I like this, staying up till 4 am with a hot drink, writing. It's quite fun. Here's the next chapter. It's almost twice as long as the long as any of the chapters I've posted so far. I'm quite chuffed. (Proud. For those who aren't with our weird, British slang.) As always thank you for being wonderful and supportive. If you do spot any mistakes just shout me. I do re-read these multiple times but I am dyslexic and some things do slip under the radar. [Thank you to sneakysnakes for pointing them out to me last chapter ;) ] I'm going to stop rambling now. GET READING!

Sherlock had remained asleep for most of that afternoon giving John the opportunity to get some laundry done and actually clean up the flat up for once. He began in the kitchen, clearing as may surfaces as possible of his flatmate, weird, disgusting and, of course, "completely necessary" experiments. This was easier said than done as John wasn't sure what was sectioned into "would likely to kill" and what would just "intoxicate a bit." Colour was no indicator. Red, purple, blue, yellow…Frankly, he didn't fancy touching any of them. Maybe if he pulled his hands into his sleeves…? Perhaps not…

Once that horror was seen too, the doctor moved into the living room. He looked over the large, cluttered space with a sigh. There wasn't a single bit of desk, chair, or floor for that matter, that didn't seem have some form of paperwork on it. Old case notes, new case notes, crosswords, university research, arrest warrants, search warrants, bills, printed emails, court summoning's, photographs, you name it, it was probably here.

Since when did it get this messy?

John separated his stuff from Sherlock's, which done at the move of one newspaper, and then set about packing away the old case files, of which really ought to be returned to Scotland Yard but that wasn't going to happen anytime soon. He then went to Sherlock's desk, but decided against touching anything on here in fear of getting his head chewed of in return. Apparently there was a system to all of this… He wasn't entirely sure what system or in Sherlock knows the definition of system but...

The violin and bow however, John moved. He knew how precious both were to his friend and didn't want either to get damaged. He tucked them into the case that still lay open on the window sill. His fingers drifted across the varnished wood, mind wandered back to the events of earlier. Swiftly deciding to shake them away again, the doctor zipped the case, glancing out of the window and replaced it back under the desk.

The sun was still quite high in the sky for the time of day. People in the street below strolled to and fro in shorts, sunglasses and camisole tops; cold drinks in hand. The ground was dry. A fine layer of dust had settled upon everything. It lingered in the air, in the cracks in the pavement and on the surface of each lavish, green leaf that extended from every bending branch. It was a beautiful time of year. But then every season contained an admirable beauty of some description. The atmosphere was close but relief came with a gentle, wavering breeze carrying the soft incense of flower and freshly mown grass. Glorious now but as night draws in, the day's collected heat will radiate out, slowing movements and enticing sweat to brow. John always found the hot, sticky air slightly unbearable. A tempest, a storm, that's what was needed; combusting electricity to snap away the weight of time and air.

The doctor now, moved across the room, picking up jumpers and coat, walking them out into the hallway, hanging them up one by one, his and then Sherlock's. It was when he hung Sherlock's up that he heard something hit the floor with a dull, flat click. He looked down to see a piece of paper, or more correctly, an envelope. He sighed, stooping to pick it up. Barely giving it a second glance, he went to shove it back in the detective's pocket but stopped. There was something strange about it .There was a red wax seal on the back of the envelope, broken. It was strange, not primarily because no one does that anymore, but the fact the wax seemed to carry Sherlock's initials. 'SH'. John removed the envelope from the pocket. He turned it over in his hands. His friends name was scratched on the front. Not his full name, just 'Sherlock'. …A note then? It was written in black ink but it was quite smudged. The entire envelope was blotted sporadically with discoloured spots. It was like when you received the post on a rainy day.

'What are you doing?'

John's jumped, turning at the sound of a baritone voice. His hand flew behind his back. 'Nothing,' He looked about the floor, silently stuffing the note into his back trouser pocket. 'Just a bit of tidying up…'

Sherlock stood before him, looking him up and down, with what was almost scrutiny. John held his breath, an uneasy smile plastered on his face. 'You okay?' he said brightly, trying to throw the detective's suspicious glare.

'Fine…' He muttered eventually, seemingly unfazed by the doctor's behaviour, or rather, seemingly uncaring. He walked to the opposite side of the kitchen, from which the doctor was standing, flicking the kettle on. The doctor watched as the detective reached into the cupboard at his head pulling a mug and setting it down on the counter, hand reaching back for another one.

