"Trauma is hell on earth. Trauma resolved is a gift from the gods."
― Peter A. Levine

November 2013-March 2014

As it happened, decamping to Yorkshire turned out to be the best thing John could have done.

He spotted Sholto immediately among the few people waiting on the platform. It was the first time John had ever seen his former commander in civilian clothes, but James wore the crisply pressed khaki trousers and striped shirt with as much decorum as ever he wore his uniform. The severe scarring on the left side of his face, which John had been prepared to expect but had not yet seen, did not detract from his dignity an iota – John felt ashamed of his own tattered appearance, and wondered if he wore his own scar half as well.

The two men did not embrace one another, because that was not their way. Stepping down from the train, John immediately shifted his duffel to his left hand and snapped a salute with his right, which Sholto flawlessly returned. Technically they should not have done, as neither of them was in uniform, but for two men who had aspired to be career soldiers – the commander and his second – the impulse was more than automatic; it was a gesture of profound respect.

There was a beat of silence as they studied each other. The last time John had seen Sholto, he had been heading out on patrol; the last time Sholto had seen John, he had been unconscious after having been shot and was being prepped to be airlifted back to the UK.

Several mates declared John to be the "quintessential British soldier," but John felt he had nothing on Sholto. Remote, stoic, laconic…he did not need to shout when giving an order; it was clear by his very tone that, when he spoke, he expected to be obeyed (not that he wasn't capable of delivering a severe dressing down when he felt it necessary – John had been on the receiving end of one or two of these himself, and could testify to their blistering effectiveness). Bill Murray used to swear the man was a robot in disguise. Most of the guys were more than a little afraid of him, but John had always admired Sholto and never felt anything other than respect for the man. He could see in Sholto's pale blue eyes that the major took his heavy command responsibilities with the utmost seriousness; he was brave, honorable, competent, and utterly lacking in fear (apparently), and he had won John's loyalty easily.

"Watson," Sholto said now with a brief nod.

John straightened unconsciously. "Sir."

Neither man remarked that the other looked well as they beheld one another's scars for the first time. Lying wasn't something they condoned.

Sholto finally tore his eyes away from John's face and gave him a quick once-over. "Going a bit casual these days, aren't you, John?"

Anyone else would have found the tone slightly disapproving, but John knew him well enough to hear the faint undercurrent of good-natured teasing. He offered a small, rueful smile in return as he looked down at his own disheveled clothing.

"I don't usually go in for the street punk look," John admitted apologetically, "but I was trying not to be recognized."

Sholto nodded in understanding. "Well…it's late. Let's get home." He spun on his heel and strode out to the car park without looking back. John swiftly transferred the duffel to his right hand, hoisted it to his right shoulder, and automatically fell into step behind him, as naturally as though they had never been separated.

Major James Sholto (retired) lived in a charming three-bedroom stone farmhouse in what he described to John as "way out in the middle of nowhere." It was an apt description, John thought – the property Sholto had inherited from his grandmother was located in a small hamlet in the heart of the Yorkshire Dales National Park, five miles from the nearest village and fifteen from the nearest town with a train station. The major could have got a fair price for it had he been inclined to sell, but the remote place suited his reclusive nature down to the ground, and so he chose to live there instead.

It was too dark for John to get a good look at the exterior of the house or the surrounding countryside, but he could feel how open and unprotected it was, and not just from the strong wind that was blowing continuously. Sholto ushered John into the warm kitchen and prepared tea for them, which they drank standing at the worktable that Sholto had retiled himself. It was late when they finished, and the major showed John to his bedroom, a small but cozy space down the hall from his own. He watched John sling his duffel onto the bed, expressed his wish that he would be comfortable here, and bade him a good night.

"Well. I'm…glad you're here, Watson…John." Before John could respond, Sholto abruptly added, "Breakfast is at 0700," and turned on his heel.

