John tried to ask Sherlock what he meant by his comment about Moriarty, but there was no waking him. He debated asking the nurses to turn the fentanyl down, reverse it even, so that he could double-check what he had meant, but the meaning had been clear. Sherlock hadn't seen Moriarty in the physical world, he had seen him in his mind when he was lying in that half-land between life and death. Heaven or hell, John wondered. Which did Moriarty represent to Sherlock?

John waited by Sherlock's bed for another hour or so, but he showed no signs of waking again, and so with a nod to Mycroft's guards on the door, John made his way back to the main entrance of the hospital. Pulling his phone out of his pocket as he went he found a text from Mary. 'Got an SOS call from Cath. Neil is being an arse again. Heading over there to offer tea and sympathy. Will pick up a take away on my way back, but could be some time M x.'

As soon as John had set foot outside the hospital, his phone rang. Mycroft, of course. John glanced up at the nearby CCTV cameras, wondering if he was being watched, and then realised that there was a far more simple solution. The security guards must have alerted him to John leaving the unit, and he was phoning for an update.

'He doesn't remember anything about the shooting, Mycroft,' John said as soon as he picked up the phone.

'You mean that is what he told you. Tell me what he said, word for word.'

John recounted the crux of his conversation with Sherlock to Mycroft, omitting the part about faking sleep, and hesitating before mentioning Moriarty.

'All of it, John,' Mycroft said with his usual edge of irritation. And John found himself recounting the Moriarty comment.

'James Moriarty is dead,' Mycroft said calmly. 'I saw the body myself. There was no doubt.'

'You saw Irene Adler's body too - the first time.'

'The circumstances that time were different.'

'So there is no chance...'

'None.'

'Only forgive me, but people do tend to have a habit of coming back from the dead in the circles that you move in.'

'Whoever shot Sherlock, John, it certainly wasn't James Moriarty.'

'So we're no closer to knowing who shot him?'

'Oh I wouldn't say that.'

John sighed wearily, leaned against the entrance to the underground station and squeezed the bridge of his nose. 'What do you know, Mycroft?' he asked.

'Tell me one thing, John. Do you honestly believe my brother when he says he doesn't remember who shot him?'

'I don't know.' John said. 'But why would he lie?'

'Why indeed?' Mycroft said, and then with a click he was gone.

'Mycroft - what-' John started, but there was just the dialling tone. John let out a string of swear words that earned him a dirty look from a woman struggling to get a small child and a baby and a buggy down the steps to the station. In an attempt to redeem himself, John muttered, 'Sorry, bad day,' grabbed the front of the buggy and helped her down the steps with it, earning himself a smile, and a small step towards restoring karma.

He hesitated at the junction between the corridor to the District and Circle and that to the Jubilee line for several minutes, not wanting to face the empty house with all of those thoughts going round and round in his head again. Eventually, he took the steps towards the Jubilee line and Baker Street. Now that Sherlock was awake, he'd be wanting some things from home. His pyjamas, his beloved dressing gown, his phone charger, a toothbrush, shaving stuff.

'He knows,' a quiet voice in his head said. It sounded horribly like Irene Adler. 'Mycroft knows and he's not telling you. Now why would that be?'

Shut up, he told it, because another voice was creeping in, his own, and that said the thing that has been puzzling him all along. Why shoot Sherlock once in the chest and leave it at that? If the intruder had wanted to kill him, then why not shoot him in the head, and if they didn't want to kill him - then why shoot him in the chest at all? Why not aim for another, less perilous site? John could make no sense of it, none whatsoever.

Mrs Hudson was in the hallway within seconds of John's key turning in the lock, and John realised guiltily that nobody had updated her on Sherlock's progress. As far as she knew, he was still lying unconscious on ITU.

'Hello, Mrs. H,' he said. 'Good news. Sherlock's going to be okay, we think. He's woken up.'

'Oh I know,' she said. 'That nice young lady who works for Mycroft has been keeping me updated. You'll be wanting to pick up some things for him, I suppose. I've ironed him some pyjamas, and got his leather holdall down for you. Folded up his second best dressing gown. I wasn't sure what else he'd need.'

'That's fine, I can sort the rest out,' John said.

'Is he really going to be okay John?' she asked. 'I mean, these things can make people go a bit, well, funny, sometimes. Does he seem - normal, well not normal obviously, but does he seem like Sherlock?'

'He's still very groggy,' John said, 'but yes, he still seems to be firing on all cylinders. I think he's going to be fine.'

'Good,' she said, following him up the stairs. 'Well come on then, let's get his things together for him. I've made him some mince pies too, he always liked those. Thought you could take them in to him.'

'It's September, Mrs H,' John said.

'Yes, well. They're about the only thing I bake that he'll reliably eat. Thought he might need something to tempt his appetite.'

Being in 221b without Sherlock was - odd. It reminded John uncomfortably of those days after Sherlocks presumed death when he had sat there for hours, addressing Sherlock's empty chair, trying to make sense of it all. He hadn't been able to bear the aching void left by Sherlock's absence. He had seen him everywhere in those early days; seen him sitting at the kitchen table, performing one of his blasted experiments, seen him sitting in his chair when he had walked into the living room, heard his tread on the stair, his slam of the door. He had seen him on street corners, in cafés, in taxi cabs. It had almost been enough to make him believe in ghosts. Moving out had been easier than living with the constant reminders. New flat, new life, burying the past. And now? And now Sherlock was back, but he had moved on and he almost wished - almost wished that it could all just go back to the way that it had been before. If he had been here, would Sherlock have cooked up the plan to use Janine to get to Magnussen? Would he have ended up in that crack den? John thought not.

