We're Okay

by HyperMint

This is a story about friendship and radio silence, panic and loss and finding something that was really always there. About how drastically lives were altered even before anyone knew it. But, perhaps, this is really a story about lakes, rocks and ripples. Because, at the heart, that's really what 9/11 is.

3. Sherlock

AN: Overestimating my typing ability aside, here's the third chapter.

Apparently, hyperlinks do not show up. Just know that the materials referenced are all real. If you are of a mind, I recommend (I guess) reading/watching them. But reader discretion is advised, because, you know, 9/11.

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Part Three: Sherlock

---

We're okay.

We're okay.

We're okay.

It was quite fascinating how completely and thoroughly panic managed to infect a populace, each individual member allowing it to grow and flourish inside their being before passing it onto the next.

It didn't have to be a physicality – such as a head covering or the color of one's skin – or something as overt as someone shouting 'Fire!' in a crowded theatre.

Sometimes, it was the absolute smallest, most trivial detail that spawned panic.

Now, finding the source of that panic was something that Sherlock Holmes fancied himself rather good at.

It was like child's play at times, making him wonder yet again at how the people around him simply couldn't see it for themselves.

He'd long ago gave up any pretense of vulnerability toward this particularly infectious disease and he was all the better for it.

Nothing could touch him as a result of his utter immunity, because that's exactly what it was; an immunity.

That wasn't to say he abhorred it, no. After all, one of the sources of enjoyment he derived from life was the amusement that was conspiracy theorists. Panic was something he played with, but only ever to garner the correct response.

If he had ever managed to fall victim to panic, then he'd long forgotten the circumstance.

This was, of course, not counting Irene because the panic and alarm had only been confined to himself.

That was a different type of panic, but ultimately irrelevant compared to the larger, more common, variety.

The one that he was immune to.

As it turned out, however, he was just as susceptible to the disease as anyone else was.

Exactly one and one half weeks ago, there was a bombing that he'd been unable to prevent or stop and there were no casualties. It was something he knew and understood, that things beyond his control happened regardless of preparations or the resources dedicated to the prevention of said things.

He'd watched the building fall back, knowing he couldn't have done anything differently, and he automatically started pinpointing where the explosives had been placed due to infrastructure failure. It wasn't difficult and he would most certainly gloat about it to Watson in the future when she and the Captain deemed to join them.

Teach her to neglect her studies in maths and physics, a shameful neglect indeed concerning her previous occupation as a surgeon.

They would join them because he knew how both Watson and Captain Gregson exerted physical activities and their being trapped would provide sufficient motivation to self-propel to safety. That, for him, was not in question.

The building collapsed in a way that was perhaps intended due to whatever variables existed that would eventually be examined and that was that.

Nodding to himself, he glanced around and realized the almost unnerving silence was not, in fact, a self-construct. Everyone around him was mesmerized by the wreckage in front of them and, well, that was understandable.

He could admit to seeing a… a kind of beauty in a building collapse and he'd bore witness to quite a few – albeit controlled – demolitions over the years. Many of those present doubtless had yet to see such a total collapse in this manner, so the 'tourist' factor was in play.

Understandable. Everyone did it.

Whether they admitted to that was another matter entirely, but there was no actual shame.

Destruction was its own way of showing one how lucky one's life really was in the long run. Misfortune was somewhat fascinating when not experienced firsthand.

Also understandable.

He wasn't above such tendencies himself, especially when he was tasked with rebuilding it and then destroying it again.

There was something to be said about beautiful chaos.

He peeked at Marcus, but he was just as transfixed as everyone else around them.

The human ability to snap out of something like wonder was going to take a moment and he was resolved to wait it out until the reacting phase began – which it did.

Except…

Panic began to paint the faces of those nearest him as mute observation gave way to … to what, realization? And…

Was that recognition?

Then, suddenly, reaction was all around him – fueled by pure, unadulterated panic.

And, yes, he did understand that concern for one's colleagues would attribute to a sort of panic – as it rightly should -, but what surprised him the most was the degree of that panic and how it almost independently hit everyone at the same time.

