A/N: Last continuation (finally).

Keep safe and keep strong. We can do this. -csf


continuation's end.

A soft blush befalls Sherlock's face as he coyly raises his shirts for my inspection. I've knelt by his armchair, transfixed in the vast plains of muscle and pale skin, and an abated red extension of a scar. It feels wrong to see that flawless skin marred by violence, a price to pay for the daring act of a man trying to shut down a ring of crime. I reach tentative fingertips, causing him some goose bumps, but I insist, checking the healing, guessing the infection that once took hold of the man, and the trajectory of a stray bullet that miraculously missed main organs and vital paths. As a physician I know there are not many paths a bullet can cross a human torso without producing death if no immediate medical attention is sought. This imaginary pathway I sense under my fingertips is one of the few that would give Sherlock a fighting chance. A cold shiver runs down my back as if death itself, escaping the lucky detective, had brushed me as it escaped the room.

'You can see I wasn't lying, John.'

'I never said I thought you were', I reply, confused.

'Why not? Given that I have been recounting a tale of lies and cons? No big leap.'

I look at those grey and green eyes, so crystalline tonight.

'I have the right to indignation, Sherlock. Doesn't mean I don't still trust I know who you are. I know you, Sherlock.'

He presses his lips and still defends, as if he not heard a word I said: 'No bone damage from the gun kicking forward as the detonation left the chamber, no ponder burns scars around the wound site. It wasn't self inflicted, nor was I shot at close range. It's all consistent with my story.'

'I know', I whisper, starting to see why he tells me.

'Good', he asserts. 'Because as I hid, assaulted by high fever, down in the city drains, I wasn't too sure of that myself for one occasion or two.'

'Gosh, Sherlock.'

'Luckily I'm a great detective. I can deduce even in my reduced state.'

'Was that when I... came back?'

'Yes, John. I knew you'd come. You always do.' He smiles tightly at that.

.

'Go away!'

The cowering injured detective shouts almost incoherent in the darkness of the quiet sewers under the city. He has dragged himself to a quieter alcove and gathered his limbs close against his torso, trying to close ranks against the inexplicable pain exploding from within him, shredding him to pieces.

'Go away, I told you to go, can't you listen for once? I've no need for you! Go away!'

"Could have fooled me, mate. One look at you and anyone would say you needed a doctor, but how would I know? I'm just the only doctor you ever trusted, and still you pushed me away."

'Now is not really the time for chastisement and reconciliation, John', the hurt man heaped on the floor snarls.

John's ghostly imprint sarcastically glances at his wristwatch. "You sure? I think you have a few minutes to spare before you bleed to death without my help..."

Sherlock growls in the damp dark tunnels under a city. 'Stop it!'

"Who'd figure I'm even more demanding in your mind than in real life?" John ponders, still at sarcasm high.

Seems Sherlock's mind can only fetch this John. As if he knew, from instinct, that the real John would feel hurt, betrayed, and would lash out in short tempered passive aggressive comments. The bleeding detective has to recognise, for the first time in a long time, if not ever, that he both really needs John Watson and that he's hurt his friend the most grievous way possible.

Those are two realisations that leave a bad taste in his mouth, alongside the ferric tinge of blood from a cut lip.

'John, help me', the detective's words echo in the empty chambers.

"Why should I?"

'Because I'm sorry. You deserve me to tell you that much, hence you need to keep me alive so that we can still meet again.'

John's apparition sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose in a familiar gesture.

"Still haven't got it, have you? I will always help you, Sherlock, no matter what. That's what friends do."

Sherlock smiles through a grimace. 'Quite right, John. Quite right.'

This is the doctor he knows best, as a missing half of himself.

"Now keep going. You can't rest yet. If you stop now for a short sit down, you won't be able to get back on your feet. Trust me, I know it hurts real bad right now, but you just follow me. We are on our way to a pharmacy. There you'll put your lock picking skills to the test. We can stock up on proper bandages, antiseptic and painkillers. I can tell you what to do. This way, Sherlock, we're not far now."

Soldier John is present and accounted for as well, Sherlock notes with interest.

'How would you know? You've never been to Amsterdam!'

"I'm taking over your big brain, mate, and you read a magazine on the plane here. Gosh, you're brilliant, recalling all the topography of the city centre from one pic in a glossy magazine!"

'You can't take over my brain!'

"Mate, you're hallucinating me here. I think you've lost that battle a long while back. Just keep going, you're doing great. Do you trust me?"

Sherlock huffs loudly.

