John got the feeling it was hard to surprise Holmes, but when he was taken unawares, he reacted very quickly to it. For a moment he was frozen, then his eyes narrowed, flashing as he evaluated the potential threat in the surprise. His features relaxed somewhat when he realized there was no danger in the offer of tea from one of his employees but he remained slightly displeased, as though trying to evaluate John's ulterior motives.

Is it an ulterior motive to not want to be yelled at? John wondered. It seems like a pretty straightforward one to me.

"Yes, I believe that would be acceptable," Holmes said and John almost snorted, earning a cocked eyebrow for his effort to repress his sarcasm.

"You don't have to stay in your coat, you know," John sighed. "It's a bit warm in here for that, and I do have a coat rack on the wall. Make yourself at home, I'll be a few minutes."

Holmes nodded, rising from the couch and unwinding his scarf as John went into the kitchen, shaking his head. At least he'd diffused the situation somewhat so that Holmes was no longer livid even if he was still angry.

Well, justifiably so, John thought, as he filled the brand new electric kettle. Even in his world it probably wasn't common to have your psychopathic competitor hire your business partner's brother and then have one brother abduct the other. John wondered if there were any unwritten rules that had been broken, both with the abduction and the assassination.

He sighed.

Assassination, murder. Whichever. And here he was, making tea for a man who employed assassins as a matter of course.

John's own boss.

He pushed aside his regimental mug, shuffling it to the back of the cupboard and took out two other mugs purchased at the Oxfam shop because they were relatively new looking and serviceable. He didn't like using the regimental one without Jamie around – it made him feel vaguely guilty. It had been one of the things they'd shared in the halfway house, this utter befuddlement about being awarded a mug for one's service. Jamie hated his with a passion but would sometimes use it when John came around with his. But mostly for gin, not for tea.

John poured some milk into each mug and spooned in two sugars as well, popping in a tea bag. With the hum of the fridge and the sound of the water rattling in the kettle, he couldn't hear what Holmes was doing and wondered if maybe this were a bad thing.

He shook his head – presumably Holmes could take care of himself to some degree, since he'd made it this far as a successful criminal without getting himself killed. John just hoped that the other man wasn't snooping about and being nosey. John had nothing to be embarrassed about but he didn't fancy his criminal boss poking through his belongings. Or bugging his flat. Or Lord only knew what else.

He'd actually felt somewhat better, he realized, when he'd thought that Holmes and Mitchell were a couple. John couldn't quite put his finger on why. Perhaps because, despite his words about them having blown up half of London if they'd had a tiff, the idea of both of them floating around loose was a bit unnerving. Especially Holmes. John had liked the thought that someone could contain Sherlock Holmes.

He wondered if someone could contain Jim Moriarty.

Perhaps Holmes was doing so.

He sighed to himself. This was really not something he should be thinking about. He was a doctor; that was his job. Simple as that. John hoped if it ever came to blows between Holmes and Moriarty – or Holmes and anyone – that he would not be dragged into anything.

Maybe I'll quit once my year is up, he thought. Bound to be some good A&E jobs out there. Make less, but I'd live.

He unplugged the kettle when it clicked off, poured the boiling water into each mug, then pushed it back against the splashboards. John picked up the mugs, went back into the livingroom and stopped short.

Holmes was stretched on John's couch, on his back, eyes closed, hands in what John thought of a yoga pose, the tips of his middle fingers touching his chin lightly.

John hadn't considered his off-handed offer of "make yourself at home" to mean "please have a nap on my couch".

"Oh, no, I'm not sleeping," Holmes replied and John nearly jumped, fighting down the reaction through years of training – being very glad he could do so, since he was holding two steaming mugs of tea.

"Then what are you doing?" John asked carefully.

"Thinking."

"Thinking?"

"Yes, I find this position highly conducive to thought. I have the couch in my office for this very reason. I can relax all of my muscles, I need not brace myself against gravity but can work with it to enhance the relaxation, and I do not have to be concerned by increased blood flow to my lower extremities, which would draw oxygen away from my brain, or to my head, which would cause discomfort and light-headedness. Additionally, I am not putting undue stress on any particular muscle group by sitting in an uncomfortable position or slouching and I am not causing myself the subtle tension that invariably accompanies pacing. It's quite relaxing actually, Doctor. You should try it."

