For the morning is to them even as the shadow of death; if one know them, they are in the terrors of the shadow of death.

Job 24:17

Molly had been told all sorts of patronising things about what it would be like to see her husband on life support. It might be a bit scary, dear, bit of a shock. He'll be very pale and will feel cold to touch. There'll be a lot of machines…

She'd brushed off the kind, well-meaning warnings of the hospital staff absently. Yes, I know what it will be like. I prepare families for viewings. Viewings of actual dead people. And John isn't dead.

On first being allowed into the intensive care ward to see her husband, Molly had stopped short at the foot of his bed, heart in her throat. He was the same colour as a corpse.

A hue that was not quite grey, not quite blue, and not quite purple. Skin that, in only a few hours, had seemed to shrink down over his cheekbones; deep shadows, like smudges of charcoal, under his closed eyes. His eyelashes flickered every now and again. So did two fingers on his left hand.

She'd been warned about that. A neurological twinge. Good news, in a small way: his brain was still responsive.

That twitching hand felt cold and rubbery, as if he were wearing latex gloves. The sensation of his skin against hers repulsed Molly. But she knew, all the same, that her husband was somewhere in there; and that something in there, under those trembling eyelashes, wanted to touch her hand and hear her voice.

For the first half an hour she spoke of anything and everything she could think of. Work. The cats. The baby—she had her ten-week checkup soon, wouldn't it be lovely if he were well enough to go with her for that?

Wouldn't it be awful if he wasn't?

Did he know Sherlock was alive and waiting for him in the corridor?

Did he know anything at all?

She had just exhausted everything she could think of to say about her precious slide cultures when a shadow fell on the doorway. Looking up, she saw Lestrade standing there. He had a bulky backpack hoisted over one arm. Even at a glance, she thought that backpack looked strange.

Neither of them said anything.

"Molly," Lestrade said at last, "I had no right to judge you. I'm sorry."

"It's okay…"

He shook his head. "No, really. I don't understand why you didn't tell anyone. But if you say you couldn't… I believe you." Lifting the bag, he checked over his shoulder and took a deep breath. "This is maybe the most ridiculous thing I've ever done," he continued, "but I've just been out to your place to check on the cats, and… here… I… well. I thought this might help."

He handed her the bag. It was heavy—and wriggling—and squeaking. She unzipped it. Toby's fuzzy head, bat-like ears, huge yellow eyes and all, popped out. He gave an indignant yowl.

Molly laughed and wiped her streaming eyes with the back of her wrist. "Oh my God," she said, juggling the weight of cat-and-bag in her arms. "Did you really put our cat in a bag and smuggle him into a hospital ward…? You did."

"I did, and he scratched the hell out of me for it, if it makes you feel any better." Lestrade smiled tiredly. "I think I read somewhere about animals being… helpful… thought those two might want to see each other, anyway."

Molly drew Toby out and put him on the mattress, hands ready to stop him from walking anywhere near the padded wound on John's chest, or from knocking out the cannulas in his hands and arms. Toby sat down on his haunches, purring loudly and looking at John for a good half a minute. Then, a confused, forlorn meow; he nuzzled John's still fingers with his nose, as if begging to be petted.

Molly gave a racking sob.

"Oh, Molly…" Lestrade wrapped his arms around the shaking, crying woman. "Come on… come on. Shhh. Come on. It…"

But he couldn't finish the sentence: It's going to be okay.

Down the corridor Sherlock, hearing Molly's sobs, felt a painful tightening in his chest. Mycroft had just returned from a cigarette break outside; Sherlock looked up at him. "Please," he said hoarsely.

Mycroft frowned. "Please, what?"

"Please. Go and see."

"Sherlock—"

"I need to know, Mycroft. Go and see. Now."

Mycroft neither rolled his eyes nor asked the obvious - go and see what? He went back down the corridor, waiting a few minutes near the doorway to John's room before speaking quietly with Lestrade.

Not dead. Sherlock let out a held breath, grateful that nobody was near enough to hear the catch in it. If John had just died, Mycroft would be coming back by now.