For someone taking over his vision and decisions, John can still be obtuse as ever if he needs asking that.

'With my life, John Watson.'

.

'What are you thinking of, John? That forehead wrinkle lodged over your brow, I can't decipher it.'

I fake a smile in the safety of Baker Street's living room and diverge his attention:

'So in order to save you from a life of crime I led you to commit a smaller crime, the theft of a pharmacy?'

'In order to save a life. My life. Yes, you'd do that yourself.'

True, I ponder, but no need to stroke the git's big ego. Not at a time when we're both safe in 221B, reminiscing on the past.

'How long did you remain in hiding then?'

Sherlock studiedly shrugs. 'Two, three days. I started succumbing to a minor infection and had to seek proper medical attention. Mycroft helped me with all the instructions, direct from the mouth of a trusted physician... You're not to be blamed for that infection, John. It was true I was hiding in the city's sewer system, very foul and unsalable. Thanks to you I had already acquired the right medication for such complication.'

I shuffle my stance in the armchair, suddenly too hard for me to sit and listen.

'Did you steal from restaurants too?'

'Baby food', he tells me in all seriousness. 'Pharmacies will sell those baby food jars. Carrot and sweet potato mash is still my favourite... I didn't risk surfacing too fast, not until the trap I had laid Moran paid off. And it did, not a moment too soon.'

'Wait, I thought you didn't know Moran would show up.'

'I didn't. It was a self-destruct clause I had put in the Maupertuis family business. As it happened, I ended up there to watch the whole thing, John.'

.

The cool crystalline waters of the North Sea coast undulate peacefully under the striking winds. A luxury yacht stands out in his immaculate white streamlines. The local fisherman pottering about at a safe distance cannot begin to imagine this boat is the world's epicentre of master criminals at a work retreat. Jim Moriarty's style.

Sherlock has just made it on-board and he's cautiously walking the starboard deck, ducking from view when two arms dealers from Kuwait turn a corner, hiding his face as a slim woman – the Chelsea Strangler – walks wobbly after her third prosecco bottle.

After several near misses he slithers inside the pilot's cabin, finding it empty. He takes a deeper breath and asks himself for the last time: are you sure of this?

For John, he is. To keep him safe in 221B.

.

Sherlock starred hard at the gridlocked commands on the yacht's cabin. Operation Titanic. Full steam ahead, propelling a yacht load of the worse specimens of mankind, all sickle claws and deadly venom under the silk smooth exterior of business men, philanthropists and artists. All, without exception, Moriarty's loyal henchmen. From the cabin crew to the dazzling socialite in a skimpy outfit, from the burly boxer to the four Michelin starred chef catering for the gathering in honour of the late dear Jim, all wallowing in their success against mankind.

Not if Sherlock Holmes (and John Watson) had anything to say about it.

The detective planted a small explosive device over the commands, strapping it tight to the locked direction engine. Semtex – how appropriate, dear Jim was a romantic deep inside – and a timer built out of a wristwatch, copper wires and chewing gum. Estimated detonation time on impact against the hard jagged rocks of coastal Holland.

With trembling, numb cold fingers, Sherlock activates the bomb.

How fitting, the first fake Baron Maupertuis was about to blow them all up in smithereens.

A noise startled Sherlock suddenly. Jolted, he turned around to face his opponent.

He derided his ow surprise. Moran, of course.

'There's nothing you can do, Moran. It's over.'

"What? Sherlock, there bloody well is something he can do. He can rip the bomb off the steering wheel and chuck it overboard!"

Sherlock nearly rolled his eyes; not now, John. Don't think too loud, John, he mustn't hear you.

"Sherlock, I'm your private hallucination, no way I'm going in his head, I've got standards, you know?"

'I'm pointing a gun at you, Holmes.'

'Yes, I can see that. No points for stating the obvious; back to me. You recognised me. You know who I am. Who else knows?'

'Just us', the tall blond with the ginger hair dye shrugs. 'I'm closing an important arms deal with a foreign dictator, don't want to spook him. Foreign dictators are so fickle. Any small ghost from the past will freak them out.'

Sherlock's eyes glance down on the commands of the speeding boat. Thirty seconds to impact and detonation. Unless he sets them off beforehand. But no, not sure he would take out all the evil in the boat.

'Be a sports, turn that off, will ya?' Moran drawls.

'No real incentive, you're going to kill me anyway', the detective retorts.

'I can make it painless for you.'

'Sorry, I'll take the wild card instead.'