"Right," John said. "You still want your tea?"

"Oh yes. Just put it on the coffee table, will you?"

John hesitated, wondering if he should ask Mitchell next time he saw the younger man if Holmes was like this in Mitchell's flat as well. Given that he'd apparently broken in the previous day to nick Mitchell's Doctor Who DVDs, probably.

He put the mug on the table and settled into his armchair, stirring his tea gently and sipping it.

"And what are you thinking about?" he asked, feeling suddenly a bit like a therapist with Holmes stretched out on his couch.

"Whether or not I should kill Jim."

Nope, scratch that, not at all like therapy.

"Sorry?" John asked.

"I would quite like to wipe that self-satisfied little smirk off of his entirely unpleasant face, Doctor," Holmes replied, opening his eyes and sitting up in a smooth motion. He sipped his own tea, then looked around for somewhere to put the teabag.

"Oh, sorry," John said and fetched a small bowl from the kitchen, depositing his own teabag in there as well.

"It would be difficult to convince me that he had no knowledge of what Richard would do," Holmes continued, as though this were a normal conversation to be having with one's private physician. "Which leads me to believe, because it is Jim, that he had planned this since at least the day you met him in my office. However, I also strongly suspect he instructed Richard not to hurt Gabriel, at least not substantially. He enjoys these games, you see."

John thought he was beginning to see, yes.

"However, simply shooting him is rather out of the question. He's so rarely alone – never armed himself, of course, but always accompanied by a least one trained marksman. And even if I were to get him alone, the consequences following his death would be disastrous."

"How so?" John heard himself asking and cursed inwardly. He really didn't want to encourage this discussion.

Holmes looked up at him in surprise.

"He's a master criminal, Doctor. He has a vast network of people, some of whom are beyond even my knowledge. While I am certain that some of them would be pleased to have him removed and see an opportunity for advancement, others would be quiet irate at losing their boss and source of income."

"Ah," John said.

"Of course, it's the equal or greater threat that has kept Jim in line all these years, which leads me to suspect that he put some strict limits on Richard's interaction with Gabriel."

"What do you mean?" John asked.

"Come now, Doctor," Holmes said, sipping his tea, his grey eyes meeting John's. "You can't imagine if I am sitting here discussing how preferable it would be to have Jim removed that Jim has not had the same thoughts about me."

John stared at him for a moment.

"Half the city for a tiff indeed," he muttered under his breath.

"Oh, no," Holmes said in an assured voice.

"What?" John asked.

"If Jim were to kill me – or rather, to cause my death, since he himself would not do the actual deed – then my people would raze London to the ground looking for him. From this, there would be no escape, no game. And since the entirety of his existence is a constant search to alleviate boredom, he doesn't care about anything else. He has no means of being afraid. He's a psychopath. But he loathes boredom, Doctor. He craves his own definition of fun to keep the tediousness at bay. If my people were hunting him, there would be no game. Only the desperate need to survive."

John blinked, uncertain what to say or how to react. He settled on:

"Oh."

He was more than a little creeped out that Holmes could be discussing Jim Moriarty's psychopathic tendencies in such a casual voice, as though he were commenting on the weather. As though it were normal. Well, to him it probably was. John supposed it wasn't much different than the conversations he'd had with his fellow doctors and other soldiers back in Afghanistan, logistical discussions that would seem harsh and discomfiting to most people back in London.

"So, um, what are you going to do?" John asked, morbidly fascinated by this point.

"I haven't decided. It requires more thought than can be given in one morning over a single cup of tea. Pleasant as this is," he said, lifting his mug somewhat.

"I'm glad you like it," John said automatically, but found he really was glad. Why was that? Probably best to have his boss think well of him, he decided. It was a bit hard to see Holmes as a boss at the moment, relaxed in John's flat, sipping his tea, feet crossed on the coffee table without regard for the fact that his shoes were still on.

Making himself at home indeed.

"Tell me something, Doctor."