'No, I'll do that!' John suddenly chirped, quickly jumping towards his flatmate. He pushed away the detective's outstretched fingers, pulling the cup out for himself. 'Why don't you go and sit down?'

Sherlock pulled away, looking narrowly at a John with cynical incertitude. John thought his friend was going to argue or inquire what was going on, why he acting so funny, but, to his relief however, the detective dropped his gaze and did as he said, silently stalking from the room. John let out a pent up breath, throwing his eyes to the celling at if to thank some spectral being for deterring his flatmate.

The doctor tried to change the tone of the convocation, steer the detective away from the moments before. He called over his shoulder as he threw a powdery tea bag in each of the mugs. 'Still really light out. It's quite nice really, don't you think?' John looked across the room. Sherlock stood at his desk, leafing through an open folder, seemingly disconnected with what was going on around him. John turned back with an amused smile. 'Winter will come soon.' He continued. 'Everyone will be in hats and gloves, complaining about the cold.'

All this earnt him was a short, devoid hum. Acknowledgement or agreement? He couldn't tell. ''I think it's just a British thing, complaining about the weather. We've little else to talk about.'

No reply again. The doctor frowned.

'Sherlock!' he called loudly, hoping this would incur more of the detective's attention. 'I-er- don't suppose you fell of your bike when you were a kid, did you?' His tone was light, casual. He didn't want the question to sound quite as probing as it was. Maybe now wasn't the time to be asking. He looked over his shoulder again to see Sherlock's crystal blue eyes staring at him from across the room.

'No.' The detective said scrupulously. 'Why do you ask?'

'No reason.' He smiled turning back to the cups. John could tell just by the tone of his voice that Sherlock was squinting at him. He needed to play it cool. 'I just wondered as you broke you're wrist an all. It would explain why it snapped so easily. But it doesn't matter.' The doctor waited a moment to see whether Sherlock was going to take the comment any further but he didn't.

The detective's attention pre-occupied, John decided to pull the crumpled envelope from his back pocket, glancing over at his friend once more before laying it out on the counter top. He pulled the contents out, unfolding it before him. It was a letter.

'Dearest William,'

William?

'I glad to see you found my note. I had no doubt that you would. Bright as ever. Built yourself quite the pretty little reputation now, haven't you. I would go as far as to say I'm proud.

I do hope that you weren't too cut up by your little surprise.'

Surprise? What the fuck was this? Is this what had Sherlock acting so strangely?

John's examining, grey eyes flickered at increasing speed across the letters lining the page. How did the person know Sherlock or Mycroft for that matter?

'…Don't blame yourself, by the way. You and I both know he had it coming for a long time.

Yours, always…'

John looked over at his flatmate again, brow furrowed in concern. He looked back to the letter. The writing was very scrawl-ish. John would have guessed it was a man's; someone older perhaps? By the quality of the paper, someone well off or in a place of status. Or at least that seemed a reasonable assumption…

Wow. Molly was right; Sherlock's skills really beginning to rub off on him.

The doctor's fingers tentatively traced over the parchment. Some of the ends of words were smudged. It made the letter hard to read but it was still legible. The ink stained the page in strings, running downwards. Rain again? No, it couldn't have been. The blotches were too few and far between. Nowhere near as many as on the envelope.

Oh, God…

John suddenly felt a sickening weight in his stomach.

Sherlock had been crying when he read this…

A sudden fear seizing his chest, the doctor quickly stashed the letter back in his pocket, fixing up the tea before Sherlock came back. He carried the cups into the living room, smiling, hopefully absent minded at his flatmate. Sherlock gratefully took a steaming mug from his hands, sipping it gently as he settled down into his battered armchair.

'I thought we'd get takeaway tonight.' John voiced casually, trying not to think about what he'd just read. 'Takeaway and shit telly. What you think?'

'I don't eat while I'm on a case.'

'You don't sleep either.' John said, setting his mug on the table. 'I thought today was going to be an exception to this too.'

'It slows me down. You know this.'

'Sherlock today is Sunday. You picked up the case on Thursday. You're breaching the three day rule. You're eating.'

The detective sighed, throwing his head back exasperatedly. 'If someone else gets murdered because I was forced to eat some fried rice, I'm blaming you.'

