Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.

- Matthew 7:7

"I'm just saying, if you don't want to go, we can make our excuses, Molly. I'm not sold on the idea. We don't even really know him."

It was three in the afternoon, and the Watsons were at rest in their kitchen—or as at-rest as two people who were on constant guard against the depredations of two kittens could possibly be. Sebastian Moran had just called and suggested the Watsons go out to dinner with him the following evening, and Molly was having reservations that her husband didn't entirely understand.

"I don't want you to think I don't like him," she said, a little hesitant. To her way of thinking, it wasn't her place to criticise John's friends in any way, shape or form.

"He's hardly my best friend, feel free to not like him," John said. "I'm not convinced I like him myself. Weird and rude of him to just show up like that, and after this long. Is that the done thing these days? He couldn't phone first?" Then, as a new consideration occurred to him, "I'd like to know where he got our contact information from. Does he… worry you?"

John knew that he had "trust issues"—he'd been told a million times, and not just in therapy. The fact that he didn't trust Sebastian Moran didn't mean all that much, really. But Molly was different. She trusted people. She had trusted Jim Moriarty. If she was having misgivings, there must be a good reason for it.

"I don't know," she said, hiding her flushed face in Smudge's fur. "You know I don't have a good track record at being able to pick… that sort of thing,.."

"Oh, thanks very much," John smiled and leaned over to kiss her forehead. "I happen to think you had impeccable taste when you chose a husband. Well, it's up to you. Really. I don't care much either way... you look exhausted. Why don't you go to bed?"

"I'm not tired," she protested.

"Fine. Go to bed and I'll join you, then."

Molly smiled—very tiredly—and gave in, taking Casper and Smudge with her and leaving John in the kitchen with Toby. John had been reading a medical periodical; almost as soon as Molly had taken the kittens, Toby decided that it was high time his favourite person paid him some attention. He jumped up on the table, sat on the journal, and headbutted John's face.

"Hey," John scolded mildly, stroking him. "You're only getting away with this because you're in a state of kitten-induced trauma, you know."

Toby purred.

"Yeah, I'm not used to it either. But I'm afraid if we're going to sit and compare Abrupt Major Life Changes, I win."

In the last few days, it had really sunk in for John that before he'd even got the hang of being a husband, he had roughly seven months to prepare for being a father as well. He was really making things up as he went along; Molly didn't seem to have any real complaints, so far, but John thought that a man was supposed to have a better idea of where he was in the world.

Before John could continue this line of cat-therapy the doorbell rang, a startling sound in the quiet house. He got up to answer it, muttering a mild and implausible threat against whoever it was disturbing Molly at a time like this.

This time, he wasn't particularly expecting to see Harry. But neither was he expecting to see Sergeant Sally Donovan on his doorstep.

He hadn't seen her in the flesh since the inquest into Sherlock's death. She'd changed very little in two years, he thought: dressed the same and didn't look any older, though she seemed less arrogant than he remembered. Slightly dishevelled; tired. Probably just got off work. She had a manila envelope under one arm.

"What do you want?" he asked, in the most emotionless, matter-of-fact way he could muster.

She glanced down, but then back up again. "I came over to apologise," she said. "You know why. About Sherlock."

John folded his arms. "Really? Well, that's decent of you to go into damage control after all this time. Go on, apologise if it makes you sleep better at night. And then you can leave, and God help you if I ever have to see you again."

"How was I to know?"

"You weren't, Donovan." They weren't friends, so he wasn't about to address her as "Sally", and he had little to no respect for her police work, so he wasn't going to address her as "Sergeant", either. "You weren't. That's the point. You weren't to know and you didn't know."

"Based on the information that I had—"

"The information you had was faulty. You can't just…" He trailed off as his voice failed him completely. You can't just accuse someone of a serious crime because he annoys you.

"Look, if there's anyone who knows how annoying Sherlock could be, it's me," he said when he could. "But there's a difference between finding him irritating and having him arrested for kidnapping based on nothing more than the screaming of a traumatised kid."

