Once again, my deepest gratitude to everyone who's reading and reviewing this story.
Sorry this has taken so long; I'm trying to do a bit of epilogue from every POV I've used in this story and jumping from one to the other is deeply confusing. I was halfway through Sally's bit before I realised her voice had turned into Lestrade and had to start again.
Not that it's an excuse or anything, but I've also been battling the great winter mucus monster, so I've been off my face on various cold medicines for the past week. While Christmas shopping. And babysitting. And not taking time off work because everyone else is on holiday.
But on the plus side, KylaRyan, your question is (finally) about to be answered…
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Epilogue I: Shock
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Gavin Lestrade made his way back down the stairs almost as fast as he'd climbed them, wishing there was some way to erase the last five minutes from his memory.
Of course he'd asked Mrs Hudson to phone him when Sherlock got home, to discuss their next move in the Moriarty case; because it was taken as read that Sherlock himself wouldn't. And when he finally got there after struggling through London's near-permanent gridlock to hear raised voices and sounds of a struggle followed by the loud thud of a body hitting the floorboards, of course he'd assumed the young detective was being attacked. He'd raced up the stairs, ready to take on the assailant like any good copper would… like any good man would...
I really should have remembered that this is Sherlock I'm dealing with and not charged in without knocking and seen Sherlock pinned to the carpet by John and looking very happy about it…
"Is everything all right, Inspector?" Mrs Hudson asked anxiously, sticking her head out of her door as he passed. "I heard an awful thump just now…"
"Err… yes, Mrs Hudson, everything's… fine. Better than fine, actually; John's back."
"Oh! That's wonderful news! Poor Sherlock's been such a wreck without him. I'll just nip up and see them; I've missed our little chats…"
"No!" He said, much too quickly. I refuse to let a nice old lady like Mrs Hudson see what I just did. "No; I um, think you should leave it for the morning. When I went in they were…" he cleared his throat awkwardly. "Getting reacquainted."
"Oh! I knew it!" She declared, clapping her hands triumphantly. "I knew they were just being bashful; a landlady can tell these things, you know." She dropped her voice to a knowing stage whisper. "Got an eyeful, did you?"
"More than I ever wanted to see," he replied, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly.
"That'll teach you to knock, dear. You look a bit peaky; would you like a cup of tea? My aunt always swore by it for anyone who's had a bit of a shock…"
"No, thanks, Mrs Hudson. I should be getting home, anyway; been working double shifts since all this started."
And, knowing Sherlock, I'm going to be working them for a lot longer just to catch up with the paperwork from this one… Especially with that memory distracting me…
Oh, god; I think I need to wash my eyeballs.
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Mycroft Holmes was very satisfied by the turn of events.
He received immediate notification from the twenty-four hour surveillance team when John Watson emerged from a black cab outside 221b Baker street, followed within minutes by the lanky form of his flatmate.
My calculations were evidently correct; Moriarty wants to play with Sherlock, not to destroy him. For the present, at least.
It seems that Doctor Watson has become essential to my brother; a shockingly unprecedented situation. He's never taken to someone quite like this before. And it also presents some new and unique difficulties. If John should die, or leave of his own will, Sherlock will be devastated. He could very easily return to his old habits of drug use and depression and overdose himself; accidentally or otherwise.
I suspect some intervention will be required to prevent him doing anything too unforgivable to drive the poor Doctor away… But not tonight; I don't want to intrude on their little reunion.
Sherlock wasn't present when Mycroft arrived at eight am the following morning, although there were a number of subtle clues that suggested he intended to return soon. Not least the fact that he had neither hailed a cab nor attempted to shake off his surveillance detail. Holmes the Elder was therefore waiting comfortably in Sherlock's somewhat battered leather armchair when his brother stepped through the door with a Tesco carrier bag in his hand.
"My, my, Sherlock. Domesticated at last," Mycroft said slyly, with that smile all older siblings perfect in order to embarrass the younger to maximum effect.
"What the hell do you want, Mycroft?" He demanded, depositing the bag in the small available space between experiments on the kitchen table. He did not, however, forget to keep his voice down and thus avoided waking John. Coming from Sherlock, the very height of consideration. How interesting. Could it be that he feels… guilty?
"You needn't worry about your friend Doctor Watson, Sherlock; he's sleeping quite peacefully. I don't anticipate him waking for another half-hour at least."
"You'll forgive me if I don't take your word for it." Sherlock peered silently into his bedroom for a few seconds to deduce where John was in his sleep cycle. When he emerged, he looked unusually smug. "Ten to fifteen minutes, maximum," he stated.
"Indeed?" It always helps in these situations to let him think he's scored a point; eight to twelve minutes was my actual assessment, but he doesn't need to know that. "But then again, I suppose you must be more familiar with your flatmate's sleeping patterns than I."