…

With some gentle, and then some more forceful, persuasion, Sherlock eats some Chinese food; the pair of them sitting in their cosy, dim-lit living room watching crappy film after crappy film into the late hours of the night. They had dragged the sofa across the room so they could see the TV better and this is where they both now laid. John was slumped on one half, Sherlock curled on the other. John scrubbed a hand across his face look at his watch as the credits of Star Wars swept upwards in a sing of triumphant music. 12:30 am…Too late as usual.

'I don't know about you, Sherlock,' John sighed, 'but I'm going to bed. I, unlike you, am not a hyper intelligent mega-being that can stay up for 72 hours straight.' Turning the telly off, the doctor went to move but stopped noticing a weight shift on his shoulder. He looked down to see Sherlock's curl-leaded head resting against him. 'Sherlock, mate, it's time for bed.' John shook his friend gently. 'Sherlock…?' No response. The ex-solider rolled his eyes amusedly. He slid out from beneath the detective, gently lowering him across the sofa before walking across the room, picking the blanket up off the top of his armchair. He returned to his friend's side, draping the material over him. He pushed the detective's hair from his face, smoothing it behind his ear with an affectionate smile. 'Good night, Sleepyhead.' He adjusted the blanket once more before retreating upstairs to his own room, changing into his pyjamas and falling weightily into the bed.

…

The doctor had barley been able to settle into a dream, when he was awoken by a horse whisper. One he thought he recognised. He opened his eyes but was only met by blackness. 'Sherlock..?' John propped himself up awkwardly on his elbows. He groped blindly in the darkness for his lamp on his bedside table.

'No. It's Greg.' came a whispered reply.

'Greg?' John said confusedly. Maybe he was still asleep. His hand finally found the light switch. He clicked it, flinching away from the sudden assault of brightness. Blinking away the spots from of his eyes, John looked up to the doorway and indeed before him was the Scotland Yard Inspector, exhausted and scruffy looking. He looked as if he'd been in a fight. His salt and pepper hair was tousled and one side of his face was glowing as if he had been slapped.

John sat up. 'Greg, are you alright?!'

'Yeah, sorry, I know it's really late. But I need to talk to you.'

'What's happened? Is everything okay?'

'Yeah, yeah, it's just-Sherlock?'

'Is he okay?' The surprise and intrigue in John's voice was suddenly replaced with that of concern.

'Yes. Well sort of. When I came upstairs he seemed to be having a nightmare or something.'

'A nightmare?!' John moving to get out of bed, but the inspector waved at him.

'No, no, don't panic. It's fine. I woke him up, gave him a hot drink to calm him down a bit. He's gone back to bed now.'

John visibly relaxed. 'What was it about?'

'I don't know. He just said 'stupid, unimportant things'.'

'But he's okay, yeah?'

'Yeah…' The word died at his lips. 'Well, I don't know…That's why I came to talk to you.'

…

'He did what?!'

'Shhhhh! You'll wake him up!'

'He did what?!' John repeated, more quietly this time.

The pair were now sitting opposite one another at the kitchen table, cradling mugs of steaming coffee in their hands. It was silent, eerily so. The only exception to this was the persistent buzz of electricity; the flat sunken in darkness only lit by the harsh florescent tube that hovered at their ears. The doctor, in striped pyjamas bottoms and a long sleeved top, was leaning over the table at the fatigued, suited Inspector.

'I know. I didn't believe it when I was first told.'

'No. You must be mistaken. Your team must have got it wrong.'

'John-'

'Sherlock would not lie about evidence!'

'Well, something's gone wrong somewhere because there are inconsistences in what Sherlock said and what forensics show.'

'Is that why you hung up on me the other day?'

'I'm sorry, I didn't what you to hear. Anderson came bursting into my office shouting about it. I wanted to find out how much truth was in Donovan's and Smith's accusation before I said anything. I wasn't expecting any of it to be but… it doesn't match, John.'

John lent backwards running a hand through his hair.

'It must have been accidental. He was hugely distressed that night, you saw. He wasn't thinking straight.'

'That's what I thought but signs show it was deliberate. Nearly everything matches but when it comes to the age…It's wrong.'

'Age is an easy thing to get wrong.' John protested.

'Yeah… But by 30 years?'

John sat in silence. Thirty years! How could he argue that? Sherlock wouldn't make a mistake like that; the leap is way too big. 'Why would he do that?' John said eventually.

'That's why I came to you.'

'Why would I know anything?'

'Because he's your best friend.'

