Chapter 11-

Those Few Minutes

"How's the tea?" Sherlock asked jokingly as he entered the room.

"Positively crap!" followed the reply.

"Sherlock, listen, I'm really sorry I snapped at you the other day. Of course, I would be very overprotective of Harri; you know what I'm like. I'd do anything for family." He looked towards Sherlock as he sat down next to him once more.

"John."

"Yes… Sherlock, wait, are you okay? You look very pale!" John said as he placed his hand on Sherlock's forehead, checking his temperature.

"Yes, I'm fine. There's nothing wrong with me! I need to go the morgue this afternoon; Lestrade has got another case for me I can sense it." Sherlock said flustered and with that, he stood up and left the room just as quickly as he had entered it.

As Sherlock hailed a cab outside 221B to go to the morgue, a feeling crept over him, one he had never experienced before. Was it guilt? Was it fear or doubt? A feeling he had only experienced once before and definitely not to his liking. His phone buzzed in his pocket, already knowing it was Lestrade calling him to help out on a case. This would only be the third case that he had been offered to help the force out with since he faked his death, due to legal reasons and complications. In the end, it took John to apologize and sing Sherlock's praises to the Chief Superintendent (the one he had chinned before Sherlock's mysterious faked death) to reinstate the force's trust in them, and allow Sherlock to work on the cases again. His mind had been starting to 'rot' as Sherlock called it before he was accepted once more by some not so willing participants.

"Lestrade what is it now?" Sherlock questioned as he answered the phone.

"I've got a case for you, cast iron alibi, I know you like those. It all looks normal to us but then again, why would it be. We need you Sherlock."

"Meet me at the morgue and fill me in then."

"So you'll take the case?"

"A case with a cast iron alibi, of course! I wouldn't miss it for the world!" Sherlock ended the phone call but when he was just about to slide his phone back into his pocket, something made him think of Harri. Perhaps this would be the best way, he thought.

Sherlock spent the next few minutes sitting in the back of the London Cab choosing his words carefully. Something he rarely did. John would soon receive a text reading: 'Pre-conception would always be our downfall. With words of wisdom, come words of peril. It's what she wanted. –SH' and then again another few minutes later: 'It's mine-SH', trying in his own way to explain to John about the pregnancy. Sherlock found he was becoming rather fond of his own quotation as the cabbie pulled up out the front of Bart's and he made his way up to the mortuary.

Later that day, John decided to visit Mrs. Hudson downstairs. He felt so awful due to not paying his way for the rent that month and having Sherlock fund the whole bill that he thought it right to apologize. He had started emerging from his room slightly more often. He still wasn't himself. The deep circles under his eyes were more furrowed and dark than ever and he always seemed quiet. The pain in his shoulder had flared up again but he kept himself to himself. Walking through the living room, he noticed his phone on the side. It was fully charged. That man! He thought. John unplugged it and put it in his pocket.

"I'm fine." He said as his landlady fussed him over checking he was in fact 'fine'.

"No need to apologize lad, I was the same once… the husband you know, but then again, it was tears of joy. Ignore me John; I'm going off on one again aren't I?" But just then, John's phone vibrated in his pocket.

"Excuse me Mrs. Hudson." He said as he pulled the phone out and checked the message. It was from Sherlock.