Well that hiatus was a bit longer than I expected!

Thank you to anyone who is still reading this story, and to those of you who have left reviews or messaged me encouraging me to complete it. The good news is that it's finished bar the final edit, so should be posted in its entirety over the next few weeks.

Hope you think that the wait was worth it.

Kate221b x

Chapter 31

John walked back onto the unit the next afternoon to the unmistakable sound of the Holmes brothers arguing. It was a sound that he knew well - Mycroft's crisp, clipped vowels and Sherlock's slightly deeper baritone. He checked his watch. A quarter past two. Mycroft was early, and he couldn't believe that it wasn't by design.

The door to Sherlock's room was flanked by two well-dressed men who from their bearing and haircuts screamed ex-forces. John nodded to them, and went to walk into the room, only to have his path blocked by the sudden appearance of an arm across the door. When he raised his eyebrows in query, security man number two indicated with a grunt and a sparse hand signal that John should lift his arms up to allow himself to be searched. They were obviously men of few words.

John sighed and allowed himself to be frisked. He had no weapons after all, but to his surprise the man pulled John's mobile phone out of trouser pocket and threw it onto a waiting silver procedure trolley.

'What's going on?' John asked.

'Mr Holmes' orders. No electronic equipment within the room,' the door-blocker told him. 'You'll get it back when you come out.'

Perplexed, John stepped into the room to find Mycroft standing next to the bed, glaring at Sherlock, who was giving his best basilisk stare back.

'Whats going on?' John asked calmly.

'Why don't you ask Mycroft?' Sherlock said.

'Mycroft?' John asked, turning to the older brother.

'I am simply ensuring my brother's recovery.'

'By stopping me working?' Sherlock snarled.

'By ensuring that you do not endanger your health any further with matters that do not concern you,' came Mycrofts's clipped reply.

John threw himself into the chair by the side of the bed, squeezing the bridge of his nose in an attempt to abort the headache that was threatening. 'Any time you two feel like speaking in plain English, just let me know,' he said. 'And out of interest, Mycroft, why did your men confiscate my mobile phone?'

'It has come to my attention,' Mycroft said, 'that my little brother has been sticking his nose in where it is neither wanted nor needed. Removing all digital devices seemed like a proportional response and is almost certainly the only way to ensure his full recovery without further incidents.'

'Right,' John said. 'And the goons on the door?'

'Are there to ensure that he behaves himself and does not acquire any contraband electronic devices. Correct.'

John looked from Mycroft, who was now looking rather smug, to Sherlock who was doing a good impression of a sulky teenager, and back to Mycroft.

'You do realise, Mycroft, exactly how unwell your brother has been don't you?'

'I have been fully versed in the events of the last ten days, yes.'

'So you realise - hang on, what?' John stopped, considered, and stared at Mycroft in confusion. 'You accessed his notes?'

'And wade through all those pages off awful handwriting? No of course not. I received the summarised version.'

'From who!' John exploded. 'You can't access people's medical records without their consent. that's illegal!'

Sherlock's facial expression has switched from fuming to interested. He narrowed his eyes, considered and then, trying to hide his glee at having found the answer in that way that John recognised from countless cases, turned to John and said, 'Oh come on John, isn't it obvious?'

'Isn't what obvious?'

'Who the mole is.'

John frowned as he considered.

'James wouldn't without your consent.'

'No he wouldn't,' Sherlock said, settling himself back on his pillows and watching Mycroft's face for any flicker of acknowledgement.

'He's enjoying this,' thought John, darting a glance at him. 'He's enjoying the art of the deduction.'

Sherlock's eyes narrowed, and John watched his fingers dance just a little in the sheets, flicking through the rooms and files in his mind palace, no doubt, before the corners of his mouth turned up in the slight smirk that let John know that he had just found the answer he had been looking for.

'You didn't even have to threaten her, did you Mycroft? You just feigned brotherly concern and worked on her good nature. Did you bring our parents into this and their need to know? You would have been foolish not to use that extra piece of emotional pressure after all, and as we both know, you're no fool.'