Something that doesn't just happened without a very good reason.

He glanced back at Marcus, who was looking around and asking about their missing half, something that he suddenly started wondering about himself. He didn't worry, however, and did his best to relay his thoughts in a calm manner.

And, yet, the radio Marcus held in his hand remained silent. That wasn't something at all characteristic with the Captain and Sherlock frowned at it. Around them, radios squawked and voices – somewhat shakily – came over the line, making people fall to their knees in relief.

Relief was yet another understandable thing, but this was debilitating relief that was not usual as far as he understood.

He was about to say something to Marcus, but he looked at him and found that same group-wide panic suddenly overcome him, making him shout into his radio a plea for response.

And, somehow, the Detective's slowly growing panic began making his own heart beat faster.

Something was wrong - something had to be wrong – because Marcus didn't lose his senses like this unless someone's life was in mortal danger and -

Why was the radio not working?

His heart beat faster and he grabbed Marcus' hand so he, too, could speak into the radio.

His mind was suddenly zinging all over, pulling up facts and probabilities and construction site crime scenes and –

"Somebody pick up the bloody fucking radio and respond!" he barked.

Because they should've shown up by now!

Why haven't they shown up by now?

"Captain! Watson!"

He looked wildly at Marcus, but he was still of a small part of mind that he recognized the Detective either going into shock, descending into a panic attack or some combination thereof and that probably scared him more than anything else.

Marcus Bell simply didn't do panic attacks, but he was clearly going into one because he was gasping for air and choking and not listing to Sherlock, whose alarm was heightening in response.

And then, purely because he had to do something, he was suddenly running with Marcus in tow and he couldn't tell if hours had passed by the time they'd made it to the outer most edges of the devastation and he slammed on the brakes when he spied –

"Marcus!" his legs near dumped them both on their arses in relief, being the one virtually holding them both up. "Marcus! Look!"

They were safe.

Suddenly, his vision was cleared, his breathing returned to a normal after-exercise rhythm and his heart rate would take similar time before it, too, returned to normal.

But none of that mattered because Gregson and Watson were safe.

That was all he cared about.

He didn't take his eyes off them as he and Bell reached them, his eyes darting all over the pair and making absent deductions:

The very thin layer of dust over the both of them.

Gregson curled tightly around Watson, as if to protect her from something that dwarfed them both.

The violent trembling Gregson was the cause of.

Watson's quick breathing as she chanted, her wide almond eyes shining with absolute fear as she searched for some holding anchor to keep the Captain's panic from swamping her as it threatened to drag them both to a place Sherlock was unable to follow.

The ferocity with which she locked onto his eyes as they fell to their knees beside them, obviously having found the anchor she desperately searched for.

'She needs to calm down,' he recognized and found his own voice joining hers at a steadier rhythm to force her into fighting her panic. If he controlled her panic, then she would break it on her own.

He had to be the calm one in order to foster it because calm was what those in a panic looked toward and would then follow in turn.

So, he offered his free hand and felt the strength of her panic in her fierce grip, her other hand gripping Gregson's arm as it kept her against him. Almost all that was visible was her face and the hand gripped in Sherlock's own.

"We're okay," he said with her, consciously slowing ever so slightly as he did. "We're okay. We're okay."

A look at Bell showed something like shock setting in as his free hand gripped the Captain's hair with fingers that either shook from his own nerves or the violent shivering rocking both Gregson and Watson's bodies. In order to ground him further, he easily made the lax hand drop the radio before wrapping it around Watson's thin wrist and holding it there.

"We're okay," he and Watson chanted. "We're okay. We're okay."

Then, of his own accord, Marcus started chanting along.

"We're okay. We're okay. We're okay," the trio of voices drew from each other as their conviction strengthened and Sherlock clung to that, perhaps needing grounding of his own in some respect.

"We're okay. We're okay. We're okay."

He imprinted that moment, the four of them, in his memories and made absolutely certain that he wouldn't ever forget, locking it inside the small vault reserved for special things and moments and there was certainly enough room in there for this newest, most precious addition.

Because they were alive and they were together.

"We're okay."

That was all he really needed.

