21.

Sherlock stopped moving.

The door slammed open, John dropping the fire extinguisher he'd used to break the lock. Without a second thought, he strode across the room and wrapped an arm around Culverton's neck, both men stumbling away from the bed as Sherlock gasped for breath.

"What were you doing to him?" John demanded. "What were you doing?"

"He's in distress, I'm trying to help him!"

John hurled Culverton towards the police officer. "Restrain him now. Do it," he ordered, turning to Sherlock. "What was he doing to you?"

"Suffocating me, overdosing me," Sherlock said, breathless. He pointed towards the drip stand. "Saline." Propping himself up on his elbow, Sherlock reached for the panel on the side and held down the button to raise the head of the bed. "Obviously I got Nurse Cornish to switch the bags. She's a big fan, you know. Loves my blog."

"You're ok?" John asked.

"No, of course I'm not ok. Malnourished, double kidney failure, and frankly I've been off my tits for weeks. What kind of a doctor are you?" Sherlock sat up, then settled against the pillows. "I got my confession though, didn't I?"

"I don't recall making any confession," Culverton said. He pulled himself free from the police officers and took a step towards Sherlock, but John stopped him from getting too close. "What would I be confessing to?"

"You can listen to it later," Sherlock said.

"But there is no confession to listen to!" Culverton insisted. "Mr Holmes, I don't know if this is relevant, but we found three potential recording devices in the pockets of your cot. All your possessions were searched."

"Must be something comforting about the number three," Sherlock said softly. "People always give up after three."

He raised his gaze to John, wearing a slight smile as he waited. Realisation dawned on John; he sighed in exasperation.

"You cock," he said. "Utter, utter cock." John picked up the walking cane he'd dropped off earlier that evening, holding it up for Sherlock to see. Turning the top like he was told to, John pulled the handle and revealed a small recording device inside, the light glowing a bright red to indicate it was on. The light went off when John pulled the recording device out. "Two weeks ago?"

"Three."

"I'm that predictable?"

"No." Sherlock smiled. "I'm just a cock."

Elspeth woke up to the feeling of someone shaking her, rolling over and seeing Bill hovering over her with an uncertain expression on his face. When she opened her eyes, he relaxed, his shoulders slumping and the frown disappearing from his face.

"Thought you weren't gonna wake up. You feeling alright?" he asked.

Raising a hand, Elspeth rubbed her eyes and stared drowsily at Bill, her mind feeling fuzzy. The words were caught in her throat. She wanted to tell him that she felt relaxed and euphoric, like her worries and fears had been washed away, the weight gone from her shoulders. Her whole body was weighed down by an invisible force but she didn't feel like she was trapped. Elspeth felt like she was in the space between dreaming and waking, not quite lucid enough to distinguish reality from her thoughts. It was the most relaxed she had felt in years.

"I'm good," Elspeth said with a pleasant smile. "Really good. This stuff . . . it's amazing." She ran her hand down her face and sighed. "Sorry for punching you. I understand now."

Bill frowned. "Understand what?"

"Why you use this stuff. You're right, I didn't complain when you were giving it to me." Elspeth laughed. "I'm not complaining now either."

"Yeah, well, you gotta take it easy. The 'ighs are good, but the lows . . ." Bill's voice trailed off. He shook his head. "You don't wanna get low on this stuff, Els."

Elspeth shrugged. "So let's never get low."

"Els . . ."

"No one's noticed I'm gone," Elspeth said. She sat up and Bill shifted over so he was sitting on the mattress next to her, the two of them tucked away in the corner of the abandoned building. They were surrounded by strangers in similar, or worse, states, some of them barely stirring from their spots on the floor. No one asked questions. No one came looking for any of them. It was the perfect place to disappear. "I doubt they even care. I'm just . . . an inconvenience right now. No one notices me, no one listens to me." She blinked away the tears, drawing her knees closer to her chest. "It's like I've been erased from their lives."

"I wish you wouldn't do that," Bill muttered. Elspeth glanced at him. "Make me feel sorry for you. I can't say no to 'elping you out now, can I?"

"You're a good friend, Bill."

"You're only saying that 'cause I 'elp you get 'igh," Bill said. In his mind, he was doing her a favour by being the one who took care of her. Elspeth wasn't like the others in the room, not really, and he knew what he was doing. So in a way, Bill was making sure Elspeth didn't hurt herself, deliberately or by accident. "You absolutely sure about this?"

"You ask me that every time," Elspeth teased. She watched Bill carefully, her eyes following his every movement, taking in the concentration his face. She didn't know why he insisted on doing it all himself, thinking it couldn't be that difficult. "I'm sure."

She rolled up her sleeve, letting the warm sensation flood her once more. Laying back on the mattress, Elspeth closed her eyes. Bill watched her carefully for a few seconds, and when he was content she was alright for the meantime, he rolled his sleeve up also. A few minutes later, he lay next to her and gazed up at the ceiling, one arm behind his head.

"You doing ok, Els?"

Elspeth smiled. "Yeah," she said. "I'm amazing."

"I had, of course, several other backup plans. Trouble is, I couldn't remember what they were," Sherlock said, sitting in 221B with his dressing gown on over his clothes. The room was cleaner, all evidence of Culverton Smith removed, and it was almost like it had never been in a state of disrepair. "And, of course, I hadn't really anticipated that I'd hallucinated meeting his daughter." Behind him, Mary reminded John that Sherlock had only taken the drugs so John would help him. She wasn't there; not really. "Still a bit troubled by the daughter. Did seem very real, and she gave me information I couldn't have acquired elsewhere."