John's eyes flicked between the two brothers trying to with out who they were talking about. Female -Mary? Surely not. She knew very little about what was going on anyway. A nurse? Would they have been presurised to tell Sherlock's brother? He doubted it. The hospital had a very strict policy forbidding staff giving out information on the phone without a patient's consent. Who else knew what had been happening? It wasn't as if Sherlock had had many visitors - Lestrade, Mrs H - would she have cracked? It was possible but she knew little of the detail and it was unlikely Mycroft would have been prepared to put up with the obligatory tea and custard creams before digging for information, which left - Molly.

Of course Molly. Molly who John had given full access of Sherlock's medical records for the ante-mortem that had diagnosed the endocarditis. Molly who had sat with Sherlock for hour after hour while John has allowed himself some rest; Molly who had been John's confidant through all of this, Molly to whom he had confided all of the details of Sherlock's treatment to. Because he had to talk to someone, and goodness knows he couldn't talk to Mary.

'You bastard,' he murmured, shaking his head, jaw tight, fist clenching and unclenching,resisting the urge to punch Mycroft in his smug little face.

'Worked it out, have we John? Very good.' But the voice was not Mycroft's, but Sherlock's. And it was patronising and belittling and now John couldn't work out who he was more irritated with.

'You're not angry?' he asked Sherlock in disbelief.

'With who? With Molly? Come on, John, you know Molly. Tell me how long did it get you to persuade her to spill the beans Mycroft? Ten minutes? Five? '

'Three,' Mycroft announced smugly. 'She hesitated slightly, announced herself reluctant and then crumbled rather rapidly when I professed my fraternal concern for your welfare. It's amazing how quickly people will give you detail when you don't ask for it. Human beings have an extraordinary need to share bad news and gossip, and this - you have to admit - contains the best of both elements.'

'What I find more interesting, John,' Sherlock continued, is how Molly came upon all of those details on her own. Molly seems to have an indepth knowledge of my treatment not just up to the point of my diagnosis with fungating heart valves but after that also. Now how would she know that do you think?'

'What - I wasn't meant to talk to her?'

'Not with the details of my treatment, no.'

'You never said.'

'You never asked.'

Sherlock turned his piercing gaze onto John, and John somehow had uneasy memories of being called to the headmasters office to explain how William Johnson's cap has ended up stranded on the roof of the gym.

'What - so I was just meant to sit in silence and not tell her anything? Christ, Sherlock, she saved your life for fuck's sake, or have you forgotten that? Didn't she have the right to know what was going on?'

Sherlock gave him 'The Look'. The one where he managed at one moment to look scornful, unimpressed and to imply that John was an idiot.

'And what does it matter anyway? Mycroft's your brother. Why shouldn't he know?'

'Mycroft is apparently my jailer.' came the clipped reply.

'Not at all, brother mine, this situation is entirely of your own making as we both know.'

John opened his mouth to protest, and realised that he couldn't. It had been entirely of Sherlock's own making after all.

It had been Sherlock's idea to go to Magnussens office that night.

It had been his idea to get close to Janine and to charm her into trusting him.

It had been his idea to propose to her to get into Magnussens inner sanctum.

It had been his idea to go and look for the attacker.

It had been his idea to confront the shooter when he had found her.

And it had been his idea to ascond from hospital, stage that ridiculous revelation scene, and to shoot up into his central line in order to enable himself to achieve it. Or possibly just to get high.

All of this had been of Sherlock's own doing. Mycroft was right. And for once John couldn't leap to Sherlock's defence because they both knew it.

'I didn't ask to get shot' Sherlock said grumpily.

'Didn't you?' Mycroft asked cooly, pulling a bright orange tablet out of his inside pocket and throwing it onto the bed.

'I thought you said no tech,' Sherlock said, glaring at it.

'Controlled tech, limited wifi access. It's loaded with all of the latest games for you. I'm told the snake one is particularly good.' Mycroft pushed back his sleeve to glance at his watch.

'Time I was off. Do try to behave, Sherlock, there's a good boy.'

And with a swirl of overcoat he was gone. His goons outside the door, however, unfortunately were not.

