Disclaimer: I don't own Sherlock, but I really do love him! Please enjoy, I cried while writing this, hopefully I can get some tears out of everyone else!

Chapter Nine

"Takeaway, and The Truth"

Sherlock let the last note drift away, holding the bow posed over the strings as the violin quieted. Peace and contentment had stolen over him as he played, and he had kept playing until his fingers bid him rest. There hadn't been many opportunities to play while on the Continent, and the violin would have given potential observers clues as to his identity. Sherlock slowly lowered his instrument and opened his eyes, not surprised he had fully settled into the seat of his chair while playing. He often ended up in different places around the flat when he played; he could have just as easily ended up in the bathroom as his chair. Not that he would've minded, the bathroom had excellent acoustics.

John was gone from his chair; Sherlock tilted his head as he caught the murmur of voices from downstairs. The inner front door closed and he heard John's distinctive tread coming back up the stairs. He smelled Chinese food before John even breached the doorway, and Sherlock's stomach complained bitterly over its lack of food during the last few days.

"Don't think I didn't hear that! I know how you get on case, and as your doctor, I'm prescribing this entire carton of beef and scallops in oyster sauce." John dropped the takeaway carton in his lap, forcing Sherlock to hurriedly put aside his violin lest his dinner ended up on the floor.

The smell was overpowering, and John laughed as Sherlock damn near ripped the carton apart to attack the food. John completely lost it when Sherlock tossed the chopsticks to the floor and just started using his fingers. Sherlock just growled at him and kept eating. John bent over and picked up the discarded sticks, tossing them into the hearth. John settled for using his fork and ate his sweet and sour chicken at a more sedate pace.

John had barely finished his lunch before Sherlock went hunting for fortune cookies in the bottom of the take out bag.

"Going to guess at them again?" John asked.

"John, I never guess. You should know this by now," came the haughty reply.

"Yes you do, there's no way you can know what the cookies are going to say."

A flash of bright eyes and a smirk was his reply, and Sherlock came back up from the bag with a handful of cookies.

"Care to wager?" Sherlock asked, reaching over and dropping the fortune cookies into John's hands.

"Yeah, I do. But let's make this a serious wager."

"Oh?"

"If you can't get the majority right, I win. I win, I get to ask you a question that you have to answer with complete and thorough honesty. If you do get the majority right, then you get to ask me a question, same conditions." John said, issuing his challenge. He grinned at Sherlock, daring him to take him up on it.

Sherlock raised a brow, wondering what John was getting at. But considering he knew he would win, Sherlock smiled and waved his hand at John to begin opening the cookies.

Sherlock's smile grew into a grin as he told John the fortune for every cookie he opened. John's face was disbelieving, and after the fourth cookie and the correct fortune, he threw up his hands in disgust.

"One of these days you're going to tell me how you do that!" John complained, leaning over to spill half of the broken cookie pieces into Sherlock's palm. Their fingers brushed, and Sherlock felt the touch all the way down to his toes. It was if he'd run around his flat in wool socks and touched something metal. (Which of course he's done several times.)

"Never going to happen, my dear doctor. I am assuming correctly that I can hold my question in reserve, to be asked at my leisure?"

"Yeah, whenever. Still think you're cheating." John may complain about Sherlock and his pouts, but he had nothing on John Watson right now! Sherlock laughed, his deep baritone filling the flat. He began to munch thoughtfully on the pieces, and looked at John. Why not? I have nothing to hide from John anymore. I have already lost everything to my Fall, let him ask me how I walked away from that rooftop.

"Go ahead John, ask your question. Same conditions. I'll ask mine some other time." Sherlock said quietly, catching the doctor's eyes as he looked up in surprise. John held his gaze for a second, before dropping his eyes to the floor.

Are you going to ask me about how I survived? Why would that make you nervous? Why am I getting nervous because you hesitate to ask me?

John cleared his throat, and brought his eyes back to meet the detective's. "Was it hard for you to leave? To do what you did to everyone; what you did to me?"

Sherlock was stunned- he hadn't expected that at all. He was expecting John to ask him how he pulled off surviving the Fall, or maybe even what he'd been doing for the last two years. Or possibly even ask him about his meltdown earlier in the week. Thinking back to that morning where he'd cried in John's arms, Sherlock had a place to start. He kept John's gaze, leaned back in his chair, sighed.

"You have asked me for complete and thorough honesty. I shall try my best to give it to you."

"I knew it was coming. The events that lead to my Fall. The destruction of my reputation, all of it. I knew it was coming, and yet it still took every ounce of skill I possessed to survive it. Mycroft had given Moriarty enough of a false lead on me that we barely stayed ahead of him the whole time. Once we were on that roof, it was a battle to the death. One of us would win. What I hadn't anticipated was Moriarty's determination to win at all costs. He wanted to win, only win. I wanted to win and LIVE. That was the difference between us in the end. I wanted to live and he wanted to win. I would usually favor such ruthlessness to be the victor in such a confrontation, but my desire to survive gave me adaptability, options that he didn't think of. His endgame was my death - by suicide- and he used you, Lestrade and Mrs Hudson as leverage to ensure I died. He took himself out to prevent me from forcing him to call off the assassins. I could have broken him, and he knew it. Much of this you may already know, John, either from guesswork and from your own observations over the last couple of years." Sherlock paused, as John nodded slowly. Sherlock took a deep breath, and knew he was about to voice the hard part- his feelings.