"James, there's just one thing," John said quickly, before he could lose his nerve. Sholto paused and turned back toward him.

"I don't always sleep…well, peacefully, I guess you could say," John said hesitatingly. "That is…it was bad when I was first repatriated, then it got better, but lately–"

"I'll make a deal with you, John," Sholto cut in tersely, looking down the hall towards his own room. "Tomorrow at breakfast I'll pretend I didn't hear you screaming if you'll pretend you didn't hear me." He shifted his eyes to meet John's briefly. "Agreed?"

John looked into the other man's face and saw many of the same demons that haunted him.

"Agreed," he said quietly.

It was an agreement they honored to the letter. If John heard distressed cries from down the hall during the night, he made no mention of it at breakfast the next morning, only shooting his old commander a surreptitious, appraising look to assess potential signs of lingering trauma. If John himself woke after a restless night with raspy throat, burning eyes and sweaty, tangled bed sheets, Sholto would make no reference to it, merely giving him a quick once-over of his own and then offering him tea.

They ate together, they watched telly, they played cards. Sholto showed John the various do-it-yourself projects he was working on; he even began to teach John how to help him with some of the less delicate ones (where a twitchy left hand wouldn't matter). John took over the visiting nurse and physio therapist's duties…Sholto was hesitant to accept this assistance at first, disdaining it as charity, but at John's simple observation ("I'm your doctor") he gave in, and they fell into the habits of the past. On reasonably fine days, they began roaming the countryside together on foot, going farther and farther afield as their strength and spirits returned to them.

They did not speak of grief or pain. In fact, they did not speak much at all, both being rather reserved men. John supposed that Ella, his old therapist, would not have thought this quietude healthy, would have encouraged John to "get out" what he was feeling. If he had been staying with anyone else, he might have agreed with her, but with James Sholto John had what he could not have had with anyone else – someone who understood the wounds he carried inside because he carried many of the same or similar ones himself. They did not need to speak of them. They simply went about their days in silent support.

James was a taciturn person at the best of times, and when he immersed himself in such projects as retiling the bathroom or restoring a wood floor, John was left on his own. On such days he took long, solitary rambles, pushing himself out of his comfort zone with exposure to the wide open moors. It wasn't easy – for twenty-one months his outdoor time had been limited to walks in a walled-in exercise yard when the weather was decent, and on his earliest lonely excursions he felt pressed down and vulnerable beneath the vast expanse of sky. As the weeks passed, however, he slowly became re-accustomed to freedom, and the feelings of panic and anxiety slowly began to fade, haunting him only in his sleep.

It was a strange way of life for someone like him, John reflected. Mike Stamford had not been off the mark when he had declared that John couldn't bear to live anywhere other than London, with its bustle and energy, and this slow existence was at a distinct variance with everything John had ever sought out for himself. Not since he had first been well enough to get around on his own after being invalided home from Afghanistan had he found himself at such loose ends, but now there was an open, flexible structure to his days: physiotherapy with James, long runs along the country roads, writing in his journal (for he had become accustomed to writing down his thoughts in his blog, and in prison he had had to use paper and pen). He spoke with Mrs. Hudson on the phone every other day, and with Greg once a week.

Greg had been a bit upset with him at first – justifiably so, John thought a little guiltily, for John had not told the DI he was leaving and simply left a note on the table in the kitchen area, fleeing London like one pursued. Naturally, Greg had been worried and a little hurt, but John went to some pains to apologize, and in the end the DI had understood.

The question John got from everyone, of course – Lestrade, Harry, Mike – was "when are you returning to London?" As time went on, it morphed into "will you return to London?" That was an easier question for John to answer – yes – but he could not say when. When Mrs. Hudson asked, plaintively and more specifically, how long he planned to be away, John told her without thinking, "As long as it takes."

"As long as it takes to do what, love?"

