Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.

—Psalms 30:5

At first, there was nothing but snow.

Snow so cold it burned; a relentless white-out of nothingness, like a nuclear winter. There was no sound, and there was no colour. There was cold, and there was whiteness, and that was all.

Then came the pain: overwhelming, all-encompassing, extinguished only by the occasional hot wave that rolled over him. But that wave came too infrequently, and the cold did nothing to numb.

The first sound that broke through the silent snow was the relentless, irritating beep-beep-beep of an IV that demanded attention. Then a wheezing, hissing sound; something gently tapping nearby. After a time came footsteps and voices, both muffled, as if they reached him through a blanket or a closed door. Then the footsteps became sharper and the assortment of voices a little clearer.

"Called Mrs Hudson …" "Why the bloody hell did nobody tell me?" "Here in half an hour…" "Don't know any more than that…" "No, I'm fine, I need to stay here…" "Keeping her on the wagon…" "Won't talk to anyone, Mycroft…"

Some voices were a total loss to him; one especially, a man, who kept talking in obtuse medical terms. Two words in particular kept intruding into the fog: sepsis and splenectomy.

Those words were important, John felt sure. They meant something very important… but he couldn't remember what, and gave up, time and again, exhausted.

Several voices outside in the corridor were those that he knew, but could not place. The soft voice of a troubled woman: Molly. That one he knew immediately. Another woman who cried, quietly and often. And a man who spoke rarely; when he did, it was in a hushed, polished baritone.

The warmth stole back gradually into his body, and with it came sensations that reached beyond that overwhelming, chilling pain. A scratchy blanket itching at his hot, sticky legs. Hard mattress underneath him. A bitter, clinical sort of smell; it was interspersed every now and again with the sharpness of surgical spirits. The back of his hand stung, and so did the crook of his right elbow. His chin itched. His mouth and throat were painfully dry, and nothing eased this.

Every now and again, the pain in his chest worsened; the burning would return, and then there was another smell, sickly-sweet.

During the worst of this, there was often a warm hand in his. Molly's hand.

It was three full days after that first flicker of consciousness before his treating doctors could assure Molly that John could see her, and that he could understand what he saw. It was the early hours of the morning, but neither the seriously ill nor those who watch over them pay much attention to time. She went to his darkened room, and at her touch, his eyes flickered open. There was a slow dawn of recognition on his face.

"Happy New Year," she choked, then laughed a little through her tears. He tried to smile back, fingers on one hand curling around hers. He started to pull at the oxygen mask weakly with his other hand, and she pulled it down for him.

"Sorry," he said. "Bad timing."

"There's never any good timing for you to do that to me!" She drew his hand closer to her and smothered his palm in kisses. "We thought we'd lost you," she murmured. "Twice…"

It had been touch-and-go, again, on Christmas night. Infection had set in without mercy.

"Not easily killed," he mumbled. "Ask Bill about that." He shut his eyes, as if the effort of the last seven words had exhausted him; then, after a breath, opened them again. "You okay?"

"I'm fine."

"Baby?"

"Baby's fine. I'm fine. We're fine."

"Moran shot me," he murmured, struggling to understand what the hell happened to him. "What 'bout the others? The others okay?"

"They're fine, John. You were the only one hurt." Molly had no interest in this conversation with John just now; all she wanted to do was sit by his bedside and soothe him back to sleep. But then, she couldn't expect that John would find himself in a hospital bed, with a serious injury, and not demand answers as to why.

He hadn't mentioned Sherlock by name yet. But by the others...

"Harry…?"

"She's staying with Mrs Hudson. They're both fine, John. Honestly. Everything's okay. Everyone's okay."

"What happen' to Moran?"

"He's dead." Molly had an idea that John may have included Moran in his enquiry as to whether the others were okay. "Mycroft shot him."

John paused, frowning again, as if he had no recollection of Mycroft being there at the site of the shooting. "Sorry to hear that," he said at last. "Why did he…?" He shut his eyes, and Molly watched in agony as the memory of why he'd been shot flashed through him. He took a deep breath. "Thought I 'magined… Sherlock… but he was there."

"Yes."

"Alive."

"Yes."

"Where is he?"

"I think he's at home in bed... it's four in the morning," she said gently. She was still not one whit thawed out toward Sherlock Holmes. Quite the opposite. But if John wanted to see Sherlock, or Harry, or Toby, or anyone else, she would make it happen. "Do... do you want us to call him in now…?"

She couldn't work out whether John was in pain again, or whether he was thinking something out, or both. Finally, he let out a breath he'd been holding. "PM report," he said. "The one you gave me... someone else's. Sherlock's name on it…"

"John, please, not while you're still—"

"You knew."

The words hit her like a sledgehammer to the chest.

"How long?"

"The whole time," she blurted out. "Sherlock made me help him… pretend he was… He said Moriarty had people who would hurt you if I ever... I'm so sorry… I'm sorry, I… I'm sorry," she wound up weakly. "Please forgive me. I'm so sorry..."

