It wasn't unusual for Dr. Watson to wake in the middle of the night, cold sweats soaking his sheets as his frantic shivers died in the stillness of the realization that he was not, in fact, back in Afghanistan. However, this night was indeed unusual in that it wasn't his own screams that woke him. Somehow the sound of agony ripping from the lips of the most rational and truly human man he had ever met shook Dr. Watson more than the pain of his own trauma, and the man was out of bed with a hand on the door knob before he realized precisely what he was doing.
He realized quickly, upon opening the door, that the screams coming from the bedroom of Sherlock Holmes had been dreadfully muffled by the distance of hallway and solid wood of two doors, when they grew exponentially louder as he entered the hall. Dr. Watson's chest shook frantically as adrenaline, born of fear-training and gunshot, pumped through his body and prepared him for a very different kind of war.
You're not haunted by the war, Dr. Watson. You miss it.
At the time, with a psychosomatic limp and a nervous tick in his hand, Dr. Watson had been quite surprised to find that Mycroft Holmes was right. His sheer terror in this moment, his shaking hand on the doorknob of Sherlock's room, came from a very different place, then.
Dr. Watson then did something entirely against his instinct. He paused.
Mycroft had told him to come here to learn what had happened to his dear friend and in that moment, standing in a dark hallway in his wrinkled clothes from the day before, he realized that he had absolutely no idea what his friend was even capable of. What would Sherlock do?
With as much reason as he could muster, he began making deductions.
A limp. Psychosomatic? It seemed unlikely; Sherlock Holmes was too well in control of his own mind to suffer this sort of issue. Actual injury then.
Behaviour. Drugs? Probably. Just drugs? Unlikely. He had had his wits about him to clean the apartment in the moment before Dr. Watson entered, likely an indication that he was not so far into drugs that he was detached from reality. But what then?
Dinner. Sherlock had been ravenous and the kitchen a mess, clearly he hadn't eaten for a while before Dr. Watson came around. Fasting? Doubtful, Sherlock was certainly not religious. He was known to forget to eat when he was high, but again he didn't seem high enough for that.
Pain. Pain? Sherlock had had trouble getting in and out of his chair in the living room and getting dressed had taken him more time than Dr. Watson ever remembered him taking before.
The screams continued and Dr. Watson could faintly hear whimpers as though Sherlock was begging between outbursts of terror. He thought briefly of Irene Adler. Not that kind of begging.
That suggests the original circumstances of the injury were probably traumatic - wounded in action, then.
Wounded in action?
The screaming!
You've never been the most luminous of people, but as a conductor of light, you are unbeatable.
Dr. Watson, careful as ever, opened the door to Sherlock Holmes' bedroom. He moved silently to sit beside his writhing friend on the same bed he had helped to deposit him when he was drugged, high, wounded, and more. The agony on Sherlock's face was unbearable but Dr. Watson knew his role here was not to fix his friend, but to help him, and he placed a gentle hand on Sherlock's shoulder.
I don't have friends, John. I just have one.
Sherlock woke with a start and seemed to break down when he saw the former army doctor sitting beside him, the deep lines of his face etched with hot fear. Not the sort of cold worry that carves lines into the faces of old women who have lost too many children, not the sort of warm concern that softens stern eyes and brings gentle smiles to worn lips, but the desperate ugly fear that springs tears from bloodshot eyes down a puffy face that can't help the frown that looks more like a grimace than a sadface. John Watson, the army doctor returned home after a traumatic wartime injury, was afraid.
You are the best, and wisest man that I have ever met. Yes of course I forgive you.
Sherlock cried for a long time before he could say anything much. He simply cried into his hands and begged not to have to go to sleep again. Dr. Watson was quite sure he wasn't fully awkwae yet but had no intentions of putting the famous detective back to bed.
"Shh, Sherlock, you don't have to go to bed. It's alright now, I'm here. You're home."
When he finally resumed his more typical state, he cleared his throat and looked terribly embarrassed. Dr. Watson thought for a moment before simply scooching closer and hugging Sherlock tightly.