'That doesn't mean he tells me anything. He's Sherlock. You know what he's…' John sighed. 'There was one thing I found today.'

'Found?' Greg questioned. 'What do you mean found?'

'I'll go and get it.'

The doctor got up from the table, walking from the room. A minute later he returned, white blotted envelope in hand. 'This fell out of his coat pocket earlier. I-I don't know what to make of it.' He slid the paper across the table to the Inspector. He frowned. 'Who's William?

'Sherlock.'

'I- don't understand.'

'Sherlock….William, that's his real name. Sherlock's his middle name.'

'Really…? I never knew that…'

The way he said it made me think he was disappointed in himself. Or maybe hurt in some way.

His eyes continued to flicker across the page for the next few minutes until, with a weighty sigh, he set the paper down. 'When did he get this?'

John's eyes cast downwards for a moment. He shook his head. 'I don't know.'

'The envelope is quite heavily blotched. When was the late time it rained?'

'Umm… Wednesday night, I think.'

'When we were at the crime scene…' Greg finished.

'You think he stole this from the scene?'

'I'm thinking it's a possibility. In which case, he's digging himself quite a hole, John.'

'But if that's true, that he got this from the crime scene, then it was left there intentionally. Someone left it for him, knowing he'd be called to help.'

'John, there's something else you need to know…'

John suddenly sat up straight. What? What else? What could be worse than this?

'I… I got a DNA done on the body.' The Inspector continued. 'It's the same, the same strand.

'What?'

'It really was his brother, John. He wasn't having a having a funny turn. His dead brother really was on the floor in front of him. '

John's hand came to his mouth. 'Jesus…' He looked down the corridor towards his flatmates room. 'I didn't even know he had another brother…'

There it was again; that tone. - Uncertainty of truth or failure …?

'No wonder he's been so up and down, lashing out!' said the doctor. 'He's scaring me, Greg! His bloody arm and now this! Why is he not telling me anything?!'

'Wait, wait, wait.'

'What?'

'Arm?' The detective's tone had an upwards inflection… He didn't know.

'Yeah, his left arm. Didn't you see earlier?'

'No.'

'His wrist, it's bloody broken and he didn't even bother telling me, his doctor and he supposed best sodding friend.'

'What?! 'Why didn't he tell you?'

'I don't know! It wasn't the fact he didn't show me that's clawing at me, though. - He was purposely hiding it from me, Greg.'

'How did it happen?

'He says he fell over, but-'

'But you don't think so?'

'I can't be sure but…'

'But what…? Greg hesitated, not sure he actually wanted to hear what was coming next.

'The bruising, and, the angle, it just- it doesn't',' the doctor sighed. 'I think was inflicted.'

Lestrade let out a pent up breath but said nothing.

'I've seen it before in things like domestic violence. His wrist shouldn't have broken, Greg. He doesn't weigh enough.'

Greg sat up with a shuffle of his shoulders, crossing his arms across his chest. 'Have you called Mycroft?'

'Yes, but he said that the situation was wholly possible because Sherlock had broken his wrist before as a child, falling off his bike or something.'

'And?'

'And I asked Sherlock the same thing-'

'-And he said no.' The inspector finished.

'And he said no.' John confirmed.

'Do you think Mycroft is lying…?' Greg said after a moment.

'I don't know but someone is and I doubt Sherlock would lie about something so petty -Wait!' John started.

'What?' Greg almost jumped at John's sudden energy.

'A message.'

'What message?'

'He said at the crime scene the ribbon was a message. That whole scene had been set up just to get his attention. This letter,' John picked up the paper, shaking it at Lestrade. 'It must be from the murderer.'

'Well then get your sodding hands off of it!' Greg said, snatching it from the doctor's fingers. I don't need you in trouble 'n' all.'

'Greg, what the hell is going on?! Why would Sherlock find this letter and not tell us?!'

'I don't know. Maybe he's trying to protect someone?'

'Who?! Mycroft? He hardly needs protecting he has a personal security team at his fingertips.'

'The murderer then.' the Inspector shrugged.

'Why would want to protect someone who's just killed his brother, Greg? This is making any sense!'

'I know!' He shouted, equally as frustrated as John. 'I know…' He said again, whispering, remembering the detective was still asleep just down the hall. 'But we need to find out who did this, John, and why Sherlock Holmes is lying to us…'

REVIEW? I'm still a bit stuck for the next chapter. Any ideas? x