It was several minutes, and seemed like an hour to Sherlock, before footsteps nearby brought him out of his exhausted reverie. He looked up, expecting to see Mycroft. Molly Watson standing there, face pale, eyes reddened and damp, but she was no longer crying.

And he had no idea what to say to her.

"You couldn't just let me be happy, could you?" she choked at last, her words tumbling out of her mouth in one desperate, indiscriminate mess. "It wasn't enough that you didn't want me… like that. You had to be horrible to me all the time, too. You had to take away everything that ever made me happy. Sherlock, what did you ever get out of hurting me? What did I ever do to you to deserve this?"

Sherlock felt his cheeks burning. "Molly," he faltered, "I'm so sorry. I never intended—"

"No, Sherlock." She shook her head. "It doesn't matter what you intended. I don't care what you intended. You've ruined everything. And I'll never forgive you for it. Ever."

"I—"

But Molly had fled in the direction of the women's toilets. Sherlock rose, as if to follow her; but by this time Mycroft had returned. He shook his head.

"No," he said. "Not unless you'd like Lestrade to hit you again."

"But I—"

"In answer to your question, John is in no worse condition than he was an hour ago. Mrs Watson is understandably distressed." As he had had a habit of calling Molly Miss Hooper before her marriage, Mycroft had apparently decided to refer to her after it as Mrs Watson.

Or perhaps, Sherlock thought bitterly, he was making a point.

"And I also think that loitering in this corridor really is not achieving anything, either from the point of view of John's health or for the furtherance of this case," Mycroft went on.

"What do you mean?" Sherlock asked in genuine confusion. "Where else would I be?"

"Interview commenced 9:37pm, December 19th," Gregson droned for the benefit of the tape recorder and camera. "Present are myself, Detective Inspector Tobias Gregson; Detective Inspector Greg Lestrade; Detective Sergeant Sally Donovan; the witness, Sherlock Holmes; and his chosen legal representative, Mycroft Holmes."

The interview room was almost twice as crowded as it would normally be. They'd run out of chairs, so Lestrade was standing in the corner, arms folded, while Donovan took the place next to Gregson. Lestrade was present only in a marginally professional capacity. He'd managed to persuade Molly to take herself and the three cats over to his own place for the night, where Melissa and Hayley had promised to see that she'd both eat and sleep a bit. As for himself, he wanted answers, and the last thing he felt qualified to deal with was Molly in distress. For years, Lestrade had dealt with any sort of inner turmoil in one sure-fire way: he'd gone to work.

Still, this was Gregson's interview. Lestrade witnessed Sherlock's rights being read without offering a word. Neither did Sherlock, except to mutter "yes" as to whether he understood them.

"Sherlock," Gregson was addressing both Holmes brothers by their given names, partly for the benefit of the tape, and partly because he suspected that Mycroft disliked being addressed so familiarly. "We first need you to understand that you are not under arrest. I'm sure you've committed at least one crime, but for the moment, we just want to investigate what happened on the day of your apparent death. Do you understand?"

Sherlock nodded.

"For the tape, Sherlock," Lestrade put in.

"Yes," he said obediently.

"What happened to James Moriarty?"

Sherlock frowned, as if confused by this line of questioning. "He's dead," he said, "and buried in Camberwell New Cemetery, under a tombstone with 'Sherlock Holmes' written on it." Seeing Lestrade's horrified expression, he hastened to add, "of course, that was necessity, not morbid cleverness. No undertaker in the world would have buried an empty coffin. They could tell by the weight."

"Can you give us any insight into the manner of James Moriarty's death?" Donovan asked him, and Sherlock nearly laughed; it was such a roundabout way of asking if he'd murdered him. By way of a reply he dug into his pocket and produced a phone, which he tweaked with his thumb and then handed over to Gregson. Gregson took it gingerly, giving him a suspicious glance.

"Moriarty had a hidden camera placed in the living room at Baker Street," Sherlock said. "I found it, the night I was arrested…" He looked at Lestrade, who just then was looking at his own shoes. "I'd have to be an idiot not to act on that. I rerouted the camera to my phone, and to Mycroft's phone and laptop. Just in case. Poor visuals. I couldn't exactly place it on my lapel. Still, the relevant conversation is quite clear."

