Thou preparest a table for me in the presence of mine enemies

— Psalms 23:5

"You were bloody right, John…"

John, in the hospital staff break-room for a 'lunch' of exactly twenty minutes, put his coffee down on the table in front of him and checked his watch. Shortly past eleven p.m. His shift so far had been relatively quiet, even for so close to Christmas, but protocol and good practice had still demanded he give his patients and coworkers his full attention. With grim determination, he'd locked Sherlock's post-mortem file in his locker on arrival at work, but it had been his first port of call on his break, even before he'd reached the coffee machine. Now that Greg Lestrade had called, he wouldn't even get his break time to go through it.

"Right about what?" he asked patiently, resigning the report as a dead loss, getting up and moving toward the window, where a sensitive conversation would be less likely to be overheard by the staff wandering in and out. He owed Greg his attention. Through the slats of the window, he could see the city lights sparkling like a supernova, bright cars zipping along the main road below him.

"Blowtorch. It was a blowtorch."

John dropped his hand from the slats. "Really? I wasn't actually being serious about that…"

"Yeah, right, sure you weren't." From the sounds of things, Greg was in the underground carpark at New Scotland Yard headquarters, lighting up a celebratory cigarette.

"So hang on," John said. "Go back to the basics. Someone killed that woman with a blowtorch? Any idea who?"

"Oh, guess."

"The son. Hasn't he got an alibi?"

"Yeah, but guess what happens when you only pay someone eight thousand to have your mother killed off? They grass on you, the second a detective like Donovan starts talking about life sentences. Which this guy'll get too, but he didn't know that when he told us everything. His name's Luke Stevens. That name's not ringing a bell?"

John paused, a little puzzled as to why Lestrade was asking if he knew a hit-man. Something about… He glanced at the file again. "No, never heard of him," he said. "But he's weirdly creative in his hits."

"She was smothered, apparently. The blowtorch was to conceal cause of death, like you thought. Not because Stevens is a genius, but because he's a moron. Gained access to the flat by posing as a workman from the council trying to replace the pipes, and if he'd just smothered her and buggered off instead of using a blowtorch and hanging around making sure you saw it, he'd have probably got away with it." Lestrade, true to form, did not mind discussing his professional failures, both past and future. "I should have known, really. The only person with a solid motive to kill her was the only person who'd benefit from her death."

"Broke?"

"Flat broke. Gambling habit, owes money all over Warrington, Liverpool and Blackpool, apparently."

"Bastard," John said mildly. Gambling was another of the things he had complete contempt for, along with recreational drugs and binge drinking, though this last one occasionally got the better of him, especially when Harry was not around to set a good example for. He had few memories of his recent 'stag do'. "Well, that's another win on your record, anyway. Keeping Dawson happy."

"For a change." After a pause, in which he was audibly taking a drag of his cigarette, Lestrade said, "So how's things?"

"Fine," John said. Then, on reflection, "No, they're perfect, actually. Why?"

Another pause.

"Oh, God," John groaned. "What now?"

"Sorry, but I have to give you fair warning. They're re-examining Sherlock's case."

"Yeah, you told me," John said, with another agonised glance at the file, sitting inconspicuously on the white plastic table six feet away. "Claudette Bruhl's started talking. At least it'll give her a chance to…" He trailed off as the significance hit him. "Wait," he said. "The suicide case? They're opening that up again?"

"David Everard's brought it up in parliament, so it's pretty much got to be now. The coroner's finding's likely to be challenged, John. And they might overturn it."

"Well, what the hell for? Did Donovan—"

"She says she didn't, but if not her, then who?" Lestrade wanted to know.

"Well it wasn't me." John spoke tersely.

"I wasn't accusing you."

John let a breath out. Now that Donovan had come up in the conversation, there seemed no point in obfuscating. "She came to see me," he said. "The other day. Going on about discrepancies in the report." He found himself oddly reluctant to admit to anyone else that Donovan had also been trying to apologise. He grit his teeth. No. He had no use or sympathy for her apologies. If she'd done her research instead of accusing Sherlock of a felony, he'd still be alive.