John had not answered her, but he knew – he would be gone for as long as it took to heal his spirit. The first time it had shattered – after the army – his beloved London had increased his sense of isolation because he had been existing in a busy hive of activity in which he had no part; it was as though he was looking at the world from within a tank of water, alone, sight and hearing distorted. Then, it had been Sherlock who had reached through and pulled him back into the land of the living. In prison, it had been Joseph Bell. Now, James Sholto's strong but silent presence and the quiet, slow-moving countryside eased John's internal bewilderment and gave him the space he needed to sort out what he was feeling and figure out how to cope with the enormous changes in his life. It was a time of healing – of convalescence.

Neither Mrs. Hudson nor Lestrade avoided the topic of Sherlock. It wasn't that they urged John to talk about him or tried to get him to speak to him; it was simply that they themselves did not shy away from mentioning him. During phone calls, Mrs. Hudson would observe in passing that Sherlock was as untidy as ever, kept appalling things in the fridge and often forgot to eat. Greg would talk about cases Sherlock helped to crack in emails, mentioning that he sometimes brought along a hapless Molly Hooper to assist but then would call her "John."

During his conversations with Mrs. Hudson, John would listen politely and not try to change the subject, but neither would he comment. When emailing Greg, he refrained from mentioning Sherlock at all, though he didn't ask Greg not to mention him. John didn't want to talk about Sherlock, but – he admitted it to himself – he did want to hear about him.

Because he missed him – he missed that bastard terribly. John was angry with himself about that, but he couldn't help it.

He also didn't understand it. For years, now, John had thought of Sherlock Holmes as his best friend – the term might seem childish to some, but it was common enough among military men. On his solitary walks across the moors, on his long runs when he left his iPod behind, while sitting at the writing desk in his room, his journal before him, his eyes on the distant rolling hills through the window, John pondered long and hard about why he felt that way about Sherlock. Sherlock was rude and selfish and abrasive. He had insulted John habitually, forgotten and left him behind routinely; hell, he had even experimented on him without asking permission or even giving him warning. And that wasn't even factoring in the whole faking-his-death-and-leaving-John-in-the-dark-for-two-years thing.

I must be mental, John thought ruefully during one of his early morning runs. Either that or I'm a masochist.

His time in prison had given John a new appreciation for the people in his life. Lestrade and Mrs. Hudson had both grown dearer and dearer to him, and he was fully aware that both had gone above and beyond the call of duty in their support of him over these past two years, and that he owed them a debt of gratitude that could never be repaid. Mike Stamford didn't have an unkind bone in his body; what he did have was a huge heart, and John knew Mike would give him the shirt off his back without hesitating if he asked for it. Joseph Bell had quickly become like a father to John (the kind of father he'd never had), and John literally did not know how he would have managed those long, lonely months in prison without Bell bolstering him up (indeed, the elderly doctor's death last June of a heart attack had plunged John into another black depression).

Any one of these people was vastly superior "best friend" material than Sherlock Holmes, surely, and yet…and yet, John had, in Mycroft's own words, "decided to trust Sherlock Holmes, of all people."

John was naturally a wary, mistrustful person – he'd been let down too many times not to be. He tried to tell himself that what he felt for Sherlock had merely been interest in his work, and attraction for the fast-paced life he lived, and gratitude to him for pulling John out of the downward spiral he had been caught in after his injury and medical discharge. But deep down, John knew it was more than that...perhaps it had all been on his side, but there had been a kinship there, a connection that he could not deny. He felt a responsibility for Sherlock, and an affection for him that he might have felt for a brother had he had one. More than a brother – a mirror twin. It was not something John could define, but neither was it something he could deny. Sherlock could be a right bastard, but John felt a magnetic pull towards him that was less like a moth to a flame (a destructive image) and more like two drops of water merging together. At the moment, he hated it.

It was unanswerable.

On a rare sunny morning about eight weeks after his arrival in Yorkshire, John sat down to check his email and found a message from sh at thescienceofdeduction .co . uk.