"Tell me what you want and then get out, Mycroft," Sherlock snapped. "Haven't you interfered in my life enough lately?"
"Must there be something I want? Could I not simply be here to offer comfort to my younger brother and his friend after their terrible ordeal?"
The withering look Sherlock awarded that idea with was one of his best.
"Oh, dear, Sherlock; as Mummy used to say, one day the wind will change and your face will stick like that."
"Sherlock? John?" Mrs Hudson called up the stairs, her voice getting louder as she climbed. "Sherlock, love, was that you I heard? Tell me if I'm interrupting; I don't want a shock like that poor policeman got last night at my age…"
Mycroft raised an eyebrow at his brother. I did think Lestrade looked a little disturbed when he left last night; I assumed at the time it was merely John's reappearance that had shocked him. I wonder what precisely he saw…
The landlady poked her head cautiously around the still ajar door. "Oh; I didn't realise you had company, dear."
"He was just leaving," the younger brother said firmly.
"Now, Sherlock; remember your manners," Mycroft chided gently, with a rueful smile for the old lady. "Such a pleasure to see you again, Mrs Hudson. Sherlock was just telling me what wonderful care you've been taking of him since his illness."
She blushed with pleasure. "Oh, it's really nothing; I'm only his landlady, after all."
"A job description you have far exceeded. Brilliant as he is, my brother does need looking after."
"Don't you worry; between us, me and John will make sure Sherlock's properly taken care of. Having a lie in, is he?"
"He'll be up in a few minutes," Sherlock told her, never taking his eyes off his brother. "I'm certain he would appreciate some coffee."
"Well, just this once, dear; it's not every day you come back from the dead, after all. Can I get you boys anything while I'm here?"
"No, thank you, Mrs Hudson; I really must be getting to the office soon. I just wanted to pop in and tell John how glad I am that he survived this unpleasant incident unscathed."
"Unscathed?" Sherlock hissed. "He was poisoned, Mycroft; he's limping again, he's lost over twelve pounds, his bad shoulder is much worse than normal and the bruising on his chest alone will take weeks to fade…"
"But his heart is still beating, exactly where it's supposed to be, Sherlock. Compared to what could have been, Doctor John Watson is in remarkably good health." As opposed to the other John Watson, who is currently lying in St Bartholomew's morgue.
The glare the unspoken implication induced on Sherlock's face was a particularly fearsome one, which persisted throughout Mrs Hudson's putterings in the kitchen.
"Shall I take the coffee in to him, Sherlock, dear, or would you rather do that yourself?" She asked indulgently.
At that precise moment, John staggered out of Sherlock's bedroom, wrapped haphazardly in a dressing down several inches too long and much too tight for him, and limped in the direction of the bathroom.
Mycroft raised a perfectly calculated eyebrow and smiled that 'humiliate the younger sibling' smile again at the sight. Nine minutes; Sherlock will be annoyed to be incorrect. Although he is unusually unaffected by John's appropriation of his favourite dressing gown; he was always so possessive as a child.
"Just leave it near the kettle, Mrs Hudson," Sherlock informed her, his glare actually intensifying as it turned back to his brother.
Even the slightly batty landlady couldn't miss the sudden increase in tension in the room; although, of course, she misinterpreted it.
"Right you are, dear," she said, with a slightly nervous glance at Mycroft, as if she expected him to be shocked or discomforted by the emergence of a mostly asleep, half-dressed man from his brother's bedroom before eight thirty in the morning. "I'll leave you boys in peace; I'm just downstairs if you want anything."
Ah, the small mind of the average human being. As if it wasn't obvious that Sherlock hasn't so much as closed his eyes in at least forty eight hours; and certainly hasn't spent the night in any kind of intimate embrace with his long-suffering flatmate.
More's the pity; he could do with a hobby that doesn't involve corpses…
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The usual morning briefing on the progress of the Moriarty case, as they'd taken to calling it in the absence of one of John's quirky blog titles, tended to rile Sally Donovan into a veritable fire-breathing dragon. The news was never good; and the constant reminder of Sherlock's blatant deception, not to mention his effortless evasion of a richly deserved murder conviction, drove her to new heights of outraged irritation. In fact, she was beginning to remind herself uncomfortably of her mother.
And as if that wasn't enough, I have to watch everyone badger poor Keith because the forensics reports are taking so bloody long; it's not as if it's his fault there's a backlog and there was a paperwork mix up that put our case to the bottom of the pile. Besides, we're both so busy cleaning up the freak's mess we haven't managed so much as a snog for a fortnight…
Aware that she was staring at Anderson, and that she was sitting in a crowded room with a lot of coppers who'd spent time with Sherlock Holmes, Sally swiftly derailed that train of thought. She turned to attend to Lestrade, who was opening the briefing by calling out over the hubbub.
"All right, you lot; listen up. We have a development; and, for a change, it's a good one. John Watson has turned up alive and well."
