A/N:Yay! It's done. I am so grateful this is done. After nearly seven months, I glad to be finally moving on to something else. I have written three other stories while writing this and while this was fun, it didn't hold the same attraction as the others.

Also this is where it earns its mild angst tag.

Thanks to my beta Old Ping Hai who kept poking at me to finish it even when I despaired. I hope it is well worth the wait. The ending is much different then when I wrote it months ago. But better I think.

John was starting to get a little nervous. Sherlock had gone into the shop almost an hour ago and they were already running behind schedule. John checked his watch again; very little time had passed since the last time he checked, but it was still closer to the mark than he would like.

Sherlock came out of the shop carrying a small white bag.

"That's all you got? I texted you three times and called once. You know the incense in that store gives me a headache. With how long it took, I would thought you'd bought out half the store," John huffed.

"It took me that long to convince the idiot shop boy to get it for me. He spent the whole time on his mobile," Sherlock sniffed.

John opened his mouth to say something when behind them he heard, "Sherlock?"

Both he and Sherlock turned around to see a well-dressed, dark-skinned gentleman waving them down. As the man neared, John could see that he was Indian-English and his teeth were so white that they hurt his eyes.

"Victor." Sherlock's voice was cold and hard.

John glanced up at his husband in shock. This was Victor Trevor? Shit. He wasn't at all what he expected. All right, to be fair he was expecting more Tom Hiddleston than Sendhil Ramamurthy. But either way, this man screamed money and lots of it.

"It's so good to see you, Sherlock," Victor enthused, warmly taking Sherlock's hand and shaking it, while placing his other hand on the detective's shoulder.

Sherlock glowered, but Victor ignored it. "I was hoping to catch you here," he said with a wink. "A little bird told me."

Sherlock shrugged him off. "I didn't know that Langdale was still speaking with you. Remind me to send him a case of his least favorite beer."

"Oh, don't be like that, Sherlock. I had to bribe him with a case of India's best sonti." Victor frowned. "To be honest, I don't think it was the alcohol that convinced him."

"Oh?" Sherlock was suddenly interested. What would change Langdale's mind?

"He said that I deserved what was coming to me and that it would be fun to see," Victor replied.

John's head turned back and forth as though he was watching a tennis match.

"I have no idea what he meant," Victor whined.

"Oh, I do," Sherlock practically purred. John shivered, he loved that tone of voice in his husband. It meant an idiot was about to be laid low.

Victor smiled. "But who cares about that old crow, Sherlock. I'm here to take you to dinner. Just you, me and a nice bottle of wine."

That was John's cue. He stepped up between the two men and grinned. "Excuse me, but I am standing right here."

Victor looked him over with an eye of disdain. "And who are you that I should give a damn?"

John drew up himself up to his full height and said, "I am a doctor and a surgeon, I fought in Afghanistan, I have taken down men bigger than you, and I can break every bone in your body whilst naming them. I am Dr John Watson-Holmes and you are hitting on my husband."

With every word John forced Victor back a step, crowding him until his back hit the side of the shop. He turned and looked at Sherlock, who was grinning like the Cheshire cat.

"You're ma-married?!" Victor spat out.

"Oh yes," Sherlock said coming up to stand next to John. "You see, Victor, I found someone who isn't interested in me just because I'm suddenly famous and worth the effort. You aren't interested in me, Victor. You never were. You strung me along until daddy's money came through and then you vanished like a thief in the night. John has stood by me through it all. You are just a ghost. A shadow that defines my past. But you are not my future."

"I am," John said with a shit-eating grin. He looked at his watch. "And you aren't worth the time, speaking of which. Greg will kill us if we're late to his and Molly's wedding."

Sherlock glanced at his watch and nodded. "Right you are, John." He turned to Victor, "Goodbye and please don't keep in touch."

He slid his arm around John's shoulders, and John slid his arm around Sherlock's waist. They walked off into the crowd, completely ignoring the wide, open-mouthed gaping Victor was doing.

A man in a dark overcoat stepped out of the shadows, "I did try to warn you, Vicky love. But you wouldn't listen."

Victor rounded on the newcomer. "Now listen here, Langdale-" Victor began.

Langdale Pike just waved him off. "Do get in the car, Vicky," he said, as a dark sedan pulled up to the kerb. The passenger-side door opened to reveal Mycroft.

"Yes, do in get in the car, Victor. I'd make some kind of threat, but I'm sure you are aware of the danger you're in," Mycroft said, leaning forward so he could look up at Victor.

Victor gulped, but didn't make a move toward the car.

"My father was kind," Mycroft growled. "I am not kind. Not where Sherlock Holmes is concerned. Get. In. The. Car."

Langdale pushed Victor toward the opened door and then slid inside once Victor had haltingly entered the vehicle.

"Don't worry, Vicky darling," Langdale said with a chuckle. "We're just going for a ride to the airport and on the way there, the three of us are going to have a lovely chat about you never setting foot on this continent again."

Years pass and they see the birth of William Hamish and Lily Marie Lestrade. Will was born in the middle of a triple murder. John thinks it was a new record for the detective on how quickly the case was solved. Lily was born a couple years after that.