He stared at the "from" field a moment, his stomach twisting in sudden anxiety, suspicion, and anger. Had Mrs. Hudson or Greg given Sherlock his email address? He dismissed the thought at once, ashamed of his mistrust...he knew very well that the sneaky prat was perfectly capable of figuring out John's email address for himself.

John stared at the message for many minutes, debating with himself whether or not to just delete the thing unopened. There was nothing in the subject line. What could the email possibly contain? An apology? Unlikely. An explanation? Perhaps. A myriad of emotions swirled within his breast – anger, sorrow, pain, wistfulness.

Finally, he clicked on the message (there really was never any chance that he wouldn't).

"Reggie Brunton came to see me at Baker Street a week ago; he and I had been at university together. I remember that more than once he expressed a keen interest in my methods of observation and inference. It promised to be a tedious visit – a dull past acquaintance looking to capitalize on my recent notoriety and satisfy a private morbid curiosity by presuming upon an association that was not at all close. It took me some time to remember him at all, and I was about to usher him out (I was in the middle of an experiment) when he began to describe for me the decrepit country house he had bought on auction from the distant relatives of the aristocratic family that had once owned it, the Musgraves. The place was overrun with the detritus of several centuries, and Reggie had brought along an old family document he had found containing what he thought was a nonsensical family ritual dating back to the 17th Century, written in verse-form, thus:

'Whose was it?'
'His who is gone.'
'Who shall have it?'
'He who will come.'
'What was the month?'
'The sixth from the first.'
'Where was the sun?'
'Over the oak.'
'Where was the shadow?'
'Under the elm.'
'How was it stepped?'
'North by ten and by ten, east by five and by five, south by two and by two, west by one and by one, and so under.'
'What shall we give for it?'
'All that is ours.'
'Why should we give it?'
'For the sake of the trust.'

"Reggie found it a meaningless, absurd sort of riddle, but I recognized it at once for what it was: a set of instructions for finding something. Intrigued (and bored, as there was nothing on with the Yard at that point), I accompanied Reggie back to the estate. Ascertaining the height of the oak, which was still standing, and the position of the elm, which was now gone, I performed a few calculations and paced out the route to a boarded-up wine cellar underneath the house. I was momentarily perplexed until I remembered the last instruction: "and so under". There was a hollowed out chamber under where I was standing, as old as the house itself. Finding a stone slab with an iron ring in it concealed under a pile of scrap wood and straw, Reggie and I, along with his brother and a friend, managed to lift the slab off the hole that it was covering, and inside, we found a rotting chest in which was stored a pile of mangled, rusty bits of metal and colored stones. Upon closer inspection, it became apparent that the metal was gold and the stones gems. It happened that it was no less than King Charles I's gold crown, being kept for his successor (who, as it turned out, was Charles II). The ritual had been a guide to retrieving this historic symbol.

"Upon further research, Reggie found that one of the Musgraves, Sir Ralph Musgrave, had been a king's man. It was then easy for me to deduce that the original holder of the ritual had died before teaching his son about the ritual's significance. It had thus become nothing more than a quaint custom for more than 300 years.

All in all, not an uninteresting way to pass the time between murders."

John scrolled further down, but that was all. The email was not signed. There was no greeting of any kind, not even his name. It was as though Sherlock were continuing a conversation John hadn't realized he was a part of, or writing out a journal entry. He stared at the computer screen for a moment.

What the hell?

He rubbed his eyes and read through it again. The second reading did not clear up for him what motive Sherlock might have had for sending it. Did he expect John to post it on his old blog? (John checked; Sherlock had not posted it to his own web site.) Perhaps he was trying to entice John to come back and go out on cases with him again? Or maybe Sherlock had sent it to him by mistake.

Confused and irritated, John closed the email without replying. He did not, however, delete it.