---

The Captain was delivered to hospital – drugged or passed out, he couldn't recall – and he, Watson and Bell waited for him to wake.

He stood at the door as Watson clung to Gregson's hand and Bell took the window.

Sherlock didn't stay the whole time, of course, running errands and interference and it occurred to him then on one such venture out into the corridor that he'd fallen victim to panic.

But it hadn't been his own panic, no.

He'd subconsciously panicked as a result of seeing Marcus panic, a response to the panic around them.

And it was the source of that panic that wasn't readily apparent.

The one that had everyone calling frantically for head counts in the aftermath of the building's collapse and the utterly astonishing degree that it appeared.

How could such panic – at such a high degree of unprecedented strength – affect a group of people with the same ferocity at the same time, yet completely independent of each other?

That didn't just occur by happenstance.

And that was something he would've figured out in due time had the Captain's awakening not also incidentally come with the answer he sought:

September 11, 2001.

He got his 'why' and he got his 'when', but that didn't quite explain 'how'.

Oh, he was – though vaguely – aware of the events of '9/11', as it came to be known, but that was quite accidental on his part.

During the course of his Apiary interests, his study had taken him to the crash site of United Flight 93 in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. The details of that data sample could now be deemed irrelevant to the new data he was in search of, but he did recall the simply elegant Memorial. It was simple, yet elegant because of it.

Partitions with the names of American heroes to be forever remembered and that was more or less it.

As far as his memory went, of course.

He was certain that it wasn't just the partitions, but he'd only done a cursory glimpse to show some semblance of respect before moving on.

The Pentagon had come up a number of times in the course of independent investigations, so he was relatively familiar there, as well.

The New York of 9/11, however, was completely unknown to him.

Before, he simply hadn't cared about the illustrious 'Ground Zero' and the fractured successor dubbed the 'Freedom Tower', the building now taking the title 'One World Trade' and bringing to mind the odd thought of two angularly petaled flowers in an intimate embrace.

It had no bearing on his own thoughts, processes or identity and it actually came across as a bit of an insult to think it would. He wasn't definable by an event, thank you very much, and you would do well to remember that.

He would've gone on – quite happily, in fact – without really knowing what happened, had it not been for the collapse of one and one half weeks ago.

Because that was the source of the unusual panic and he was not about to forget the variety of expressions his three… friends had displayed.

It had brought them to the most simplistic elements of human nature in an almost juvenile fashion and he had to know why. That's just what he did.

The fact that it was personal this time was irrelevant. He needed to get into the mindset of the three closest people to him and it would typically not take much effort considering how well he knew said three.

No, the real difficulty had lain with the fact that he was – by and large – an outsider.

He loved the City to his core – in its own way, incomparable with London -, but he was not attuned to it the way Watson, Gregson and Bell were.

To understand their panic was to understand the even known as 9/11 in its relation to New York as it was that day. And to do that…

Well, he would first have had to have actually been in New York at the time instead of undercover in the heart of Europe and, second, would have had to witness it firsthand as it happened in real time.

Meaning that it was actually impossible to do considering the fact that he was about sixteen years too late.

He thought on that unavoidable obstacle as the other three slept around him that night. It hadn't been until lunch the next day that he finally decided to recreate the… well.

Perhaps not the actual event, because that quite honestly told him nothing.

It was the panic that his friends had inadvertently dragged him into and it was that panic that he wanted to understand and dissect, which he couldn't do if he kept himself at any kind of distance.

That led to the conclusion that if he wanted to understand, he would have to go through a recreation of what it meant as a New York citizen on that day.

He couldn't just be an observer or a Detective looking at a cold case. He had to actually put himself in the 9/11 New York mindset in order to actually understand the people who were there – close enough to create a panic at even that eleven story reminder.

The first step in doing that, however, was to acquaint himself in a long overdue introduction to the late World Trade Center, dubbed 'The Twin Towers'.

There were, of course, a number of other buildings that were destroyed as well – such as the Marriot on the Plaza and Building Seven -, but they were not the intended targets. Nor were the buildings demolished as a result of severe damage incurred during the twin collapses.