"And what did you think?" Lestrade ventured.

John made himself go back to his table and sip his coffee, though it was growing cold. You didn't pass on the opportunity for caffeine on a night shift. "I told her to leave," he said. "I know she's your sergeant and I have to live with that, Greg, but if she hadn't…" He trailed off, suddenly realising that however much Donovan and Anderson had pushed Lestrade to escalate the kidnapping case to Dawson, with Sherlock Holmes as a suspect, he'd still done it of his own free will.

"She wouldn't tell me what the discrepancies were," Lestrade was saying, oblivious.

"And I can't tell you either, 'cause I haven't read it." Yet. John glanced at the file again.

"Sorry, just thought you should know."

"No, thanks for the fair warning." John tried to calm himself down. He was due back on the hospital floor in only a few minutes, and doctors who let themselves get rattled were doctors who made mistakes. "I doubt anything will come of it. Just a waste of taxpayer's money."

"Yeah," said Lestrade drily, and rang off.

"Okey-dokes, mate, wake up…"

Sherlock surfaced slowly out of sleep. It was bitterly cold; an overwhelming, pitiless chill that was not one bit abated by gloves or boots. There was a strong light shining in his eyes. Abruptly awake, he sprang up in alarm to find three well-dressed young men had come into the tunnel and were standing before him. Each held a torch. The one who had his torch trained on him dropped the beam to the floor, leaving Sherlock struggling to make out details in their outlines.

Working professionals…not blood relations… that one's got four sisters… that one speaks Portuguese… that one's ridden a horse in the last three days… "What do you want?" Sherlock demanded.

"It's okay," the nearest one said, holding his hands up, palms-outward. A clean-cut, earnest young man, almost translucently pale. "Someone gave us a call to let us know you were down here. We just came to see if you were all right. Bloody cold night for you to be sleeping rough. What's your name?"

"Christian," Sherlock muttered, reaching for the name automatically. "Christian Yearsley."

"Have you got anywhere warmer where you can sleep tonight, Christian?" the second man, he of the Portuguese second-language, asked him. "Any money for a hotel, or maybe a backpackers…?"

Sherlock was still scanning the three intruders, the mystery as to who they were and why they'd woken him to witter on about hotels deepening. He did not recognise any of them, and there was no glimmer that indicated they had the faintest idea that they were talking to the world's greatest semi-retired consulting detective. The youngest, who had not yet spoken, was married, though he couldn't have been older than twenty-one. All of them were teetotallers, and…

Oh, dear Lord. I've been waylaid by God-botherers.

"I, um, not really," he said, trying to control the chattering of his teeth. He could not remember the last time he'd felt so cold, and he had solved crimes in Siberia, Tibet and, once, Nunavut. "I'm not… really homeless…" He managed to stop himself before using the word indigent. That would have drawn attention to himself. "I'm travelling…"

"Have you eaten today, mate?"

Sherlock hadn't eaten since leaving Sydney, but that had completely slipped his mind until now. He'd never even considered the connection between four days without food and the thumping headache he now had. Sleep deprivation... extreme cold... Of course. Is it any wonder I'm off my game?

He shook his head. Now the thought had occurred to him, he wanted nothing more than to hit one of those all-night stands along the embankment, order a burger the size of a microwave oven, and do it the justice it deserved…

"Would you like to come with us? We can give you a meal and a bed."

Sherlock hesitated. He hadn't expected to be 'rescued' in this way, and now his dilemma stood on whether it would be more conspicuous for him to refuse help or take it, and how much longer he could survive mentally without shelter or food. At the last second, he decided. That burger was going to have to wait. "Where?" he asked.

"Not sure yet, but it'll be warmer and more comfortable than here. We'll have to ring around, see where we can put you up for tonight. Come on."