A week later, another email arrived from Sherlock. Written in the same vein as the first (no greeting, no signature), this one recounted the case of a father who had sought Sherlock's help in the disappearance of his daughter. The young woman claimed to have a lucrative position with an advertising agency in the heart of London, but as it happened she had been funding her expensive lifestyle as a high-end prostitute. After her arrest, she had not come home, preferring to stay in prison under an assumed name rather than admit her true profession to her family.

It was an interesting and amusing story told in Sherlock's sardonic, impatient prose, and John found himself smiling before he remembered he was mad as hell at Sherlock Holmes and slammed the laptop shut.

When the third email arrived a fortnight after the second (this one recounting the suicide of a woman who tried to make her death look like murder and implicate the au pair who was having an affair with the "victim's" husband), John finally called Greg to see if he could shed any light on the situation.

"If he's trying to get me to come back and be his dog's body again, he can piss off," John grumbled, staring unseeingly through his bedroom window, holding the mobile to his ear. "I'm not biting."

"That might be part of it, John," Greg said slowly, "but I think…well, I think he misses you."

"Misses having me clean up his messes, making his tea, and handing him his phone, you mean."

"That's not fair, John." Greg sounded impatient now.

John was hurt.

"Isn't it, Greg?" he asked bitterly. "Because he sure as hell didn't seem to miss me those two years I was sitting on my arse in Frankland."

Greg sighed. "I know…I know, John-lad. I'm sorry." There was a long pause, then he said, slowly, "You know Sherlock better than anyone except maybe Mycroft, John, and to be honest I think you know him better even than his own brother. But this one thing I think maybe I do know better, because you're too close to it to see it – Sherlock got attached to you."

John laughed hollowly. "What, like a pet? Maybe Moriarty wasn't so far off the mark."

Greg sighed with frustration. "I don't know how to explain it, exactly, but…before you, I wasn't sure Sherlock Holmes was capable of friendship. I believe the great git does respect me in his own way – a little, anyway. But before you came along, he didn't even try to modify his behavior. And I never heard him laugh with someone the way he laughed with you."

John felt a pain in his chest at that. He missed laughing with Sherlock. James didn't have much of a sense of humor, and Greg was a good friend, but…Sherlock was the one he could let his guard down with and laugh, really laugh. When he had been in prison, John had begun to think he would never laugh like that again.

"He doesn't think the way we do…in many ways he's still a kid, deep down," Greg went on. "He did what he did to try to protect us. And don't think I'm defending him, but I think he stayed away because…because he thought it wouldn't matter to us all that much."

"Oh, come on, Greg–"

"I mean it," Greg insisted. "He's more fragile than we thought, in some ways. And he does miss you. I've heard him slip and call Molly by your name. And Mrs. Hudson says she hears him muttering to you when he's alone in the flat and doesn't think she can hear him. I wouldn't be surprised to find out he talked to you all the time he was away. I think that's what these case write-ups are…he missed talking to you, sharing stuff with you. He misses you, and he's trying to reach out, and he doesn't know how."

I miss him, too, John thought sadly. Out loud he said, wearily, "Well, what am I supposed to do about it?"

"That's up to you, mate. But whether you want to mend your friendship with him or not, you're going to have to face him sometime, for your own sanity if nothing else."

John was silent. He gazed out over the peaceful landscape; the swallows had flown away weeks ago, and now the rooks were bobbing along the ground, seeking grubs in the withered grass.

"Don't answer that now. Just think it over, yeah?" Greg said finally.

John smiled softly. "Thanks, Greg."

"Anytime." Lestrade paused, then added, hesitantly, "And one more thing, John…you getting out of London was a good thing, even though we all miss you. But…just make sure 'healing' doesn't turn into 'hiding,' yeah? Things are cooling down here, and you always have a place to stay when you need it."

John lay awake a long time that night, thinking about friendship and loyalty, laughter and betrayal, pride and forgiveness, and redemption. He thought about how facing death changes a man, and how facing death with someone else ineffably binds them together.

