A/N: Excuse my absence, even though I really have no excuse. Anyways, I think I'll be able to update semi-regularly again. Hope this chapter doesn't seem too rushed or anything.

Uh, milk. We need milk.

"I'll get some." Must've said that out loud.

My brain feels like dull mush after the onslaught of snowfall. I can still hear the feather light quality of that little boy's voice, the fear of that elderly woman strapped down in her car.

"Really?" I say, because his cooperation would be just stellar.

His smile is surprisingly non-shit-eating. "Really."

My throat feels pin-hole thin because of him, looking at me as if I'm something more. The audience on that surprisingly mundane show - Jeremy Kyle, I correct - roars with unbridled enthusiasm, and Sherlock sits and stares until his eyes seem wry and turn back to the TV.

"Beans too, then?" I can't help but ask. His lips pull up in that quarter-smile and it's like that moment right before you fall, like the boy we saved from death near hours before, terrifying and relieving and thrilling all at once, and -

He, blessedly, interrupts my thoughts. "Beans and all."

I want to ask now. I've put it off for a week since I first had the inclination that he was my soulmate. I've been too scared. I want to ask about him. About me. About us: I really do.

I smile at him before I close the door.

I call Mike Stamford. Whenever I want to unwind, he's my go-to mate: Sherlock is far too overly analytical and uptight to bother with something so banal as drinking games and the drudgery of stressed out normal folk.

I turn the corner to wave down a cab, but one doesn't come. Still too flustered to be frustrated, I high-tail it down the road along the shoulder, looking desperately for a ride somewhere. Shouldn't it be easier to find someone who wants your money?

Pressure, in my arms, in the form of fingertips - bruising with their force. I struggle as I'm tipped into what smells like an alleyway, feeling a strong tingle against the sensitive inside flesh of my arm as it's pressed violently into the stone wall. God, my head -

"Go to sleep," what sounds like a brutish man croons, and without conscious thought, my head bows against his shoulder, my last thought:

Sherlock.

I open my eyes, but see only black. Throbbing, my shoulder and arms ache like I've been in the Afghan sun for far too long and God, that's the one feeling I really don't miss. Cotton-mouthed, heart beat languid and thick like syrup, I try to extend my hands - they move slow like molasses against distinguishable binds. I can't tell if the rush in my ears in my own blood or - water jets, my brain supplies.

Onset of hyperventilation - breathe, Watson, you have this: you have got to have this, because to lose your shit right now would be unwise. What did Sholto tell you - breathe even, slowly at first. My hands fumble at my front as I try to touch my surroundings. Nothing comes in contact with my fingers - there's a chair pressing into my back, though.

Music, I realize. There's music. I strain my ears, tilt my head to the distant noise, desperately muffle the breath caught in my throat coming in uneven puffs, because this is too similar to before and it feels like dying, pellets of sand sticking to my bloody body like rice, filling the hole in my chest as Murray pulls the shrapnel - Christ, it's cold and biting like alcohol slithering down my throat -

Footsteps, treading ethereally, as if they aren't there at all. They sound vaguely familiar. Soft, like rain against asphalt.

Gray in my eyes, like fireworks, painful, yanking. My head jolts back with a resounding thud. Warmth pools at the spot of impact like honey in my morning tea, dizzying and dazzling like the rush of too much air in your lungs all at once. I feel more than hear the steady string of laughter beside my ears, like the piercing sickle of Death himself: a recently wilted flower.

"A little birdie told me you're scared of the ocean?" the voice breathes, and oh, my God, it's him, with Molly: the one that bumbled about like a dog with ears too long for his face and isn't this fan-fucking-tastic - "I don't expect to scare you, no. But I know he does. Mr. - oh, well, you know who." Small hands cradle the soft hair at the nape of my neck and it leaves a cold and ominous phantom of feeling there.

More music blares, accompanying the muffled one of before, vibrating right around where I can only perceive the man to be. The Bee Gees. "Speak of the devil: he should be here soon," the accent, what I recognize to be Irish like Murray's croons. The knot at the back of my head loosens, as does some of the fear in my stomach as jarring overhead lights invade my vision, God bless.

"Only a few more things. We need to get you ready," he whispers and Jesus it sounds like velcro from semtex being layered around my middle and - "Just let it happen."

My head spins.

His eyes are what I see first.

They appear smug and elated, I suppose like any true hero when he catches the villain unawares. That is before he sees my eyes peek from behind curtains.

Then they are shocked momentarily into what seems like an abrupt stop, which I only find strange because it's Sherlock. His brain, moving as I would describe as faster than the speed of light, comes grinding to a halt all because of some impertinent thing like me.

"This sure is a turn-up, isn't it, Sherlock?" is whispered into my earpiece and given audacity through my voice, and those eyes of a color I yearn to see now look terrified, and betrayed, and my stomach churns with everything I couldn't dare to speak of right now.

He stalks around me with vague purpose, but his eyes wander down my body like they've missed something. Maybe he thinks he has: perhaps he thinks he's misconstrued me as a perfectly ordinary doctor. In reality, that's exactly what I am: just a doctor caught in the orbit of a brilliant man who has somehow taken a liking to me.

He looks petrified, though later he won't say a word of it, because that's what type of man he is. I've lived with him for less time than Mike Stamford or my mates in university, but he has never been one for words: says they're too flimsy and inadequate, that everything is left to interpretation. I see him now, looking like a man struggling to keep afloat, and he shant dare breathe a word of it after we've gotten out of this mess.

It's sad really, but I digress.

"What the hell?" His voice is chock full of raw surprise, smattered with apprehension, and it sends something stiff and cold as frozen wood curling through my chest. I realize this is a rare occasion in which he has cursed. "But I thought-" He stops, gun resting against his hip, bony and too thin, but not frail. As though I've been looking.

"Do continue, my dear," I say, the words soot and ash in my mouth. His whole body seems to negatively shake with his head, handgun raising ever so slightly towards my upper torso.

He grimaces, guilt sprouting from my toes and billowing above me like a cloud of balloons. "Nevermind what I thought." His determination sends chills down my back, meeting with the warm germination of guilt in my belly. "I have one question-why?"

Moriarty whispers to me confidentially, playfully, as if he's a child excitedly playing telephone with his mates. "The same reason as anything else, I suppose," then,"for fun. Really, I mean it." My tongue feels swollen and restrictive in my mouth. "I like watching you dance, baby boy."

Sherlock startles when I shed my parka to reveal the explosives strapped around my midsection. "For that, I'll allow you one last parting dance with John Watson, as an adieu," I grumble, trying to bypass the fear layering in my gut. Sherlock doesn't look hurt now, but surprisingly fearful.

He rushes to me, clammy palms pressing both of my arms into my sides, like that game to make them raise on their own accord. "Are you alright?" he bites out, more impatient with fear than anger, quickly backing off to bellow to the upper gallery, "Who are you?"

The double doors at the far end of the pool break the quiet, and I can tell just by the tap of his shoes that it's Moriarty, come to torture us in person this time. "I gave you my number. Thought you might call," he sing-songs, somehow mirthful in the cascading overhead lights.

Sherlock appears stricken despite himself. "Jim from IT?" he breathes, in what sounds like a self-deprecating way, gun re-establishing its place outstretched from his chest.

He tsks, head tilted ever so slightly. A grin flourishes on his face. "Moriarty, actually. Hi."

A/N: Hope you enjoyed this chapter! It's been in the works for a very long time, and it wasn't until very recently that I was finally satisfied with the direction of the story.