I didn't want to think about anything- the game, the man I'd grown up with sleeping in the room beside mine, the two Londoners a few miles away fretting over newfound wings, the Americans scrambling to respond to the anonymous tip. I didn't even want to think of Detective Inspector Lestrade, an ocean away, struggling without his consulting detective.

Empty and gray. I lie awake for a long time, thinking nothing, hardly breathing.

SH SH SH SH SH SH SH SH SH

"I have wings!" John shouted, throwing his hands up, sitting at the kitchen table. He was sitting in a chair sideways- after struggling for three whole minutes to sit normally with his fresh muscles, he'd given up and turned it so the back was to his left side. Sherlock was sitting in a chair (backwards, so he could rest his hands on the back and his chin on them) looking meditative. Harry was pacing in front of the counter.

"Obviously."

"Wings, Sherlock. Great, big, bloody wings, and you tell me to calm down and have some toast?!"

"That's what you normally do in the morning. I assumed that a familiar, normal ritual would help calm you," Sherlock said loftily.

"It's going to take a hell of a lot more than breakfast to calm me down."

"I suggested toast, not breakfast. Breakfast would include your morning coffee, and with your stress levels so elevated already, coffee would only serve to raise your blood pressure even higher and give you severe health problems."

"Both of you shut up," Harry snapped, slapping a hand on the table, palm down, with a bang. Both men jumped slightly and looked at her. "John eat some toast. I'm not making it for you. Sherlock, why don't you make some for all of us? I need some or I'm going to have an ulcer." She looked at him for a moment, chewing on the inside of her lip, and turned to John. Her eyes flickered to his wings for a moment, but she drew up her resolve and stared resolutely at his face instead. "Is he even safe to be using a toaster?"

"Yes," John said.

"Of course I am," Sherlock grumbled, getting up and going to the counter. John hid a grin- Harry had asked that not just to make sure he wasn't going to burn her house down, but to also display a hint of doubt, which would make sure Sherlock made toast, if only to prove her wrong. Clever girl.

"Now, what are our priorities? This Jim guy, what do you think his next move will be?"

"Not sure. Trying to predict his actions don't work," Sherlock said.

"I got a nice new jacket of Semtex last time we tried," John grumbled. Harry blinked, but to her credit, didn't ask.

"Okay… so why do you think he was so obvious this time? He left the needles, and woke us all up before leaving. He wanted us to know it was him, and left everything here to be analyzed or whatever. No attempt at subtlety," she reasoned.

"Not sure," Sherlock said again.

"Take a guess," she said with exasperation.

"I'd say he's done with this part of the plan. Something is going to happen next, maybe soon, that is bigger than this-,"

"Bigger than this?" John snorted, wiggling his wings uncoordinatedly.

"-that will take attention off John's wings. So they don't matter anymore."

"Should I be concerned?" Harry asked slowly.

"I don't know," he replied carelessly, removing the toasted bread and artfully spreading jam on it (if jam can be artfully spread). He stacked the pieces and put them in the middle of the table, and they were all quiet for a moment, munching thoughtfully.

"Why don't we sleep on it?" John suggested, rubbing his face tiredly and frowning at the empty plate.

"Why?" Sherlock asked bemusedly. "What a waste of time."

"Well, you can stay up, then. I'm going back to bed," John grumbled, standing, knocking a picture off the wall with one of his wings. He swore.

"Maybe you can help me with these first," he suggested sheepishly.

"Come here, and stand. No, back-to," Sherlock said curtly, turning him around and ducking under his wings so John was standing in front of him, back and wings facing him. Sherlock roughly grabbed one and began bending the joints.

"Feel what's bending, connect the nerves to the area. Wingtips, the arch of the top of your wings, connector joint," he explained as he folded and unfolded the wing for John.

"A little more gentle?" he barked, yelping when he tugged on one of his feathers. Sherlock frowned and eased up, moving the joints more slowly and moving to the other wing. He remembered how gentle Molly-

No. Not there. All of that was in a locked room in the dungeon of his mind palace. Buried.

After a minute of trial and error, John managed to fold them on his back and unfold them at will, though it took him longer than Sherlock liked to get them tucked through slits in a shirt Sherlock had tugged on him.

"You especially need to practice that. These must stay hidden, nobody can know. Imagine what would happen if the American… government… found out…" Sherlock stopped suddenly, a look of realization spreading across his face as his sentence petered out.

"What?" John asked. "And yes, you have to spell it out for us."