A/N: Yes, I'm here again. Guess I was the one needing a bit of a time freeze. Only mine didn't work properly as you may have noticed my absence.

I'm still spinning this tale to no certain direction, I just like the possibilities. -csf


3.

'Sherlock, we have all the time in the world! Can't you see?' I challenge, full of fresh excitement. 'We can do whatever we want! There are no rules, no right or wrong, no consequences when there is no one else around. Honestly, Sherlock, when was the last time you wanted to take off your shoes and wiggle your toes, but there was a client at 221B?'

He shrugs. I briefly wonder if that would stop him. Social conventions are not Sherlock's forte.

'Have you never had an urge to scratch your crotch, pick your nose or blow a raspberry at someone? There are no consequences, mate, we are free to do whatever we want!'

He blinks.

'You're here, John.'

I shrug. 'Maybe I like it for a change.'

'What do you mean?' he looks less than impressed, as if I was cheating him of the John Watson he knew best. I keep telling to behave and now, given half the chance, I tell him to misbehave?

I let my smile spread. I'm not advocating murder or grand theft, mate. Both of which we could probably pull off, by the way.

They say integrity is about how you'd behave right even if no one was watching. At least on the big things, we're doing alright. It's not like having just each other in the know is what is keeping us right. Sherlock is my best friend, I'd get rid of a body for him, of course I would. Him being Sherlock, though, I might have to keep him from autopsying it first.

'Maybe I want to steal the gold from the Bank of England. Or take a nap at Buckingham palace. Or– or—'

'Very industrious, John, to copycat Jim Moriarty and all that, but I didn't stop Time. What if it starts again at the most inopportune moment? Who would believe we had been bathing at the Piccadilly circus fountain because Time had stopped and that meant there were no laws?'

I squint. 'Is that what you want to do? Bathe in a fountain? Do you mean skinny-dipping?'

He looks sheepish all of a sudden. 'Just a silly example, John. What would you suggest?'

I shake my head. We must have fun, right? Sherlock is approaching this physics impossibility too logically.

'I'm hungry', I declare. 'I want some food and drink soon. All this middle of the night exploring is making me hungry.' I barge in to the dead man's house at once.

Behind me I still catch the fleeting glance of Sherlock's eye roll.

.

Well, we didn't expect this.

There's an impressive array of murder weapons on display in the tiny flat. I immediately zoom in on the handgun, trying to check it for warmth, smelling it for deflagrated gunpowder. Sherlock stops me at the last second, with an iron grip on my arm. I flinch, as it tugs my left shoulder.

'Hey, don't do that, Sherlock! What do you want?'

'John, you mustn't leave your greasy fingerprints all over that gun. Can you not see we wouldn't be able to explain our presence here?'

I glance on over at my friend, slowly putting the puzzle pieces together. A lightning speed crash visit in the middle of the night, who would believe that? For all intended purposes, it's like we're not actually here, never were.

Behind Sherlock I see a laptop screen. Seems to be recording the footage from four closed circuit security cameras; three outside and one inside the flat. We're not in any of them at all.

'He must have had enemies', I comment.

'Not necessarily. He might have had victims, John. He lured them in here, where he kept plenty of murder weapons at choice.'

'That's a bit careless, really.' Putting on my leather gloves I carefully turn the closed bedroom door's handle. What I see through the dusk makes my stomach turn.

I try to turn on the lights, but the switch flickers uselessly.

That seems to finally catch Sherlock's attention.

'The electricity should flow at your command, John. The door handle obeyed your command. Why didn't the lights —'

He stops short. No outwardly explanation required. There's a Japanese sword embedded on a wall socket and a young woman's dead body on the floor next to it. Electric burns on her hand and exposed foot. The electric current went straight through the heart, stopping it.

Too bad, she must have been the client's type, going by her manga character cosplay outfit.

'When she died, presumably by accident, our death obsessed client decided to enact a death pact. I've just found a note in the kitchen. Why would he then come to me, but to further make sure no one else took the blame on both deaths. Sadly he didn't make it but to 221B's close vicinity. The murder victim and murderer are not just one and only, but he comes to me? Oh, it's a good case, a very good case.'

'Yeah, but how did he poison himself? Ignoring all other options laying about?'

'Poetic meaning, I suppose, John. I believe you have heard of tetrodotoxin, produced by bacteria in a symbiotic relationship with fugu, or pufferfish?'

'So, he just had a neurotoxin laying around?'

Sherlock raises his voice. 'Have you not seen the Japanese chef knives in the kitchen? The fish in the fridge?' he deplores.

'No, I didn't.' I squint. 'Why did you open the fridge, Sherlock?'

'I was thirsty.'

'Sherlock, you're not drinking milk straight out of the bottle again! Sherlock, and at a crime scene too! It's unsanitary!'

'That's alright, John. No one's the wiser', he says, phlegmatic. 'And you're glazing over the fact that I had already solved the murder and therefore was sure the milk was fit for consumption, poisons-free.'

'I'm the wiser! I know that now!'

'Five seconds rule, then.'

'What? That's not how the five seconds rule works! Actually, there's no scientific basis to—'

'Oh, please, you would have guessed some day. And likely none of us will remember this in the morning...'

I cross my arms in front of me. Oh, I'll make sure to remember. I'm the one who gets the ruddy milk at home anyway! Sherlock can get his own milk if he's drinking from the bottle!'

'Let's just get out of here, Sherlock. You've solved the case already, I grump. There's no calling the Yard and waiting on their arrival, not tonight anyway.

.

'John, you're upset.'