John nodded, but privately hoped that Holmes wasn't about to ask his opinion on what to do with Jim Moriarty, because he wasn't sure himself. Turn him over to the police? It seemed the best way, but John could imagine that a trial would be drawn out and complicated and that Jim probably had any number of expensive lawyers who would probably never even let him see the inside a courtroom.

"Do you enjoy living here?"

John started slightly at the sudden redirection of the conversation.

"Yes, of course," he replied quickly but with feeling. The flat was brilliant. In the week and a half that he'd been living there, it had already begun to feel like home and John could trace a path from his bedroom to the bathroom in the darkness, and find his way with minimum stumbling or fuss from his bedroom to the kitchen in the morning without bothering with lights. Every day he lived there, his leg seemed to feel better and stronger and he hadn't realized how horribly tied the phantom pain had been to where he'd been living previously.

"You don't miss your old residence?"

"Oh God, no," John said vehemently. "You saw it. Can you imagine someone would miss that?"

"Well yes," Holmes replied, nodding, his dark curls shifting around his face as he did so. He had quite good hair, John thought, and managed to strike that rare balance between dark hair and pale skin without having constantly visible five o'clock shadow on his face. The pale grey of his eyes only added to the stark contrast, then John wondered why he was even thinking about this. Who cared?

"But only if they were homeless, admittedly. I did have trouble believing that this flat was somehow inferior to the halfway house."

"Believe me, it's light years better than that."

Holmes smirked.

"An accurate use of the term 'light years', John, judging distance, not time."

John was startled by two things – the use of his first name, which he hadn't heard Holmes say by itself; he'd gotten rather used to just being referred to as "Doctor", and given Holmes' apparent devotion to the Doctor Who series, this was maybe not so unexpected.

He was also startled by the comment. Holmes was right, of course, but it seemed an odd thing to say. Although Holmes did strike John as someone who appreciated accuracy even in casual conversation.

"Bit of an astronomy buff, are you?" he asked.

Holmes actually grinned at him, a brief smile but a real one.

"A sometimes hobby," he said. "You would be surprised by the number of people who do not actually know that our Sun is itself a star. Failure of the education system all around, I feel, combined with a general lack of effort on the part of most people. But that's irrelevant to the conversation. In the past eleven days, you have returned to the halfway house four times, Doctor. The first time I assumed you'd forgot something, but your flat was not so big that you could have left that much behind. I surmise there is a reason that is not nostalgia, because you are unlikely to feel nostalgic for that place. So what is it?"

"Wait, how did you know I was going up there?" John asked.

"I've been following your movements," Holmes replied, as though this were entirely reasonable.

"What?" John demanded, feeling a flare of indignation. "Why?"

Holmes sipped his tea again, looking surprised.

"Because you are new in my employ, Doctor. Trust must be earned."

"And so you're having me followed?" John snapped.

"Of course."

John opened his mouth to retort something, then shut it again. Everywhere he'd gone? The furniture stores? The Oxfam shops? To get groceries? To a movie?

"Yes," Holmes said. "Also to ensure Jim was not paying you any undue attention."

John stared at him for a long moment, then gave his head a shake.

"Well if someone followed me up there then you must know why I went?"

Holmes shook his head, dark curls bouncing gently again.

"No, I had them follow you to your destinations, not monitor your activities. I do not need to satisfy myself that Jim isn't employing you clandestinely, John. I did so before even meeting you. Jim's network is extensive, but it seemed unlikely he was employing a former army doctor as a plant in hopes that I would hire you. He has much more direct means of contacting me, after all."

John nodded – he remembered the first one he witnessed quite well. Once he'd remembered it vividly in the middle of the night, snapping his eyes open, unable to shake the image of those mad gleaming eyes from his mind for a few minutes.

"So?" Holmes said, twitching his eyebrows up. "The purpose of the trips?"

John sighed, setting his nearly empty mug aside.

"Visiting a friend who's still up there," he replied.

"Ah," Holmes said, realization lighting his grey eyes. "I suspected as much. Who is he? Or she, I suppose – I don't wish to make any incorrect judgments."

"He," John replied. "His name is James McTavish – Jamie. He was in my unit in Afghanistan, one of the mechanics. Very good mechanic, very good man."