Moran's cold eyes are intrigued, just before a female shape rapidly moves up from behind him, hitting him in the head with a fire extinguisher.

Sherlock immediately turns and hacks at the locked controls. Twenty seconds. He can't stop it now!

'You've got to leave the boat, I've set it up for self-destruction, the only way I could take out Maupertuis'a legacy...'

Before he can hatch a plan in his speed-of-light brain, a sharp pain hits his head from behind. He collapses over the jammed controls.

.

'I take it didn't explode, Sherlock, your homemade bomb.'

'It did, John.'

'You bloody well are not a ghost, mate.'

He matches my unsure smile.

'I woke up drifting in a dingy. Nearby a huge ball of hellfire consumed the remnants of the yacht. I don't believe there were any other survivors.'

'She saved you?' I'm surprised.

'She dragged me to a lifeboat before the explosion. Luckily it was just outside the cabin. She pressed the automatic release button in the nick of time.'

'She didn't join you.'

His eyes darken like thick clouds.

'Not my choice, John.'

'No way that happened in under twenty seconds, Sherlock.'

'No. She must have unlocked the timer and added enough time to set me free. Maybe she planned on saving herself as well. Her actions tell of repent and atonement. That bomb, however, was not built for remote detonation. All I know is that she made a choice. She saved me. I suppose there were a couple of nights where I played Scheherazade on the violin for her in that hotel penthouse over Amsterdam, some nights when I let myself be my true self, and in some wordless level we connected.'

I nod, gravely. I know he still blames himself for the outcome. I know this blame is why he wouldn't tell me the story. It's why he delayed reaching out to me and embarked on the next life threatening mission. Guilt is a terrible weight.

I don't blame him, though. I see she made her choice. In time he will see it too.

And I'm thankful I got him back.

.

'Mycroft, I have closed the Baron's ring in a colossal ball of hellfire. The papers have run with the wildest speculations over the affair and my hair is currently being expertly dyed a tedious shade of brown. I have received your nose and ears prosthetics, along with the next fake passport and mission.'

Mycroft's disembodied voice is marred by poor electronics of a disposable phone:

"How very productive, little brother. How about you pick up the pace a little? London won't wait forever, you know?"

'No, you're wrong. I know London will never change.'

.

'So that was my first gap year, John!' Sherlock proclaims with a goofy, please-love-me, smile. 'How was yours?'

I blink, stunned by the sudden change of focus.

'Dark, really dark. I had watched my best mate kill himself. That does things to you.'

Sherlock gulps.

'Mycroft was meant to intervene.'

'I suppose he did', I acquiesce, simulating uninterested detachment. 'He offered me cases. Medical cases. He was most insistent I helped him doctor from afar with some operatives he had on foreign missions. A bit like the war, without the war, he said. Cases of spies – what else to call them – under enemy lines getting ran over by a car, burnt in an explosion, or shot and falling from a height of approximately eight feet.'

Sherlock blinks, sheepishly, but soon blurs out a correction, incapable of holding back:

'Of those three, only one was me.'

'Yeah. Shame that.'

He looks like I've just slapped him and hastily I go over my chosen words.

'No, not like that! I mean... if I had known there who I was doctoring from afar (among others), that you were alive, I would have been grateful. Pissed off and grateful you were alive.'

Sherlock nods, gravelly. 'Mycroft wouldn't have it, you know him. Always the mother hen. What if you were indiscreet? No, John, he was trying to protect me. As I was still trying to protect you.'

'Mate, you were afraid I'd kick your backside for being alive.'

He smirks easily. 'At some point, I decided I could only return properly, when I had rounded all of Moriarty's operationals, and extinguished the many arms of his organisation. I carried you with me – the memory of our friendship – and never again did I push it far from my mind. John, I will attribute to you the saving of my life in Amsterdam. Thank you... Unfortunately, it's not one of my successes you can blog about.'

I nod, slowly.

'I forgive you, Sherlock. I have forgiven you already, many, many times over. But I appreciate you telling me how it was for you.'

'Happy it wasn't just a merry-go-round?'

'Yeah, in a way', I admit. 'Although I wouldn't have you hurt that much. I'm not perfect, you know.'

'Neither am I, but I suspect you knew that already.'

I huff, amused. 'You're my hero, Sherlock. Mull that one over in that big brain of yours.'

He hastily looks away, a bit emotional under the several layers of constructed self-control. He reaches for his violin, takes a long breath, and embarks on Scheherezade.

I had never heard him play that tune in Baker Street before.

.