A week later, John returned from a three-hour morning hike across the moors to find Sholto in one of the outbuildings, carefully sanding down an antique table with a scrap of very fine-grained sandpaper. John stood in the doorway watching for a moment, noting, with his medical eye, how James used his badly damaged (but thankfully non-dominant) left hand to balance the leg of the heavy oak piece while he patiently smoothed the sculpted dowel with his right. John observed with satisfaction the improved range of motion the arm was displaying since they began working on the impaired limb in their joint physical therapy sessions.

He felt confident that James would be able to continue the exercises without him.

"Well, Captain, do I pass inspection?" James' dry, amused voice broke into John's thoughts, and he shifted his gaze from the arm to Sholto's pale eyes, alight with a mild, dry humor. John smiled unapologetically.

"You should ask your doctor."

"I am asking my doctor. I have a live-in one, you know."

"He says your hard work has been paying off."

"But I'm not likely to get full use of the arm back." There was no bitterness in Sholto's voice when he said this.

"Not likely, no," John said gently.

James straightened, set the sandpaper down on a nearby worktable, and stretched himself. He held his left arm out and studied the scarred hand dispassionately, as though it belonged to someone else.

"Never mind. I'm thankful I didn't lose it altogether," he said matter-of-factly. "I was trying to pull a crow out of a Rover that an insurgent had tossed an HE into the back of...instead of getting the kid out, I got this." He paused, then added softly. "Too bad...it would have been a good death."

John sighed a little. He understood about desiring a "good death." Though he had prayed for his salvation when he was wounded, there had been times during his recovery that he wished he had died of that wound. Dying while working to save somebody else, his trusted comrades near...it would have been a good death, yes.

James seemed far away. John was tempted to ask him about That Day, but he knew his old commander wouldn't appreciate such a personal question. So instead he said, "I was going to reheat some of that split pea soup for lunch...care for some?"

James started a little, blinked, looked up, and forced a smile. "Sounds good."

They walked back to the house together in a companionable silence.

Later, as they finished their lunch in the old-fashioned kitchen, James said, "It's been good having you here, John. I appreciate all you've done for me these past months. I hope you'll not be a stranger."

John put down his spoon and looked up in surprise. "Am I going somewhere?"

Sholto looked at him shrewdly. "Aren't you?"

John said back, blowing out a breath as he did so. He studied his friend for a moment, then smiled ruefully. "You know me too well."

Sholto smiled a little at that. "I never had a better second. When will you leave?"

"End of the week, I think," John replied. He paused, then added, "James...I can never thank you enough for this. These past months...well, I didn't realize how much I needed this time away. But–" he broke off.

"But," Sholto suggested, "you're ready to go home and face your demons...is that it?"

John nodded, relieved that he didn't need to explain further.

"I understand, John," Sholto said gently. He paused, then added, "Just so you know, you're always welcome here...whenever you need to come."

John looked at him in concern. "Will you be all right?"

"Thanks to you...yes," James answered honestly. "You're not the only one who's been...healing...these past few months. I think I'm ready to deal myself back into the game. Not sure exactly how, yet, but I have a few ideas."

"You'll keep me updated, I hope," John said. "And you're welcome to come stay with me whenever you like...once I've landed somewhere, of course."

Sholto nodded once, briskly, then stood. John stood with him, hesitated, then offered a sharp salute. Sholto paused, returned the salute, then – surprisingly – offered his right hand. John shook it briefly, then James gave him another nod and headed back outside.

John watched him from the window, then went up to the guest room. He had emails to send, phone calls to make, and packing to do.

He was going home.

In Sherlock's emails to John I alluded to (modernized) versions of cases detailed in the original ACD stories. Virtual chocolate to those who can figure out which ones!

As always, many thanks to hajimebassaidai for her Brit-picking skills.