A/N: Had some problems uploading this, I'm sorry for the delay; feels like everything in my life is hitting brick walls right now. I'm starting to get used to fighting muddled waters to get the easiest things done, which, in essence, is really sad to be getting used to. Here's to coffee! -csf

. 3rd

Sherlock grabs my jumper forcefully, the one he insisted I swapped into before we left Baker Street's safety. His insistence had little to do with a sense of fashion that matches his pristine, well-cut suits. I rather believe it was because he couldn't stand watching me in a London borough jail issued sweatshirt.

Sherlock either despised the colour, the large shapeless format, the standardized issue implying I'm a criminal, or all of the above.

I strain immediately under the strength of my friend's tight grasp, as he pulls me down, hiding me behind a big bin, as a patrol car passes by lazily on the street. The officers patrolling nod at Sherlock and he won't even acknowledge them; business as usual.

None seems to pay attention to the posh looking carry-on bag Sherlock drags behind him. He could have brought my old canvas bag – standard army issue – but I guess it'd stand out too much. That little luggage piece is full of selected items from Baker Street, most of which I have no idea why Sherlock chose to bring them along. It's bound to be the oddest overnight bag I could have wished for. All I did was ask my friend if he could get me some stuff I need in the next couple of days, while I showered and got the last lingering residues of blood and numbness out of my skin. Much to my surprise he agreed at once.

I'm a bit apprehensive as to what might actually be in the bag now. Sherlock always packs the most outrageous overnight bags.

As I come out of hiding in the street, Sherlock is oddly playing with his phone, then raising it up in the air, as one would when looking for better reception. This is London, and a prime location at that. How can Sherlock's phone be failing him?

'Sherlock, forget your phone, we need to get a move on. Fugitive here, remember?' I hush my words to fit them to the space between us.

A dark shadow flickers across his face instantaneously. He demands, lowering his phone only fractionally: 'Never call yourself that, John.'

I shrug, looking away. 'It's a word, Sherlock, just that.' One I must start getting used to, just in case.

'Words have the ability to trickle inside you, if you let them. Never let someone label you. You are not a fugitive nor a criminal. Not you, John. Never you', he insists, firmly, passionately. He's the best mate one could ask for.

'Sherlock...' I sigh. 'Call me a runaway, then, or whatever you like, but – for heaven's sake – can we get off the streets and go somewhere safe? If I get caught, and you are with me, it won't look good on you.'

He doesn't seem preoccupied at all. 'That was a patrol car, John, surely you recognised the two officers in the vehicle.'

I cross my arms in front of me. 'Not really, no, on account of trying to hide myself from them, the cctv cameras and the passersby', I reply, short-tempered.

The detective frowns. 'The passersby are a nuisance, agreed, but their recounts are less reliable in court. As to the cctv cameras, I have disabled them in one hundred meters of our vicinity. Approximately, of course. A perfect radius of a hundred meters around a moving target would be easily noticed.'

'How did you do that?' I asked, amazed.

'There's an app for that, John.'

'What? No! No, there isn't, Sherlock. At least I hope not.' I blink, really confused.

'There is on my phone. I'm quite sure. I've just used it.'

'Amazing.' A small smile creeps in at last.

'You've already said that, John.' He pretends to study a window shop display full of porcelains and crystals. Baker Street's eclectic style might get an unusual addition, if one's to trust Sherlock's close attention.

'I'm still amazed', I justify myself. He deserves to know that. Even if he's pretending to study the pointless knickknacks with scientific wonder.

.

St Bart's is another home away from home, and I start to wonder if Sherlock is trying to soften my reclusive escape from mainstream society. Although it's Sherlock, of course, who's truly at home in the bleached corridors of the morgue, located at basement level. The dead never called Sherlock a "freak" over his forensic experimentations, nor would they call me out as a runaway from justice.

Molly Hooper is another familiar face that greets the Baker Street's duo with complicit secrecy. Immediately her eyes are upon Sherlock in a kneejerk reaction from her old crush on the detective.

'Oh my, Sherlock, are you alright? This must have been hard on you. I mean, on John.' She shuts her eyes tight and regroups. 'No, actually I mean on both, the both of you.'

Sherlock unites his hands behind his back and declares, simply, as if it was his self-appointed mission: 'I'm taking care of John.'

Much to my surprise Molly quietens down at that, approvingly. 'I've got the body you wanted, Sherlock. It's in the refrigeration unit.'

'May I have a look?' he asks her, politely. Again, behaving himself to the point that he doesn't quite sound like the old Sherlock anymore to me.

'Knew you'd want to. John...' she addresses me for the first time. 'Would you prefer to wait outside?'

I feel a bit put-off by her offer. There's no need for mollycoddling me. I know dead bodies, I've been to the war, I know what death looks like, in many shapes and forms.

'Maybe I can be of use, find something to help prove I didn't do it, Molly.'

She fakes a brave smile, that doesn't disguise her doubtfulness. 'If you're sure', she mutters meekly, already rotating to face the long wall full of doors to the long drawers that bury themselves on the wall at low temperature. She pulls one open without needing to consult the log. Again, I have this feeling that she had already been through the "save John Watson's name" effort before we arrived, and came up empty.