"This is the phone that Moran had?" Lestrade broke in.

Sherlock nodded.

"How did you… never mind," he groaned. Mycroft. Mycroft had snaffled it, somehow, in all the confusion and drama. Lestrade didn't think even Sherlock had the coldness necessary to loot a dead guy's coat.

Gregson flicked the recording on, and Donovan leaned in to look. Lestrade, hands resting on the back of Gregson's chair, did likewise. There was silence for nearly ten minutes, punctuated only by the tinny sound of the phone camera playback.

"Jesus," Lestrade murmured as the shot rang out.

"Conclusive evidence of Moriarty's suicide, I believe?" Sherlock asked quietly. "If we could wrap this up as quickly as possible, Inspector Gregson, I'd be grateful. I find the subject matter tedious, and both Inspector Lestrade and I have better things to be getting on with."

"How was it done, Sherlock?" Lestrade asked him.

"Thoroughly and well. Can I go now?"

It was half-past eleven when Mrs Hudson, who had spent the evening wrangling with Harry as she dried up and struggled to settle, was woken by a knock on the door. A furtive tap; then a heavier, more impatient thud against the door frame.

She got up in annoyance—she'd just got Harry to sleep. And while she wasn't prepared to admit it, even to herself, grief and fear had taken its toll on her as well; she was only a little less exhausted than Harry. But as she drew her dressing gown around herself and went out to the hall, fear pinched at her. Had… something happened…? It was late. Too late for visitors.

The night was cold; even wrapped in his coat and scarf, Sherlock was shivering. He seemed paler than she remembered him, and thinner. Vapour puffed from his mouth as he spoke. "Good evening, Mrs Hudson," he mumbled. "Can't stay long. I need a shower. And some food."

"Sherlock Holmes!"

She slapped him twice across the face, so hard that her fingers stung. Then she drew her boy close to her heart and burst into tears.

Sherlock had always been a devotee of logic. Logic was supreme. Logic was what made his world work.

But he knew that it was not strictly logical that he should want to return to the hospital at one o'clock in the morning. It was especially illogical that he should return there to sleep in a plastic chair when there was a warm, comfortable bed at Baker Street.

Some things were outside of logic. He'd always hated that.

Mrs Hudson hugged him and fed him; then, when he refused to stay any longer, she saw him off. She understood, even if Sherlock didn't. Sherlock had once managed to fall asleep standing up; even the world's most uncomfortable chair wasn't going to faze him much. Like almost everything else that he did, he slept under sheer force of willpower. Comfort was a luxury he could do without.

By the time he returned to the hospital, Lestrade had gone home. Molly, Sherlock knew, was back at Lestrade's that night as well. As for Mycroft... who knew what Mycroft did when nobody was watching?

By half past two, he'd drifted into an uneasy, uncomfortable sleep.

"Sherlock, wake up…"

Sherlock struggled from the holds of sleep. Lestrade was shaking him. He blinked. The fluorescent lights of the corridor and the plastic hardness of the chair he was lying across hit him at the same time, and he remembered, with a sickening thump in his chest, where he was. And why.

"What is it?" He sat up unsteadily, wincing as the blood rushed from his head and sent the room spinning. Looking up, he saw that it wasn't just Lestrade; Mycroft was standing a few feet away, watching. "What's going on?"

"Up you get." Lestrade's tones were hushed. He helped Sherlock to his unsteady feet, then picked up his coat—Sherlock had been using it as a blanket—and started to help him into it, like he was four years old. "We're taking you to see John."

Sherlock checked the clock that hung over the doorway to the foyer and lifts. "It's quarter past four in the morning," he said. "Visiting hours are…"

And then it hit him.

"He's dying."

The words sounded hollow, the inflections all wrong; almost as if someone else was saying them.

"We've just been advised that his condition has... deteriorated quickly over the last few hours…" This was Mycroft. Looking over at him, a memory, long repressed, flooded over Sherlock; meeting Mycroft in Headmaster Bishop's office when he was sixteen. Sherlock, Mummy died this morning. I'm sorry.