"It wasn't just that. He knew things… about the kidnapping…"

"He also knew you were giving it to Anderson just by your deodorant," John reminded her. "Did you ever bother to ask how he knew things about the kidnapping that were a bit brilliant, even for him? Or did you just immediately decide that made him the kidnapper?"

"Look, I'm trying to apologise—"

"Donovan, Sherlock's dead. He's dead. Do you even—" John shook his head. His throat had just closed up again and he was suddenly terrified that he was going to cry, and in front of Donovan. "Go, okay. Just go."

He started to close the door, but she threw her hand out to stop him. "No, wait, John, I need to show you something..."

John couldn't remember the last time she'd directly addressed him by his first name. That, and her tone, was enough to give him pause. "What?"

She took the envelope from where it was tucked under her arm and put it in his hands.

He looked at her blankly. "What's this?"

"It's as much from Sherlock's post-mortem report that I could write on my arm before Gregson walked in and caught me doing it," she said.

Hand-written notes on cheap paper, but at a glance, they were at least worded like the preliminaries of every post-mortem report John had ever seen. "Okay. Why are you giving this to me?"

"Look at it."

John sighed, and started to read, muttering the words to himself as he did so. All in order: full name, date of birth, height, approximate weight, race, physical description, distinguishing features…

He looked up at her.

"That's wrong," she said, "and you know it's wrong."

"For God's sake, Donovan, can we not do this? He's been dead for nearly three years, and I'm married—"

"I don't bloody care if you're gay or not," she said crossly. "Just tell me I'm not going insane, and that it's wrong."

John looked across the notes again and cleared his throat. "Well, I can't vouch for it as personally as I'm sure you'd like to believe, but he once told me the other boys at school would call him… some interesting things because of it," he finally admitted. "Why, how do you know?"

"Never mind how I know," she said. "What are we going to do about this?"

John swallowed hard and was silent. Finally, he shook his head again. "Nothing," he said. "It doesn't matter anymore."

"How could it not matter when he was your best friend?"

"Because thanks to you he's dead, and that can't be changed. How much more of my life are you determined to ruin? Just leave us alone."

This time she let him shut the door on her.

He stood at the closed door for a while, trying to gather up the shreds of his temper; he'd never shut a door in a woman's face before, and the novelty wasn't enjoyable. Finally, on his way back to the kitchen, he looked in on Molly: despite her protests that she wasn't tired she'd fallen asleep on the coverlet, with Smudge and Casper nestled around her neck. He left her to it.

It was an hour later when Molly woke up and found John back in the kitchen. He was sitting at the table but had pushed the periodical aside entirely, and with a thump of anxiety, she saw that he was looking over what seemed to be a medical report.

"What's that?" she asked him.

He looked up, a little startled. "Nothing of great consequence," he said, getting up and kissing her sleep-flushed cheek. "Sally Donovan came around. She's got herself a guilt trip because, after all this time, it's finally occurred to her that Sherlock didn't kidnap the Bruhl kids."

"And she brought that around?"

John apparently didn't notice the tension in her voice. "Yeah," he said. "She says it's some notes she copied of the… case. The autopsy report, mostly." He paused. "Molly, um. I don't think I've ever asked... were you... were you at the hospital... the day Sherlock died?"

She was, when it came down to it, surprised it had never occurred to John to ask her this before—or troubled that perhaps it had, and he didn't trust her to answer, or answer truthfully. She'd prepared for this question, prepared her answer for years. And now, when it came down to it, her body was taking a frustratingly long time to answer it. "Yes," she finally said, her voice so soft she could barely hear herself. "Yes, for a little while that morning. But I'd gone home by the time it… happened."

"So you never… had anything to do with him… after it happened…?"

She shook her head. "No. They wouldn't have let me, even if I'd asked. They've got policies on what happens when… there are circumstances why staff might not always be able to stay professional." Technically true, though she'd never needed to use those policies and recuse herself from a case—Sherlock's or anyone else's.