"But she was ever here?" John asked.

"Interesting, isn't it? I have theorised before that if one could attenuate to every available date stream in the world simultaneously, it would be possible to anticipate and deduce almost everything. Perhaps the drugs opened certain doors in my mind. I'm intrigued," Sherlock said.

"Speaking of daughters . . ." John's voice trailed off. They'd discovered Elspeth had gone missing from her hospital room when Sherlock was discharged, her SIM card snapped in half, but so far Sherlock had made no attempt in finding her.

"Oh yes, Rosie," Sherlock said. "Sorry, I wasn't thinking of Rosie . . . I can go twenty minutes without supervision." He forced a smile. Everyone was taking in turns to look after him, making sure he didn't take any more drugs. "I should see her soon. Shouldn't I?"

John was about to tell him it was Rosie he was concerned about, then decided it wasn't worth the effort. "Yeah, sure."

"Oh, by the way, the recordings will probably be inadmissible," Sherlock added. "Technically, it's entrapment so it might get thrown out as evidence. Not that it matters. Apparently he can't stop confessing." He laughed a little, then noticed John didn't share in his good humour. "Are you ok?"

"Uh . . . no, no, I'm not ok," John admitted. "I'm not ok. I'm never going to be ok, but we'll just have to accept that. It is what it is, and what it is . . . is shit." Sherlock didn't say anything; he simply nodded in understanding. John took in a deep breath, lowering his head before saying, "You didn't kill Mary. Mary died saving your life. It was her choice. No one made her do it. No one could ever make her do anything, but the point is, you did not kill her."

Sherlock lowered his head for a moment. He'd been waiting to hear those words since the day Mary died. "In saving my life, she conferred a value on it," he said, hesitating. "It is a currency I do not know how to spend."

"It is what it is," John said. Sherlock nodded. "Uh – I'm tomorrow, six to ten. I'll see you then." He turned to leave, but stopped dead on the landing at the sound of a text alert. A very familiar text alert. There was only one person who had a personalised text alert on Sherlock's phone, but it wasn't possible because Irene Adler had died years ago . . . or so John had been led to believe. Suddenly, John realised there was only reason Irene Adler – now apparently alive – could be texting Sherlock. "Happy birthday."

Sherlock blinked. "Thank you, John. That's . . . very kind of you."

"Never knew when your birthday was," John said. "Seriously, we're not going to talk about this? I mean, how does it work? You and the Woman." He couldn't help but grin. "Do you go to a discreet Harvester sometimes? Is there a night of passion in High Wycombe?"

"Oh, for God's sake, I don't text her back," Sherlock retorted.

"Why not? You bloody moron! She's out there and she likes you, and she's alive. Do you have any idea how lucky you?" The teasing dropped from John's voice, replaced with anger and hurt. "Yes, she's a lunatic, she's a criminal, she's insanely dangerous – trust you to fall for a sociopath – but she's . . . just text her back. High Wycombe is better than you are currently equipped to understand."

"I once caught a triple poisoner in High Wycombe," Sherlock commented. "As I think I have explained to you many times before, romantic entanglement, while fulfilling for other people –"

"Would complete you as a human being," John said. "Just text her. Phone her. Do something while there's still a chance, because that chance doesn't last forever. Trust me, Sherlock, it's gone before you know it." He paused, looking over at Mary. She'd been there the whole time, watching, listening, commenting, but John was the only one who saw her. "She was wrong about me. Mary. She thought that if you put yourself in harm's way, I'd rescue you or something. But I didn't. Not until she told me to. And that's how it works. That's what you're missing. She taught me to be the man she already thought I was. Get yourself a piece of that."

"Forgive me," Sherlock said "But you are doing yourself a disservice. I have known many people in this world but made few friends, and I can safely say –"

"I cheated on her," John said. "No clever comeback?" He turned to the ghost of his wife, tears in his eyes. "I cheated on you, Mary. There was a woman on the bus, and I had a plastic daisy in my hair. I'd been playing with Rosie. And this girl just smiled at me. That's all it was, a smile. We text constantly. We texted constantly. You want to know when? Every time you left the room, that's when. When you were feeding our daughter, when you were stopping her from crying, that's when. That's all it was. Texting. But I wanted more." It hurt to admit it all out loud, to tell Mary how despicable he was thinking about another woman while she cared for their daughter, but he had to get it off his chest. "And do you know something? I still do. I'm not the man you thought I was, I'm not that guy. I never could be. But that's the point. That's the whole point."

Mary gazed at him, smiling even as tears filled her eyes. Sherlock watched silently, waiting, looking the same direction as John even though he couldn't see Mary the way he could. He understood, though.

"Who you thought I was," John said. "Is the man who I want to be."

"Well then, John Watson." Mary smiled widely and fondly, like she used to when they first met and were in love, before the secrecy and the lies and the hurt. "Get the hell on with it."

John stared ahead of him for a long time. Even after Mary was gone. He lowered his head, crying for the first time in ages.

"It's ok," Sherlock said softly, walking over to him. He raised his arm tentatively, then put it around John, pulling his friend closer.

"It's not ok," John sobbed.

"No." Sherlock held his best friend. "But it is what it is."

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