The room rang with a cheer; smiles broke out all round. John's quiet, unassuming good nature, as well as his occasional ability to rein in the Great Consulting Detective, had quickly made him much more popular with the police than his eccentric flatmate.
Not that that's saying much; there are serial killers who are more popular around here than Sherlock Holmes. At least they don't keep turning up to insult us every week or so.
He's really alive… it worked, then. The freak murdered an innocent man to protect John; and I bet he hasn't even asked himself if it was worth it.
I hope this finally teaches John what he's been living with; maybe he'll actually listen to me and take up fishing… or at least move out of that flat before he really does get killed.
"The one in the morgue, or the freak's pet?" Donovan asked snidely, in an effort to remind them just what the cost of John's freedom had been.
"Doctor Watson, Donovan," Lestrade growled, "and he's coming in later today to give his statement. If anyone's blameless in all of this, it's him; so if he walks out of the interview, I'll have you buried in paperwork for a month."
"Me? Why am I the one taking his statement?"
"Because I've got to try and weasel one out of Sherlock; d'you really want to swap?"
Sally shut her mouth very quickly. I'll take the apprentice over the master any day.
"Did Watson escape, or did they let him go?" Hopkins, an earnest young DC who rather admired Sherlock, asked curiously.
"Don't know. Looked fairly healthy to me; but we'll have to ask him."
"You actually saw him? When? Where?" Donovan asked, sitting bolt upright. John's free and he didn't come straight to us? Doesn't he know what's happened? The freak can't have rubbed off on him this quickly, surely…
"I dropped by Baker Street on my way home last night," Lestrade replied, shiftily.
"And you didn't question him?" She asked incredulously.
"The poor bloke's been a hostage for a fortnight; have a bit of compassion. Besides, him and Sherlock were… busy." His hesitation over the last word sent her eyebrows shooting towards her hairline.
"Busy? Doing what?" Anderson asked. "They weren't murdering someone else, were they?" He sounded unusually keen on the idea.
"No, of course not!" Lestrade all but shouted. "Don't be thick, Anderson; d'you really think I'dve waited this long to tell anyone about a murder?"
"So what was so important? They certainly weren't shagging over the kitchen table."
Donovan pulled a face as the rest of the room sniggered. That's just not natural; Sherlock and sex, no matter who it's with, do not belong in the same dictionary, let alone the same sentence.
The smiles faded from the assorted coppers' faces as their DI coughed awkwardly, suddenly finding the floor very interesting.
"No…" Anderson trailed off. "You can't be serious…"
Sally had really thought that as a Detective Inspector of the Metropolitan Police who'd investigated more murders than most people ate hot dinners, not to mention the father of two teenage girls, her boss would have grown out of blushing like an adolescent. Apparently not.
Oh… my… god… Sherlock Holmes… urgh…Lestrade couldn't seem to make his mouth move to deny it. The silence was enough evidence for the collective minds of the fifteen other police officers in the room, who were, to a man, staring at him open-mouthed like baby birds waiting to be fed.
Anderson turned faintly green and stumbled into a chair, swallowing hard.
"You poor bastard," someone muttered.
"What they get up to in their own flat is absolutely not something we need to know, think or talk about, especially in the middle of a murder investigation," Lestrade declared firmly, his authority somewhat diminished by the fact his face was approximately the colour of a beetroot. "And definitely not anything I am going to describe in detail."
Another of the younger DCs called out. "Oh, come on, Sir; you can't drop a bombshell like that and not expand on it! Were they really doing it?"
"Shut it, Bradstreet; I don't want to know," said Anderson, looking distinctly nauseous.
"Was it something kinky?" Briggs chipped in. "I bet it was; Sherlock's got to be a bit perverted."
"And anyone willing to shack up with him isn't?" Donovan interjected caustically. "Please, at least tell me you didn't have to see them naked; because I think that's cause for some serious emotional counselling…"
"No I did not!" Lestrade denied hotly. "They were… kissing. In the living room. That's all."
There was a long pause as each of them tried to picture the cold, asexual self-professed sociopath known as Sherlock Holmes actually kissing someone.
That was a mental image I did not need; it's just too disturbing. I knew Watson had to be a bit mental to live with the man, but to actually sleep with him? That's an automatic straitjacket in my book.
It also means that Sherlock Holmes, possibly themost unsexy individual who ever lived, including Anne Widdecombe, is seeing more action than I am.
That's it. Tonight Keith is coming back to my place and his wife can think whatever she bloody well likes.
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Anyone from outside the UK who doesn't know who Anne Widdecombe is, trust me, you do not want to know.
I tried to research cannon police officers from the original stories, but in the end I got lazy and nicked them from the works of the excellent aragonite, who has written books on the subject so obviously knows more about it than I do. There's a link on my profile under favourite authors; have a click, it's well worth it.