"But more than anything, John- I wanted you to live. More than my own survival, I desired for you to live." Sherlock paused, and John's eyes widened slightly. Sherlock's heart began to beat harder, his palms to sweat. Stay calm, and tell him all of it!

"You said that day by my graveside that I had saved you. That you were alone, and that I pulled you back into life. What I couldn't say to you then, John, was that it was you who saved me. I have spent my whole life living inside my head, treating my body and my humanity as disadvantages to be overcome. My experiments, my cases, my deductions, even the drugs, were for the fostering of my mind and my skills, to the exclusion of my heart, my spirit."

"Only after a long time of prolonged exposure did other people even begin to register to me on something close to an emotional level. For me to care or concern myself with the wants and needs of others was an impossibility. I knew enough of society's strictures to remain functional, and to prevent people from interfering with me too often, or from hindering my pursuits."

John nodded, and said gently, "High functioning sociopath, I get it." He smiled a little, and his expression clearly encouraged Sherlock to keep going.

"Precisely John. I had diagnosed myself years before we met, and as I result I stopped trying to adapt to how other people expected, wanted me to be. I allowed myself freedom, but at a horrible cost. A cost I never realized I was paying, until I met you." Sherlock swallowed, thankful his voice was remaining even, calm. Don't falter now, you survived Moriarty and the Fall, you can survive telling John the truth.

"From the moment we met at the lab at St Bart's, I knew you were different. I just thought it was because you accepted me as I was. You accepted me without judgment. You believed in me almost instantly, gave me your trust and your friendship without hesitation. You gave me something I had never had before, a friend. Over the months that followed, it was through you that began to remember, to realize, that I had been born with a heart, and that I had once used it. I would watch you, and learn from you. How I was supposed to feel to any given situation, and so very slowly, I learned to recognize my own emotions. I was able to feel them, name them, and I began to learn how to use them all through you. By being with you."

"The disgust and distrust I held towards sentiment was still strong, so it was an ever present battle between my head and my heart. But this is where you came in and saved me again, John." Sherlock's voice had gone soft, deeper, and he spoke as if in a trance, his eyes focused inwards.

John was amazed. He didn't know how they had gotten to this place, but he was determined not to stop the younger man. He barely recognized this person before him. If not for the cool, methodical voice, John wouldn't have known it was still Sherlock.

"How did I save you, Sherlock?" John asked, needing to know. His own heart felt like it was going to leap out of his chest, so badly did he need Sherlock to continue.

"Caught between cold reason, ruthless logic and the emotions so powerful and new to me, I feared the chaos would destroy me. Make me less than who I was, who I am still. Until I realized that you made me stronger. You would inspire my leaps of genius, and so too did you give me strength. You became my anchor, my calm center in the storm. I needed only you to keep me whole, focused. Better in every way."

Sherlock didn't notice the tears in John's eyes, or the hand he pressed to his own mouth to stop himself from ruining the moment. John cried silently, refusing to take his eyes from his detective.

"Is it selfishness, my desire to keep you alive? Is that what it came down to on that roof, in the end? I need you, so you must live? Admittedly, I had to fake my death for so many reasons, all of them justifiable. But was my true motivation to jump really to save you, so that you could keep saving me? Isn't that the purest form of selfishness there can be? After all you had done in teaching me to utilize my heart, my emotions, was buried under it a core as dark as Moriarty's? You must live so I can too? Am I a monster John, one determined to use you for my own selfish desires? That is a thought that haunts me, that haunts me even now. I fear it, that question." Sherlock felt like he was about to shatter, but he held onto the truth he had yet to reveal. I will not fail to tell him!

John tried to protest, but Sherlock lifted his hand, stilling John's voice. His eyes were aware again, and narrowed in on John's face. There was an intensity in those brilliant eyes John had never seen before, and he felt pinned to the chair and this moment in time.

"While I may never know the truth to that questions anytime soon, there is one thing I now for certain. With perfect clarity. You are in every part of me, every corner of my reality, my mind, my heart. My very cells are built around you. I want you to be happy. I want to see you smile, hear you laugh, know you are content and pleased with your life. I regretted causing you such hurt and pain, so much so it drove me to distraction. So many times during the last two years I wanted to reach out, and take away your sadness. I have the potential to be a monster, a mad dog of an anarchist like Moriarty. But there is one thing in this world keeping me from fulfilling that potential- and it's you, John Watson."

"So yes, it was hard for me to do what I did. Leaving you was the hardest thing I have ever done in my life."