"He was injured." It wasn't a question, John noted, but a statement. How much had Holmes already found out? Was he asking just to see what John would tell him?

"The same day I was. There was an explosion – I don't know. I don't remember that bit. He was hit by shrapnel. In the throat. It severed the nerves that control his larynx, so he has vocal chord paralysis. It's like paralysis of the legs, same principle. So he can't speak. He almost died – he was lucky. But because he can't speak, he can't work."

"Surely fixing engines doesn't require talking to them," Holmes commented.

"It requires talking to the customers and other mechanics," John replied. "And since it's not exactly feasible to write everything down on a pad, he can't work, at least not in the field he trained in. So he still lives up there."

Holmes glanced at the staircase that led up to the spare bedroom.

"I've offered," John said before Holmes could point out that he had an extra room. "He won't."

"And why not?"

"He doesn't want the charity. That, at least, I understand. It's bad enough to live off the government, Mister Holmes, feeling like a beggar. Worse to live off a friend, knowing there is some obligation there, even if it's only one-sided."

Holmes frowned at his tea mug, drained the last of it, and set it aside.

"Can I say, for a military man, the formality doesn't suit you when it comes to civilians. You're a doctor after all – you should be the one insisting on the title, I think."

"What?" John asked, trying to keep up with yet another switch.

"Calling me 'Mister Holmes'. It has a strange ring coming from a doctor. None of the other doctors who have worked for me have called me that."

"What do they call you, then?"

Holmes gave him a puzzled look.

"Sherlock, of course," he said. "What else? It is my name, unusual though it may be."

"But – I'm also your employee."

"Yes, and a number of my employees call me Sherlock as well. Or 'boss' although I can't imagine you really using that word." He paused, tilting his head to one side, as though trying to picture John doing so. "No, no, it doesn't work."

"I'd – feel more comfortable with 'Mister Holmes', I think."

"I would not, and I am your boss as you pointed out. This friend of yours, is he any good at his job?"

John tried to switch tracks yet again.

"Um, yes, very good."

"Would you be displeased if I offered him not charity but a job?"

"You don't –" John started, cutting himself off before finishing with "have to do that for me", biting down hard on the words. Why for him? This wasn't about him, this was about Jamie. "Why would you have a mechanic?"

Holmes' eyebrows twitched upwards.

"The same reason I have a doctor, Doctor. People get sick. Vehicles break down. A mechanic is really a surgeon for cars, is he not? The same specialization in training, the same level of skill, the same need to understand a complex system of internal workings that can fail for any number of reasons."

John hesitated. He'd never thought of it that way, but Holmes was right.

"And I do have a lot of vehicles," Holmes continued. "Would he take it as charity, do you think? Or suspect you got him the job?"

"Didn't I?"

"Only tangentially. I'm always in the market for good mechanics, less so for physicians. In fact, I wish you'd mentioned this when I first met you."

"Ah, sorry. It's not like I knew."

"Quite right. How will he react, do you think?"

"Um –" John thought furiously, trying to work out how Jamie would react and how to get the other man to accept so he could get out of the halfway house and back to his life. "Would you let me make the offer in your place?"

Holmes looked surprised again, but thankfully didn't go through the whole range of suspicion this time.

"Do you believe that would work better?"

John nodded. He knew Jamie and Holmes didn't. Jamie wouldn't respond well to Holmes swanking in there and extending what would look like a pity job. But Jamie had convinced John to take this offer. John could convince Jamie to do the same.

"I was planning on going round this afternoon anyway," John said. "Mrs. Hudson has her bridge club, so she doesn't need me here. If you give me some details, I can tell him."

Holmes considered him levelly, then the corners of his lips twitched upward.

"Very well, Doctor," he said. "I will speak with my chief mechanic and ring you with the details. And I will send a car to take you up there at whatever time you choose."

John started to protest that he had more than enough money now to afford the ride, but Holmes held up one long-fingered hand, shaking his head, the expression on his face serious but not impatient.

"All things considered, Doctor, I'd very much prefer that those close to me are not travelling by cab right at the moment. Do this for my own peace of mind, will you?"

John hesitated, then nodded.

"Of course," he found himself replying. "If that's what you want."