"Deteriorated?" he echoed. "Well what the hell does that mean, Mycroft? Is that the same thing as 'dying'?"

Lestrade took his wrist firmly. "Sherlock," he said, "you are a grown man, and you will start acting like one as of right now. Clear?"

Sherlock swallowed, then nodded.

"The doctors think he might not last 'til morning. Harry and Mrs Hudson are both on their way. Harry's hysterical already, and when she gets here she might have to be sedated. So the last thing we need in all this mess is you being uncooperative."

"And Molly?" Sherlock made himself say. "How... how is she...?"

"Taking it about as well as you'd think. We've asked her to give you five minutes, under the circumstances. I know that isn't long. I'm sorry. You'll have to make do. Do you understand me?"

Sherlock nodded again.

"Right. Come on."

Over the previous two and a half years, Sherlock had often found himself pondering how his reunion with his friends was going to play out. Of course, he'd always had an uncomfortable feeling that John might be... a little upset about it. But John had been upset with him so much over eighteen months, and hardly ever for long. He'd be angry. He'd calm down. He always forgave so freely, and he'd do it one more time. And everything would be all right again.

He had never even considered that the reunion might be at gunpoint.

And there was one thing in particular that had been returning again and again to Sherlock's blunted memory, and caused him a spasm of pain every time it did: there had been no joy in John's expression that morning, when he had seen his best friend alive and well after so long. There had been confusion aplenty. Then there had been hurt, betrayal and anger. But no joy. None at all.

And now more, far more, was at stake than John's feelings. Just how much had been a slow realisation for Sherlock. As Lestrade left him alone with his best friend, still and pale, in the nearby bed, the final wave of it hit him like a punch to the gut.

John was dying. And it was his, Sherlock's, fault.

John lay peacefully. There was a stillness about him that could not be touched. The ventilator wheezed, forcing air in and out of his lungs, and the ECG monitor beeped irregularly beside him.

There was no accusation, no reproach. Things were what they were. John was dying.

"So, um," Sherlock faltered, startling at the sound of his own voice in the sterile, hostile room. He mulled the words over in his mind again: John is dying.

Repetition wasn't robbing that phrase of its horror.

No response from John. The ventilator whooshed along in its businesslike way. A series of pips from the drip stand, feeding clear liquid into the crook of his right arm. Sherlock suspected the slight, repetitive twitch in John's fingers was a neurological response. But he couldn't help hoping that it was something more.

The heart monitor stalled for a second, then sprang back to life again.

Sherlock sank down into the nearest chair. "Don't die, for God's sake," he rasped.

Another precious minute ticked by, but Sherlock was at a loss; he could not think of anything he wanted to say to John that could be said in five… four… three and a half minutes. The only sound in the room came from the machines keeping John Watson alive. Finally, he spoke again.

"So I can tell Lestrade's just been in here to tell you that he's going to look after Molly and the baby," he said. "I suppose he thinks he's doing the right thing. And I suppose it's expected of me to promise the same." He cleared his throat. "Bollocks, John."

Sherlock thought that perhaps John's heart rate had picked up a little.

"The idea of me having any kind of nurturing role in the lives of your wife and child is ludicrous," he continued. "Were you not listening when I kept telling you I'm a high-functioning sociopath? You once told me you felt sorry for the bonsai plant in my bedroom."

There was no change in John's face; no amused twitch of the mouth, no sigh of exasperation.

"I'm not looking after Harry, either," he went on.

John's fingers twitched again.

Sherlock reached across and touched John's chill fingertips against his own. "In eighteen months, I never knew you to do a selfish thing," he said. "Don't start. Please."

The room was dead air. Sherlock lowered his head in silence.

Then footsteps in the corridor outside. Lestrade was in the doorway waiting for him. "Time, Sherlock," he said. "Molly's on her way back."

Sherlock nodded. He got up and turned toward Lestrade; then, abruptly, he turned back. His hot, dry fingers searched out John's again. "There's another thing," he said hoarsely. "Just quickly, before I go."

Then he leaned close to John and whispered something to him; something Lestrade couldn't catch. As the two men left the room, those whispered words seemed to linger behind.

If you die, you will never find out how I did it.