"Okay." John nodded, looking thoughtful. "Sorry. I know it's not a happy topic of conversation. But it's just, based on what Donovan brought round, it doesn't seem like…" He trailed off.

"John?"

There was a long pause. This time he shook his head. "Nothing. It's okay."

One of the pitfalls Greg Lestrade had found about cohabiting and sleeping with a professional psychologist is that she noticed everything. She noticed when he'd had a bad day, and when he'd had a breakthrough on a case. She noticed if he'd had a run-in with Thompson or if he'd had to pull up a junior member of his team. In the three months that Melissa had been living with him, he'd sometimes grumbled to himself that he may as well not bother with talking at all—especially since when he did, she sometimes contradicted him.

He'd finally got home from work and clattered in the door at half-past eight, throwing himself onto the sofa, feet up. He hadn't originally intended to put in a twelve-hour day, but he'd been caught up writing progress reports for Castelli (no progress, thick as bricks) and Shepherd (not much more promising), and then there had been that whole business with Donovan. He was trying to decide if it was worth expending the energy to lean over and check the TV guide when Melissa, still in her stockings, padded in.

"You're home," she remarked, batting at his shod feet in mild scolding. He obligingly kicked his shoes off, but she tapped his feet again until he put them on the floor, then sat down next to him and gave him a loud, cheerful peck on the cheek.

"Managed to convince the Watsons to take two of the kittens this afternoon," she said.

"Hmm?" He looked up at her. "Oh. Great—for them, or Mrs. Hudson?"

"One of each, I think. John's in love," she said. "And I don't mean with Molly, though probably with her, too. I hope."

As distracted as he was, Lestrade smiled at this. But Melissa poked him again.

"Oi," she said in gentle concern. "Are all the lights on in there?"

"Yeah... sorry." Lestrade ran his fingers through his hair. "Sorry."

"Rough day?" She stood up. "I'll be a domestic goddess just this once and make you a coffee."

Lestrade was silent while Melissa made him a cup of instant coffee; it was only once she'd handed it over that he cleared his throat. "Mel," he said, "you remember me telling you about Sherlock Holmes?"

She raised one eyebrow. "That case, a couple of years ago," she said. "The one who committed suicide?"

Melissa never used euphemisms like "passed away"; it went against her frank personality, and her field of work had hammered it out of her.

"Yeah. He was a friend, Mel, not just a case," he said, a vague note of warning in his tone.

"Understood." She planted a kiss on his shoulder and waited for further details to spill out.

"Well, um," he faltered. "Long story short, I've got Donovan convinced someone's murdered him now."

"Why?"

He glanced at her. Mel hadn't just assumed that Donovan's theory was lunacy. But then, she didn't know about Sherlock's phone call, either, nor about how much Moriarty had been involved. And anyway, it wasn't like her to jump to conclusions.

"I just thought he... did what he did... 'cause the whole world was thinking he was a fraud," he said. "Sherlock was... he liked to pretend he didn't care, but he did. For someone who called everyone else an idiot, he took it hard if you thought he was one."

"Fragile ego. Low self esteem?"

"Yeah, maybe." Lestrade cleared his throat. "But Donovan and a few others in my team, they really thought he kidnapped and poisoned the Bruhl kids, just so he could find them and show off. I'll admit it looked dodgy for a bit."

"But he didn't do it."

"God, no. He wasn't like that. Not the world's most pleasant person to be around, but he'd never hurt a kid in his life. Anyway, one of the kidnapped kids died and it's just now the other one's said it wasn't him. Two years too late."

"Greg," she said, reaching over and touching his cheek with two fingers. "Have you grieved properly?"

He frowned and looked at her. "What do you mean?" he asked.

She shrugged. "I didn't know you then," she said. "But I know you now. You're not the demonstrative type. It must have been difficult."

"It was."

"So did you grieve? Did you go to his funeral, his grave?"