It was then that Greg announced his retirement from the force. And after a couple of years of Sherlock losing his patience with the new Detective Inspector, John and Sherlock, too, decided to hang up the deerstalker and retire.

They threw a huge party at Baker Street. Mycroft wasn't as spry as he used to be, Mrs Hudson had to be helped up the stairs to 221B, and Molly and Greg brought Will and Lily. But there were others there as well, former clients, members of various other police departments, friends they met along the way, all of them crammed into the tiny space that was the living room.

Halfway through the shindig, John called for everyone's attention. He took Sherlock's hand in his and smiled up at the detective.

"Thank you all for coming," John began. "I know all of you think that we are here to support Sherlock's recent success-"

"Our recent success," Sherlock interrupted. "I couldn't have done it without you."

There was a collective "awww" from the crowd.

John blushed. "Our success then," he continued. "But that isn't the reason why you all are here. It has been a long journey for Sherlock and me. From that first case with Jennifer Wilson and the Study in Pink," John raised a glass to Greg and Molly, "to Sherlock's Hiatus and his return." He raised his glass again, this time to Mycroft. "From empty hearses," he pointed at Anderson, who ducked his head and blushed, "to Mary and beyond." He stopped and choked back a sob. "Sherlock and I have weathered much in our journey. And while he has always loved me, it took me years to realize I felt the same about him.

"I thought I wanted a simple life. A quiet life with a white picket fence, a pretty wife, and the requisite number of children. But Sherlock showed me that I didn't want that. That in all likelihood, I never have. I was still chasing that desire when Sherlock fainted running after a criminal."

Sherlock blushed hotly. "Not my finest hour," he interjected.

John gave his hand a squeeze. "Probably not, but who knows what would have happened if you hadn't."

"Oi, you lot would have gotten there eventually," Greg called from the back.

"See, John," Sherlock said with a smile, "Even Greg thinks we were smart enough to figure it out."

John looked at the hand that held the drink for the toast and the other hand that held Sherlock's and sighed. "I don't have enough arms. But I will swat you for that later."

Sherlock's eyes twinkled. "You promise?"

Molly thrust her hands over Lily's ears. "Sherlock!"

He chuckled, unrepentant.

John cleared his throat. "Right. That night produced a change in me. A shift. Subtle, but very crucial. I shifted my priorities from what I thought I wanted, a normal life, to what I truly needed, a lifetime of adventures next to Sherlock Holmes." John wiped a tear from his eye using the hand that held Sherlock's and then Sherlock kissed it away from their joined hands.

"But it's time for new adventures, ones that don't include chasing criminals. We are hanging up the deerstalker for good. We are retiring."

There was a small grumble of disappointment, but it seemed for the most part everyone was happy for them.

They spent a few more years at Baker Street, until Mrs Hudson passed away. They packed up and moved out to Sussex Downs to the cottage John bought when he proposed, all those years ago. It was time to get away from the city. Far too many people still knew their address and would come to them with problems. And they wanted to get as far from that as they could.

They couldn't bear to sell it, so they boarded it up and told Molly that when Will was old enough to need a place of his own, it would be his. They had talked it over with Greg and Molly, first, as Will was barely sixteen at the time, but they agreed that upon him turning of age, Baker Street would be his.

They still got visitors, of course. Will would come most often after his father died and Molly became too ill to walk. Lily had outgrown their stories and had stopped visiting when she was but a teenager. Mycroft didn't live much longer than Greg, the stresses of his job put such a strain on his heart.

Of the original group it was down to Sherlock and John, and Molly. And Molly knew her time was coming to an end.

It was a race to see who would go first, her or John, whose failing health had emaciated him.

Will began to visit them every other day to make sure that they were okay.

It was a cool autumn evening when Will came to visit. He was running late because the class he taught had gone over.

He knocked on the door but there was no answer. He turned the handle and it opened the door. Will frowned. It wasn't like Uncle Sherlock to leave it unlocked.

"Uncle Sherlock!" he called. "Uncle John!"

They weren't in the front room or the study. Will poked his head out back, where the bees were kept, but they weren't there either.

He searched the house high and low, but could not find them. He finally decided he should check the bedroom for them. But when he opened the door, what he saw made him sink against the doorframe and sob.

Sherlock and John were curled up together on the bed, both having passed in the night. Joined in death as they were in life.

Will called his mother and told her the news. She didn't live long enough to attend their funeral. So Will planned Sherlock and John's funeral, while Lily planned their mother's.

At Sherlock and John's funeral. Will got up and said this:

"Here dwell together still two men of note
Who never lived and so can never die:
How very near they seem, yet how remote
That age before the world went all awry.
But still the game's afoot for those with ears
Attuned to catch the distant view-halloo:
England is England yet, for all our fears—
Only those things the heart believes are true.

Here, though the world explode, these two survive,
For they will always thrive."

A/N: The two men that John mention in describing Victor are where me and the fandom disagree. Most of the fandom picture Tom, while I picture Sendhil. Although, there are those few outliers that think he looks like Idris Elba...so yeah.

Also I totally cribbed from Vincent Starrett. I'm still not sure I like it. But I'm just going to have to live with it.