"So we should probably talk then." He said, releasing Sherlock and leaning back.
"Right. Ah. Where to begin." Sherlock laughed without humor and stared down at himself without really seeing anything.
The night seemed very quiet as Sherlock began to explain what it had required of him to take down Moriarty's network. Although he tried his best to gloss over the torture he had received in Serbia and other countries around the world, Dr. Watson gathered enough information to feel sick, hating himself for not seeing it sooner. It was a long time after Sherlock was finished before Dr. Watson said anything.
"Have you, ah, seen a doctor?"
"I'm sorry?"
"Have you seen a doctor? I haven't seen any wounds on you but I don't fancy you've been the most caught-up on your medical care, and Mycroft doesn't seem the type to consider these things either."
Silence.
"When I first arrived, yes. There were a number of stitches required and some skin grafts, nothing major."
"Skin—" Dr. Watson swallowed hard. "Show me."
Those eyes. Those careful blue eyes that searched endlessly, though they saw everything.
"Are you quiet certain you wish to see, John?"
The doctor merely nodded.
Turning, and pulling the back of his pajama shirt over his head, Sherlock revealed what used to be the smooth skin and slender muscles of his back, where only thick red welts and deep cuts remained.
Dr. Watson checked out of his personal perspective—he couldn't handle that process at the moment—and focused on the medical perspective.
"Lacerations, abrasions, burns, evidence of broken ribs, Sherlock how did you survive?"
"I didn't think I would." He whispered past the tears that had sprung back to his eyes. "I really didn't think I would." He returned his shirt to its normal place.
Dr. Watson was quiet.
"I didn't ever contact you, John, because I wasn't sure whether I'd come back. The opportunities were rare and fraught with danger anyway and I couldn't risk putting you in harm's way, nor did I want to put you through that grief again. Of course, I had no idea what my death would mean to you."
"No idea—" Dr. Watson shook his head but was quiet.
"Mycroft and I had discussed what to do in case of my death and what arrangements should be made for my belongings here as well as what to tell you. He would, should I die, inform you of the truth of my jump from Bart's Hospital and explain the circumstances of my actual demise."
"And he agreed to that?" He shook his head, imagining getting this news from the colder of the Holmes brothers.
"Reluctantly. He felt it would be better for you to think I had died the way that I had and for you to be able to complete your grief in a more normal way."
"But?"
"But I didn't want you to think I was a fraud forever."
They were quiet.
"I never thought you were a fraud at all."
Between two men, whose respect and profound love for each other was stronger than most friendships could hope to achieve, there were no more words. How does one say what they think or feel to the man who can deduce anything? How does one explain his gratitude when he has been labeled a sociopath—among other things—and truly has no grasp of the words necessary to express the feelings of which he thought himself incapable?
Dr. John Watson, formerly of the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers, and Sherlock Holmes, the world's only consulting detective, fell asleep in Sherlock's bed, each too grateful for the other's presence to say or think anything of it. It was, of course, quite natural for such friends to do the very thing that seemed so necessary to do. Sherlock slept soundly, for the first time in what was surely months, and Dr. Watson slept off the hot fear that trauma survivors so often bring home with them.
They ate breakfast the next day—each of them consuming frankly massive portions- and stood in the entrance of 221B Baker Street.
"Let's not say goodbye." Sherlock finally said. "That seems rather preemptive. I should think it would be best to begin again. I'm sure Scotland Yard is rightly desperate to have us back."
Dr. Watson laughed, thinking of how delighted Mary would be to have him out of the office and back in the field she knew he loved so much.
"Right. Monday, then?"
"Monday." Sherlock smiled, a sincere smile, and followed Dr. Watson out of the flat.
Sherlock went grocery shopping that day, the first day he was clean since his return to London, although certainly not the last first-day he would endure. Dr. Watson went home, to his second home, and to his fiancée. Mycroft Holmes received two texts, each simply reading "thank you."
Of course, one of them was signed "SH".