So, he directed his focus to the iconic 'Twin Towers'.

He started from the very beginning, to the World Trade Center's very inception.

He found blueprints and floor plans and materials and suppliers and every person who was ever involved in the double construction, familiarizing himself with all of them right down to their blood types.

He had to be extremely careful in his research because of the subject matter and the… eyes that surrounded him, so he took care to keep all of it as far away from Watson, Gregson and Bell as he could get without leaving New York – or the country, for that matter – and studied as much as he could for as long as he could stand.

As a result, by the third evening since the single collapse, he knew every bolt, lightbulb, pane of glass and beam of every piece of steel that covered both Towers from top to bottom and more besides.

By the time he finally arrived at the 1993 Bombing of the World Trade Center, he knew the Towers like the back of his hand – as much as he could, considering the fact that he'd never been and likely never would experience any of it in real life.

His mind created sufficient substitutes, so in a way perhaps he truly was visiting the marvel of engineering that had been One and Two World Trade. From the shopping concourse to the Sky Lobbies and even to the Windows on the World located at the top of Tower One. He knew it all. And what he didn't, his mind more than readily filled the blanks.

In his mind, he wandered the streets of Lower Manhattan, catching glimpses of either Twin at any given time. Always there when he looked up, in every sort of weather.

Sometimes, he would run into Watson on her own leads and investigations and they would both lunch where they could watch the Towers in all their elegant splendor.

They were a constant, a sort of security blanket or touchstone. Everyone could look upon them even when their own lives were collapsing around them, knowing that at least the Towers were still standing.

As long as they were there, everything would work itself out.

He let himself fall into it, allowed his mind to mimic that optimism and it was – somehow – actually comforting and soothing and he much preferred it when Watson was with him and they would inevitably run into Gregson and Bell some days.

He adored it more than description allowed and sincerely hoped the other three did, too.

And then 1993 brought with it a bombing and the surprisingly heart-wrenching knowledge that Gregson and Bell would be going down there. Nothing collapsed, however, and that only seemed to heighten and solidify the belief that those Towers could withstand the world ending.

That, however, was not to be.

By the time he felt sufficiently ready to tackle 9/11, the details of the event were either murky to him or non-existent. It was intentional to create a sort of shock value to his little experiment.

It was day four after the singular collapse when he chose to tackle the oral histories – not quite eyewitness testimony because he wasn't looking at this like a case. The oral histories helped him pinpoint the story teller's location, subconsciously building a likely location for his mental self to be.

Of the oral histories, there most certainly quite a few of them.

Dozens upon dozens by the hundreds, not all of them actually published in books – the glories of social media and the human need to reach out and connect -, all of them independently useless but together painting a beautiful picture.

With the depth and scope of viewpoints at his disposal, he was able to bring his mental New York to life and would walk its streets with Watson and Bell to smooth any rough edges. With his populated City thriving and flourishing around him, he felt it time to look at pictures to make it as close as he could and then he would see about looking at final results.

He found a book of photographs done by the New York Police Department's 'Shutterbug Unit' and focused on those concerning the actual building collapses, though he did find a grouping of people in the aftermath with what looked like then Detective Gregson standing to the side.

Obviously, the man had been there. Why was he so surprised?

He found other pictures – some published on paper, some not – and he ran across a truly fascinating read by the news anchors and correspondents of the Cable Broadcasting System. It truly was astonishing, the moments in time and locations of people as the 9/11 events were unfolding. It came with a disc containing the news coverage during and after the day in question, but the footage was going to be seen last so he could put all the pieces together in a stream of fluid continuity because words and pictures only told part of the overall story. He had a queue lined up in that category, of course, collecting documentaries as he went along.

In the course of his research, he also discovered a fascinating study/interpretation concerning the photographs that came out of the Event and made a note to add it to his collection of human behavior studies. Truly fascinating.

The more he studied, the more apparent it became that 9/11 had been a singular point for human nature in so many aspects with so many eyes in all the right places to later create a single unique moment captured in time.