Lestrade cleared his throat. "Yes, and... uh, no, not in a while,"

He barely remembered Sherlock's funeral, having spent it vacillating between trying to keep Mrs. Hudson upright and trying to keep John and Mycroft apart. There just hadn't been time for any wailing over a prayer book. Since then, he'd only been to the cemetery twice, both times to retrieve John from the gravesite and distract him with something. He'd certainly never seen any merit in standing in front of the grave, just looking at it. It wasn't going to bring Sherlock back, and it had nearly sent John around the bend.

"Where's he buried?"

Lestrade told her.

"Do you think you should maybe go there? Get some closure on all this?"

"Maybe," he muttered, picking up the TV guide to indicate the conversation was at an end. He couldn't see how going there to look at a tombstone and a rectangle of disturbed grass was going to give closure on this business with Sally Donovan.

"Is it just my imagination, or is this The Shift That Will Not End?" John spoke lightly, but there was real irritation in his voice.

Dr. Dhaval Verma smiled tiredly at his colleague across the counter of the nurse's station. "Only four hours to go," he said, trying to be cheerful about it.

"Oh, fantastic. Not long at all."

John was sometimes so dryly sarcastic that Dhaval, whose first language was Hindi, had trouble working out if he was being serious. "You'll get used to it again—and quicker than you think, maybe," he said. "You've been on holidays for too long."

"Not long enough," John grouched.

"Or that. Still, we're travelling nicely tonight. Turnaround times quite quick. And no gory disasters."

"Don't say that, you'll bring a deluge of Christmas-party disasters on all our heads." John was not entirely successful at hiding a certain amount of excitement at the prospect of a whole A&E department full of Christmas-party disasters. That was both the interesting and difficult part of Urgent Care work. You felt worse when people died, and better when they made it. There was rarely any lack of entertaining cases at this time of year, and it certainly made the shift go faster, or seem to.

"Lots of gory disasters we're having," Dhaval said loudly, trying to confuse Fate. "Wouldn't it be awful if it was really quiet tonight, and we got to go to the break room and play table-tennis?" He smiled and looked over his notes. "Anyway, John, four hours is four hours, two hundred and forty minutes, no matter which way you splice it. You discharged Karyn Martindale?"

"Yes. Grand mal epileptic—she pulled an all-nighter and had a minor seizure. By the time I came along she was recovering well. Tired and a bit hazy, but that's it. I referred her to have her medication looked at and gave her a certificate for three days off work. I think she'll be fine."

"Neil Laursen?"

"The one who fell down the stairs? Sent him upstairs for x-rays. Fractured ribs, pretty sure. Some bad contusions. I'm tempted to sign him in because of his age, but I don't think he's in any real danger. Wanted to strangle his daughter, though."

Every now and again, John was called upon by his colleagues to take on a patient who demanded an 'English doctor'. Dhaval had taken his qualifications in Britain, had lived there for the past twenty-nine years, and was John's professional superior. John couldn't understand why he took things so philosophically when required to hand things over to the 'English doctor'.

Dhaval seemed about to reply when both his own pager and John's went off. They both gave their attention to the information on their incoming case.

"John," Dhaval said, "could you please go through the triage list while I attend to this?"

There was a second before John registered what Dhaval had asked him to do. "What? Why?" he demanded. "It's all hands on deck when—"

"You read the pager. You know why."

"Oh for God's sake—"

"I said take the triage list." Dhaval picked up the clipboard and shoved it into John's reluctant hands. "Begin with Stephen Ilmer. Bed seven. Possible minor stroke. It looks like most of us are going to be busy with this new case, but I'm confident you can hold down the fort for us—"

"But—"

"Dr. Watson, I'm not going to ask you again."

John knew better than to argue with a work colleague who was addressing him as Dr. Watson when there were no patients within earshot. Face scalded with shame, he turned and made his way up the ward toward Stephen Ilmer in bed seven.

The display on both pagers proclaimed Dhaval's reasoning. A young man was being rushed in by ambulance after falling from a second-storey balcony in Brent Park.