'John?' came Mrs Hudson's tentative voice from behind him.

'Sorry, Mrs H, I was just-'

'Bad memories, of course, there must be. But he'll be back, John, of course he will be. It's not like before,'

'Did you know?' John asked curiously, realising the oddness of Mrs Hudson never having rented the flat out again while Sherlock was gone. Two years, for two years she had left it empty. She had boxed up some of Sherlock's things, in the first couple of weeks after his presumed death, but there it had ended. John had found himself unable to help and had told her to consult Mycroft to see what should happen to his possessions. Something must have stopped her clearing the flat. And the rent - there was the other odd thing. She might say that she couldn't bear to rent it out to someone else, but the rent from her flat was a large chunk of her income, John knew, how had she been able to afford to leave it empty?

'No,' Mrs Hudson said. 'I didn't know.'

'But the flat?' John asked. 'You left it virtually untouched.'

'That was Mycroft's suggestion,' she explained. 'He offered to pay the rent - all of it, that is, if I preferred to leave it as it was and not rent it out again.'

'Did he say why?'

'He said he might have need of it again one way. He wouldn't say anything else.'

'Oh.' John said with a frown, realising that Mrs Hudson had had what he hadn't - she had had hope. 'So you DID sort of know.'

'Not for sure John. I just - hoped. Killing himself wasn't really Sherlock's style was it? He was always so full if life, so positive, well apart from his down days of course. It just didn't seem like something he would do.'

'And what did you mean the rest of the rent?' John asked, suddenly picking up on her earlier comment. 'You mean my half? Did Mycroft pay Sherlock's half before?'

Mrs Hudson looked uncomfortable. 'Oh come on Mrs H. The cat is well and truly out of the bag now.'

'The rent, John. Did you really think you'd get a flat in central London for six hundred pounds a month?'

'Sherlock said that you owed him a favour.'

'I'm very fond of Sherlock, dear, as you know. But I couldn't afford that sort of favour.'

'So what - Mycroft topped up the rent? Did Sherlock know about that?'

'Of course not. You know what Sherlock's like, John. He thinks that things just sort of happen. His clothes miraculously pick themselves up off the floor and end up washed and folded back in his drawer, milk appears in the fridge, bills get paid. He doesn't really live in the same world as the rest of us does he? I'me always surprised that he carries money at all - like the Queen. Do you know that she never carries money? Doesn't have to, of course.'

'So - Mycroft paid you to let us both live here?' John asked, desperately trying to bring the conversation back on track. And paid you to look after Sherlock.'

'Not paid dear, no. Just - contributed to his expenses.'

'Did he pay you to spy on him too - no I don't mean spy, I mean to report back?'

'John Watson, what sort of person do you think that I am? Of course not!'

'Did he offer? Because he tried it with me too, you know, when I first said I was going to move in.'

'Oh of course he tried, but I'm not scared by the likes of Mycroft Holmes. I told him that I would keep a motherly eye on Sherlock, make sure that his washing was done, his shirts were ironed, the flat was kept clean, that sort of thing, but that was the end of it.'

'And you did keep an eye on him, Mrs H,' John said softly. 'We both did.'

'Wasn't enough to stop him going back on the drugs though, was it?' Mrs Hudson said with a sigh.

'You knew about that? I mean before the other day?'

'I suspected, John. You learn to recognise the signs. I was going to mention it to you, next time, I saw you, but - well, it's been a while, hasn't it. And I wasn't sure. If I'd been sure I would have called. Of course I would.'

'He says it's all for a case,' John said, ignoring the snipe about not visiting. He'd been busy for heavens sake. He had a job, he had a wife. So why did he feel so guilty?'

'Well he would, wouldn't he?' Mrs H was saying, and John wrenched himyself back to the current conversation.

'But you're not convinced?'

'Well it's not for me to say John, is it. It's a nasty business, that's all, and he's a fool if he thinks that he can just pick those things up and drop them again when he feels like it.'

A book on the shelves caught John's eye. 'That book, Mrs H. The one about drug addiction. Did you put that there?'

'No, Sherlock brought it with him when he first moved in. It was in one of those boxes of his.'

'Oh.' John frowned, wondering what to do with this information. 'What do you think I should do then?'

'Talk to him, John. He trusts you, and he cares what you think. Cares about you more than he cares about anyone, and - well, I don't know what went on between you two, but I know love when I see it. And Sherlock does love you, in his own funny way. That hasn't changed.'

'Mrs H, Sherlock and I-'

'Oh I know, you've only ever been good friends. So you keep saying dear, but be that as it may, if anyone can get him to talk about why he's using drugs again, it's you. He'll talk to you, John, I'm sure that he will.'

John packed up the items that he thought that Sherlock would need for the next few days, and left 221b in a sombre frame of mind. Drug dependency was one thing that he never thought that he'd have to deal with in such close proximity. Despite all of his years of general practice, he felt ill equipped to deal with it. But this was Sherlock. He loved Sherlock like a brother - closer than that. He remembered reading about the Greek theory of the four loves - Fratros, Eros, Philia and Agape. Philia that was easy - friendship, liking another human being, wanting to spend time in their company, now that was simple. Next came Fratros, the love between brothers, and then came Agape, the higher spiritual love, often between men. The love that drove men to die for each other; to kill for each other. John sniffed, and turned up his jacket collar against the biting wind, in an unconscious imitation of Sherlock. Love, what did he know about love? Sherlock was Sherlock and Mary was Mary, and he cared about them both in different ways, and that was all that he needed to know - wasn't it?