John eyed Sherlock cautiously. It felt a little like being in the room with an unexplored bomb. He resisted the temptation to edge closer to the door.

Sherlock, however, was sitting up in bed turning over the kindle, examining it closely. It's orange cover had already been discarded scornfully on the floor.

'What are you doing?' John asked.

Sherlock held up a finger for silence, as he grabbed a biro from his bedside table, neatly emptied out the inner core and used the point of the pen to prize what looked like a function button away from the main device.

He dropped it into the glass of water that John silently held out towards him, being an old hand at this game, and then grinned. 'Clever trick that. Unless you were intimately familiar with the normal morphology of a kindle you wouldn't notice the extra button. Fortunately you have always had a penchant for cheap technology and so I recognised the differences.'

'You do realise that Mycroft probably has other listening devices in here?'

'Doubtful. I had my security consultant do a full sweep before he arrived.'

'Your - what?'

'Security consultant, John. Sweeps for bugs, finds hidden cameras, listening devices and so on.'

'Right,' John said faintily, wondering what's sort of alternative reality he has returned to.

'So - you're not annoyed with Mycroft confiscating your phone?'

'Mildly, but I have spares.'

'You have - right,' John said again. 'Do I even want to know where you've hidden those?'

Sherlock grinned evily and as if on cue there was a clatter on the window, then another one. The long remembered sound of pebbles being thrown against glass.

One of the goons outside the door stuck his head into the room suspiciously and Sherlock did the facial equivalent of sticking his hands in his pocket and whistling loudly.

'Would you mind?' he asked John when they had gone.

'Would I mind what?'

'Picking up my delivery from the window.'

'Sherlock, you're on the second floor.'

Sherlock rolled his eyes at John and indicated the window with his head. John walked over to it, half expecting to see a drone hovering outside with a laptops slung underneath it but could see nothing. He opened it cautiously, stuck his head out and saw Bill Wiggins standing on the pavement underneath.

'Mornin' Bill shouted up at him. 'Catch!'

He threw a thin rope up to John who missed it the first time, but caught it the second.

'Well go on then!' Bill said to him and he hauled it up. The ends were attached to a Tupperware box with a clipfast lid. Inside the box, predictable enough were two mobile phones, a battery block and a charging lead.

He lowered the box back down to Billy, tossed down the rope and threw the phones across to Sherlock who turned them over to inspect them, apparently satisfied.

'Do I even want to know how you managed that?'

'Young William Wiggins is proving extraordinarily useful,' Sherlock told him smugly. 'He also has an aptitude for disguise, and the ability to pass himself off as a wide variety of hospital staff. On this occasion the man with the tea trolley. Nobody is suspicious of an individual who offers them a cup of tea and a gingernut biscuit while they're on guard duty.

'And he couldn't just smuggle the phones in with the tea because...' John asked.

'Sherlock gave him a despairing look. 'Far too obvious, John. You think they wouldn't check? Besides, where would be the fun in that?'

John felt mildly irritated and then realised the subtext in what Sherlock was saying. It was a game. A game against Mycroft. A game that the Holmes boys had been playing for long before he'd come onto the scene. But more interestingly than that, it was a game that Sherlock finally wanted to take up again. Which meant that he was feeling better.'

'How was the echo?' he asked optimistically.

'The jelly was cold, and the procedure only mildly uncomfortable.' He replied, still playing with the phone, now flicking rapidly from one screen to another, presumably looking through a news site.

'I mean is it getting better?'

'I have a fungus eating my heart valve, John. It's not going to get better quickly. Besides it's boring, talking about my health is boring. What we should be talking about is how I'm going to take down Magnussen.'

'Didn't Mycroft just warn you off him?'

'Which just makes it all the more interesting don't you think? Why is Mycroft so keen that I leave Magnussen alone that is the million dollar question.' He paused as if considering. 'Well maybe the half a million dollar question. Let's not be overly generous.'

John threw himself down into the chair beside the bed with a sigh. Any hope of reclaiming the intimacy of two days ago was long gone. Sherlock was back to work, Mycroft was trying to stop him and John was beginning to think that after all of those days willing Sherlock to wake up, life had been far simpler when he was sedated.