'You risked your life back there, Sherlock. For purloined milk.' I grab a loose pebble and toss it from the bridge, straight at the Thames. The near to no traffic backdrop is stilled behind us, and the water is eerily frozen liquid under the bridge – a metaphorical visual of our current predicament.

We solved a case. Maybe I had entertained a hope that solving a murder, or two, would fix our reality. It didn't. There's something the universe is trying to tell us, something we're missing.

The pebble just bounces off the water hard surface, landing farther afield, on top of the wavy surface of the compacted water course. It will sink in later, in its own time.

'Yes, I'm upset. Something might have happened to you. Something I, alone, couldn't have fixed, Sherlock.'

He nods, slowly, to pacify me. I know that will be the end of it. Not expecting an apology from the detective.

'John, are you worried time is not defrosting?'

I glance at my friend and we both chuckle at the odd choice of word. It breaks some of the built up tension.

'I don't know how to put time back to normal', the detective confesses. 'Maybe we should go skinny-dipping after all.'

I take a deep breath and still myself against the bridge corroded metal railings.

'Sherlock, you know when you don't want something to happen, something scheduled that is coming, and you wish with all your might time would just slow down, maybe even stop altogether?'

He glances at me, not very forthcoming. But I know everyone feels that way one time or another in life. Before an exam at school, before your girlfriend finishes saying she's done with the relationship when you are still in love, or that fragment in time when you see the first IED roadside exploding ahead and you just know—

'John.'

I look straight at Sherlock, gulping down my thoughts.

'What is it, John?'

I ask in a barely audible whisper:

'What was it, Sherlock? What has terrified you?'

He looks stricken at once. Gathering his wits he defends, a bit theatrically:

'Fear is an irrational response, John. I do not fear.'

'Fear is a natural response, and you love the natural sciences', I retort.

'Then so is love', he despises. 'I don't love. Love clouds my better judgement.'

I now know I'm on the right path here.

'It'd be unreasonable not to recognise love or fear or such emotions, Sherlock. They are factors that influence our decisions.'

'They are poor substitutes for facts.'

'And yet they still colour the facts.'

'Why are we having this unpleasant conversation? Have you found my version of Halloween, John?'

I smirk at his theatrical ways.

Then breaking down that smile, I turn solemn as I gather my own experiences:

'I remember waking up in hospital. After my shoulder, you know, the first surgery didn't suffice because there was an infection and it spread so they had to go back in, but I didn't know that it would be like that. I just feared it would return, the pain, and the shock, and that I couldn't go back, and what was I going to do with my life, I don't think I was ever so secretly frightened as then.'

Sherlock's eyes are deep green, soft and full of something undetermined, maybe kindness or admiration.

I try to finish my thought. 'As I put on a brave face to the world – soldier, remember? – inwardly I wished so hard that time would stop. Everything was changing too fast. I just wanted to go back and keep at my mates side and fight the battles I abandoned them in', I admit, with a knot forming on my throat. I don't think I ever said this aloud. Certainly not to my therapist; and there would have been no one else I'd be comfortable telling but to Sherlock.

'John', he repeats, soothingly. He places his hand on mine and assures: 'You have not abandoned your team. No one who knows you would ever have thought you could desert them willingly. You are the most brave and loyal person I have ever met.'

I dismiss the idea with a fake shrug. I felt I had.

Sherlock clears his throat, looks coyly away and admits, after biting his lower lip and then pressing his lips firmly to gather (as if in an attempt to stop himself):

'The first time I saw time freezing to a standstill, John, Mycroft was about to leave home. University', he explains to my puzzled look. 'I would actually miss the prat.'

I smile proudly. Sherlock is sharing. I don't think he'd do this with anyone else.

'Time resumed the next morning, with the inevitable. So I thought nothing more of it.'

'Did it happen any other time?'

'Once when I was at Uni.'

I notice the sharp, sudden silence.

'Did time resume the next morning?' I ask instead.

'Or at some point. I may have been slightly out of it. Victor knew a dealer.'

I grimace. Stuck on a weird high with a world frozen solid? Not too funny, I would suppose.

We've been through this conversation before. Sherlock hardly ever mentions Victor, a friend from Uni who mostly took advantage of the vulnerable genius, starved for human connection, and succeeded in closing off the most important person in my life in ways in still slowly trying to pry open, one tiny piece at a time.

Sherlock is smirking as he watches me closely – literally nothing else to watch the reactions of under the skies right now.

'John, you are promising yourself a battle. I can tell by the way you're flexing your left hand. By the way, I've detected two tremors in it already. Two minor earthquake shatters in the compact structure of the soldier in you, whereas a moment ago you were absolutely at rest. Keep your secrets if you must, but do recall that when I touched you, you came out of the frozen world. If you take a swing at someone in this time freeze—'

'They'd wake up. Good. I don't punch a man when he can't defend himself', I grumble.

Sherlock hastens to report:

'The third time this has happened you woke up when I touched you, John.'

That distracts my anger, alright.

There has got to be a common thread. Mycroft leaving. Victor, who knows? That's a longer story than I can extract from Sherlock. And me? Am I an accessory or a key in this reccurrence?

'Sherlock... what happened last night?' I ask, curiously. 'Did something make you wish fervently time would come to a standstill?'

Slowly he nods. 'But you don't seem to remember, John. Probably it's better that way', he reckons, shutting himself down further.

I don't know how to coax his secret out.

Will his secret keep us stuck in this freeze-frame until Sherlock is ready to face his trigger? At least we've got each other, but I'm getting really hungry and tired now. I can't sleep until Sherlock gets us out of this mess. I wouldn't leave him alone in this crazy world.

.

TBC