There was a long silence, and Molly felt John's fingers loosen their already-weak grip on hers. He shut his eyes. She supposed that he'd fallen asleep again, and was about to leave him to it, when he spoke again.

"Thank you," he slurred. "For taking care of him for me."

His anger would have hurt her less.

It was nearly eight o'clock, and still well outside of visiting hours, when Molly slipped out into the outside courtyard, bathed in the first sunrise of the new year. All was quiet and still; the world was still asleep from the revelry of the night before, and even the sound of distant traffic was hushed.

After the close air and warmth of John's hospital room, the winter morning hit her like a splash of cold water to the face. She took a deep breath, then another. Nausea was still pulling at her, but she didn't mind so much now. It was good. It was normal. It meant everything was… all right.

She looked up. Ahead and in the east, the rising sun hit ribs of clouds, turning them a bright hue of candy-pink. The full moon was setting palely in the sapphire sky to the west. Why have I never seen that happen before?

Have I ever stopped to look?

It was early days yet. Too early to call. John was going to be in intensive care for a long time, and perhaps months in the hospital. He'd had a partial splenectomy that had then turned septic, and would probably have difficulties with his immune system for the rest of his life. Things could still go very wrong. She'd already been given That Talk.

But it was a new morning, and a new year. John knew. The truth was out; the hurt surely wouldn't last forever. Two and a half years of Sherlock's burden had been lifted off her shoulders.

The cold nipped at her fingers, and it was only then that she realised she'd forgotten her gloves—she'd been forgetting everything short of her own head this past couple of weeks. She'd managed to remember her phone this time, though, and fished it out of her pockets with numbed fingers, scrolling through for Sherlock's number. He picked it up on the second ring: "What's wrong?"

Sherlock had answered Molly's phone calls with 'what's wrong?' a lot recently.

"Nothing, um, he's… okay…" This last word barely came out; Molly was choking on it, and on tears, and on laughter. "He can talk now. And he said he wanted to see you…"

"I'm coming."

"There's no rush. He's asleep—"

But by then, she was speaking to a dial tone. Sherlock had hung up on her.

Sherlock's main dilemma—what the hell do I say to him?—was solved for him. When he arrived, John was still asleep. A real sleep, he instantly saw; not that deathly stillness he'd had for the past thirteen days. He pulled up a chair and sat down. He'd not intended to wake him, but John stirred, and his eyes flickered open.

"Thought you were dead," he mumbled.

Sherlock swallowed and shook his head.

"Why did you lie?"

"I'll tell you when you're—"

"Tell me now. Molly lied to me too."

"She lied because I asked her." Sherlock was struggling. To take the blame would be to admit that a fault had occurred. "Don't… hate her for it."

"I don't hate her... hate that she lied."

"Moran—or someone else Moriarty knew—would have killed both of us if they had any idea I was still alive." Sherlock paused again, wrangling his words into submission. "It's all very complicated and there's a lot of backstory. I'll explain it all in greater detail when it won't be wasted on you. Please understand that neither of us acted out of malice. It was only ever to… prevent... help. Um..."

John winced, and alarm bells went off in Sherlock's head. "John…? What's wrong?"

"Sorry." John spoke through gritted teeth. "'Bloody stuff's wearing off again…"

Sherlock leaned over the bed and gave the nurse call alarm button a series of sharp, urgent blasts. A nurse scurried in. Molly did not; Sherlock reflected that she must be further away, perhaps getting breakfast downstairs.

"Can I help?"

Young nurse. Very young. Ink still wet on her qualifications. Sherlock both knew that she lacked the authority to do much at all, and hoped she had enough gumption to find someone who did. "I realise that a gunshot wound isn't the most comfortable injury one can have, but is all this pain really necessary?" he demanded. "Go and get him something for it."

"I can't—"

"Sorry, you what?"

She took a step back. Sherlock, even in his current mood, realised that he was a few seconds away from being escorted out by security, and took a step back of his own.

"I can't," she repeated, "not without the doctor's permission—"

"Well then, kindly use some initiative and get the doctor's permission. And don't tell me there aren't any doctors on duty in the intensive care ward of a public hospital. If I find one before you do, he won't be pleased with you."

"I'll—"

"Yes, you will. Hurry up. Why the hell doesn't he already have a PCA of morphine?"

The doctor, once summoned and arrived, agreed with Sherlock. He sent an order for the morphine pump. Sherlock watched from the corner as it was being set up and administered, not without a scientific curiosity about the whole process. John barely made a sound throughout it all; the only sign that he'd needed the morphine in the first place was when his breathing slowed.

"Probably best you go now, mate," one of the nursing technicians said to Sherlock as they double-checked that everything was in place. "I don't think you'll be getting much intelligent conversation out of him for a while. Who're you, a friend?"

Sherlock looked across at John. His dark-shadowed eyes were shut. He was back in that grim, drugged stillness of before.

"Yes," Sherlock told him. "I am."