The drawer slides towards us, crossing the tight space between Sherlock and I. The lingering signs of violence are present on the body, along with the smell of decay. Rigor mortis has settled, giving the once average human being a grotesque appearance, exacerbated by the white tinge of the skin where the dark cuts and sutures from the autopsy jump out at once.

I look away, feeling drained. Yes, I'm familiar with death; yet it always feels so wrong.

'Definitely an overkill', Sherlock pronounces at once, as he takes out his hand lenses from a coat pocket, ready to analyse the minutia in the corpse. 'John is a soldier, he'd be more frugal and effective. He's also a neat-freak, he'd not be so... messy.'

'It was a brutal attack', Molly agrees. 'He suffered a bit', she adds with an emphatic nod. 'Looks personal', she comments, then looks at me, to gage my reaction.

'I never saw him before in my–' I cut myself short. Only I must have seen him before. I just cannot remember. There is no epiphany, no dramatic moment of revelation. 'Have you identified him yet, Molly?'

'The fingerprints data base program is still running, John. No results yet. But that's good, right? That you don't know who he is. Or was.'

Sherlock comments, absentminded: 'It'd be easier to defend John from killing someone he knew, though. John, are you sure this man has never been a patient of yours who was unhappy with his diagnose, a rejected client we turned away, an ex-boyfriend of one of your boring past girlfriends?'

I find myself trembling silently. 'I didn't kill him', I say flatly. 'Stop looking for reasons why I would have killed him. I'm not a murderer.'

'I'm a detective, John. I need to ponder all angles.'

I thought he believed in me. I shiver more deeply and look away. The smell of congealed blood and disinfectant are getting to me. Can hardly hear the two death enthusiasts speaking to each other in playful chat over a cold corpse. Before I break down, I move away, rushing out of the autopsy room. I don't even look back.

.

The door to the old amphitheatre opens softly not even five minutes later and the tall figure of Sherlock Holmes comes in. He walks towards me as the light from the corridor behind him eclipses slowly, as the door closes back by action of its attached spring.

'Good escape, John', he comments appreciatively. 'However, there's a distinct lack of ambition as you carried it through.'

I hiccup a smile, as I could have a sob or a shout.

'What if I did it, Sherlock?' I ask the dark around us, as heavy as my mood. 'What if I did kill the victim?'

'Why would you think that, John?' he asks cautiously. Maybe he already believes it too.

'I remember blood, lots of blood', I confess in a tight whisper. My voice about to betray me and break down.

'That's to be expected. You came out of that alley covered in it, after all.'

I raise my voice, to make it stronger: 'People don't usually start bleeding when I speak to them!'

He hums, to let me know he has heard me. I listen to him settling himself beside me, sitting on the floor like me.

'Did you speak to him, then?'

I shake my head, but he probably can't see it in the almost complete darkness. 'I don't know.'

'You just said it, John. Perhaps it's a hidden recollection of yours, speaking to him.'

'If I saw him bleeding in an alley, I would have said something to him, surely.'

The detective hums in agreement. 'Possibly even help, as a doctor', he suggests.

'Certainly. I wouldn't walk away from a fatally injured man, Sherlock.' I look up, aggravated.

'Thus getting yourself covered in his blood, John. The splashes of blood in your shirt were consistent with attempted CPR to save his life.'

'They are also consistent with me stabbing him in the first place, according to the Scotland Yard', I remind him bitterly.

'Yeah, but we know how good the Scotland Yard is at solving cases when compared to me.' Sherlock chuckles softly. 'Who would you rather believe?' he asks me, deviously, to choose which truth I'd rather have.

'What if I did it, Sherlock?'

'You had no reason to do it.'

'What if I did it because I lost my reason, my sane mind?'

He chuckles again. 'I'm afraid you give yourself mental processes credits it does not own, John. I know you, better than possibly I know anyone else in this world, and you can trust me when I say you have not killed this stranger in an alley, unprovoked and with a knife you do not own.'

Thanks. His faith in me is unwavering and heart warming.

'What about the knife?' I ask, grabbing onto small talk to keep me company, a clear evidence that Sherlock is at my side in the dark.

'Army knife, standard issue. Cheap shot, from someone who read your blog and knows you've been in the army.'

The seconds carry on, undisturbed, until Sherlock prompts me coyly, as if it was too much already: 'What about the army knife, John? Do you remember something?'

'I don't know', I say, trembling again. Why can't I remember? 'I'm not sure', I further say; too vague! 'I think I recall thinking back on the army today. I recall going to my box of old stuff and... I held my tags in my hand... Sherlock, I looked at my army identification tags.' I look up, hopeful and fearful in equal amounts. 'Does that mean anything to you?'

'You must have already been drugged', he notices, surprised. 'That happened before you left Baker Street. No reason why you would be fuzzy on that, unless you had already been drugged.'

'At Baker Street? How?'

'Think, John!' His voice is animated, energetic now. 'Was there a client showing up unexpectedly at 221B? A letter seemingly posted to you that didn't carry a postal stamp? A food delivery that you didn't order? Any way in which you could have been drugged?'

I shake my head and groan. 'Can't remember, Sherlock!' Been telling him that all along!

He sighs. 'It's alright, John. We'll get to the bottom of this. Give me time.'

I swallow dry, looking away. 'I'm sorry I'm such a lousy client.'

I can almost hear a fond smile on his next few words: 'As a client you are a delicious mystery, John. As always, you do not disappoint.'

.

TBC