him right now. He can't stand to look at him. Every second is an agony, and after so many months of thinking how wonderful it would be to have Sherlock swirl back into his life, no matter the cost, he realises now he can't handle it. Dead men don't come back. And John had been so sure he was dead, so sure his ghost was somewhere nearby. Now, he has to acknowledge the fact he'd been losing it – hearing breathing, feeling a presence, all day, every day. He's scared. A ghost had been a far more comfortable option than exploring, in detail, every inch of his sanity, and finding it unsatisfactory.

He has the door open within a second, and forces Sherlock out of it within two, but he can't quite get it closed in time before Sherlock sticks his foot out. The door bounces back in John's face, narrowly missing his nose.

"I said get out!" He tries to ram the door closed, forcing his shoulder against it. Sherlock's face contorts as his toes are brutally crushed in the small gap, which grows smaller as John pours what little energy he has left into the effort. "Get out, get out, get out!"

"Please."

John's convinced Sherlock hasn't said anything besides his name and 'please' in the whole two minutes he's known he was alive, and that irritates him. It doesn't add up with his rose-tinted memories of a man who was fascinating and superior, sharply dressed and even more sharply tongued. This Sherlock is tired, and empty, and John is too tired and empty himself to handle him. They're both too damaged.

Sherlock tries to shoulder the door back open, and fails. He has his face very close to John's neck, practically staring at it, and John, sick of everyone gawking and poking at his bloody neck, only makes a fresh attempt on the door. It clicks shut, and he has it locked in a second. For a minute or two Sherlock bangs on the frame and calls, but he gives up very quickly, too quickly for John's liking.

Almost as if he'd known all along how John would react.

Thanks for reading, reviews welcome!

To be continued.