A/N: This is the continuation of the 36th chapter, "Alive" as promised! I did it!

This took forever to write though (my work has suffered…) because I wanted it to be right. I hope you all like it! Fluff at the end, don't worry!

Enjoy :)

Living

Sherlock watched as brown oxfords walked tentatively up, calloused hands gripped the wooden railing and deep blue eyes took it in as if it were the first time.

It had taken the doctor twelve seconds to climb the stairs, as opposed to the usual eight seconds.

The four seconds told more than either wanted to realize and left Sherlock with more questions he didn't, surprisingly, want to ask. He knew if he offered help to his friend, called any attention to this obvious disturbance in daily routine - which may indicate a lack of confidence in environment or a repressed concern – Sherlock knew if he called any attention to this modification which was screaming to be organized, he'd only upset John.

He'd add insult to injury, so to speak, this time striking at Johns pride; take away this thing he could finally do on his own, without nurses calling to him or other doctors telling him to "take it easy," even if this small victory was as mundane as scaling the stairs to their flat.

Sherlock understood this, the need for self-reliance and the importance of it to John. It was as ingrown in the short doctor as the duty he feels to heal, the essentiality of thrill and the unshakable sense of selflessness. These the detective could understand, though it was merely the longing for independence he could truly relate to.

Nonetheless, he had a devastating compulsion; it was making wreckage and ruin out of the walls he had enclosed sentiment behind, breaking them down as he had broken down walls in his mind to make more room for John… this pressure within him was rewriting the rules and regulations of his heart as easily as he had redesigned the architecture which was his mind.

It had started when he had held a bleeding friend in his shaking arms - killer and criminal forgotten as quickly as the solar-system – feeling the hot fluid flow out onto his black suit-coat, staining the material while simultaneously burning the image of an injured and dying John into his mind. No, he had told himself, not dying. John could never die. He remembered this and repeated it to himself, perhaps out loud as well he wasn't sure, as he applied the pressure he knew mattered so much.

There was the memory of words; Sherlock wasn't aware of exactly what he was saying, whether it was really anything at all, but he knew the futile noise fell upon deaf ears. He had yelled to keep John's eyes open, those deep fathomless eyes which held a blue Sherlock could never classify – it reminded him of the sea in winter. Calm, flowing, yet so easily angered and made fiery. Now they looked drugged, blank. He hated that; the slipping life between John's pupils and irises.

He remembered telling John that the bullet hadn't hit any major artery, that he hadn't lost too much blood, that the ambulances response time was improving as of late, that he would be fine as long as the doctors weren't completely incompetent, that he was going to be fine. Sherlock told John that he – that they – would be fine. He forced himself to put confidence into the words. As he heard the sirens coming close, as he finally stopped cursing every memory of every deity he hadn't deleted from his mind, he leaned close to John and felt a salty tear on his lips, though he wasn't sure whose it was. His forehead on Johns, making sure their eyes were level; he told him what he should have months, years ago:

"I love you, John Watson."

Then there was yelling, people pushing him away from the world in his arms, Lestrade's voice trying to sooth him as they carried his friend into a white box and closed it in, driving away.

Now, as they walked into the flat and John stopped in the middle of the living room, Sherlock remembered the panic as he realized that white box drove away with his heart.

He never wanted to feel that sickeningly real fear again.

John was talking about stupid, silly, unimportant things life groceries and laundry when he suddenly felt a tugging at his arm and, before he could even blink or protest or breath, felt soft lips on his own.

The kiss was slow, exploring, but filled with all the pain, the longing, the love and the utter need Sherlock had felt, had just begun to realize was always there lurking deep inside his being like some sunbeam behind a cloud.

The shorter man stood still for a second but, as a tongue touched his lower lip, he closed his eyes and accepted it, reveled in it really. He tilted his head up to press harder, to try and melt into the mouth above him. He felt Sherlock's hand coming to his shoulder, gripping there like he needed an anchor. It was a tight and angry clutch, juxtaposing the light kisses he now was dashing upon his doctors cheekbones, jaw-line, eyelids and then back to those chapped lips which had so often been the vehicles for praise and adoration.

Pulling away slowly, they kept close to one another like there was an invisible short-leash, a tether tied on both ends.

"I'm alive," John said softly, the words tasting like ambrosia on Sherlock's lips.

"So am I," he replied. And for the first time in his life, he truly felt it.