9/11, then, became a study of human nature itself; who ran, who stayed, who did get out, who didn't, how the survivors deal with all of this utter surreality, how the process of healing encompassed the entire City in the purest forms of human expression.

It was a sociologist's dream.

In a number of cases, it slowly transitioned from 9/11 to the study of the reaction to the very thing itself. If more people looked at all of this beautifully raw data while looking away from 9/11, more people would see in intricacies and complexities and sometimes the baffling simplicity that comprised what human nature truly was.

Why the bloody hell had he never looked at this before?

A gross neglect on his part.

But, on the other hand, this was useful now in his little recreation. Who is to say he would've understood it before he embarked on this endeavor? Context, context, context. As he'd told everyone around him continuously.

Eventually, he was ready to watch footage and retrieved the disc that accompanied the CBS book, popping it into a player and settling in for the two hours.

To this day, he still can't remember how he managed to return to the Brownstone without having walked into oncoming traffic.

Perhaps it had been a bit foolish to watch 9/11 footage away from the Brownstone, partly because he was preoccupied with snapping things into place and looking for continuity errors amongst what he'd already set up, partly because he'd suddenly felt like he was neglecting his bees and Clyde and was out the door before realizing it.

There was also, curiously enough, the sudden need for human company.

He was fairly certain that he'd startled Watson somehow with his complete disregard for personal space – not like he'd had any to begin with -, but he suddenly didn't want her out of his sight and he wasn't certain why that was.

Yet, he had to continue his project and used earbuds and tablet while making sure that Watson was in sight and within reach if need be.

Luckily, she didn't think anything of his obsessed preoccupation as he moved from one documentary to the next. One about the jumpers, one about the Towers themselves, every conceivable bit of footage he could dig up was consumed by his project building mind.

One documentary, as it turned out, hadn't even started out to be about 9/11. The French brothers had actually wanted to document a fireman from fresh out of the Academy to see how he grew and matured with the job. Then 9/11 happened and the brothers found themselves in the heart of it all as it occurred. That one stuck with him, due in part to the raw emotions in the Aftermath and to the actually touching reunion the brothers had.

Frankly, he himself wouldn't care about Mycroft caught up in it the way these other two cared about each other, but then they'd spent the entire time convinced the other was dead. Sherlock wasn't very clear about why that glimpse caught him, but perhaps it was because the other siblings actually were very fond of each other and cared about his safety.

The firefighter documentary also stuck with him because of this odd sense of … guilt? Like he was perhaps betraying his NYPD loyalties, which was clearly absurd.

A documentary about firefighters didn't make him a cheater or an oath-breaker or – or what have you, so he shouldn't feel guilty about something not about his precinct. And that's what he told himself, vowing to put the entire matter out of his mind.

Right after he arranged an Thanksgiving repast for those stuck on duty, got something for everyone as an extra 'Secret Santa' gift at the Department and bought out the Fundraiser.

Things he'd always planned to do, but never before had the time.

'No time like the present', as the saying went.

Just to be thorough, he watched it twice more and was halfway through the third time when it occurred to him that this was a documentary about firefighters and only firefighters.

Which meant that he'd no conclusive record on the NYPD – specifically his Precinct.

No record on where any of them were or their activities, unlike the Naudet documentary.

He had no sense of where they were and he found it distressing that he didn't. Because he knew everything, but he didn't know this.

He didn't like that feeling of distress and failure (?), so he stuck that in a corner of his mind to be dealt with later and – purely to make absolutely certain that he wasn't need – paused his research to check in with the Captain and Detective Bell.

The former's response: 'It's two in the morning, Holmes. Where do you think 'is my location'?'

The latter: 'Who is this?'

It took him an embarrassingly long moment to realize he'd put in the wrong number for Marcus and inadvertently interrupted a late night study session in South Carolina.

'Sorry. My mistake,' he scowled at his phone because it was at fault for him dialing a wrong number. 'Dialed you instead of my colleague. And check your maths again, you're five digits off.'

That done, he decided to just leave it and allow Marcus to sleep unimpeded. It was silly, besides, and for the best that Captain Gregson was the only one to know his momentary lapse.

He'd no doubt be curious, so it would do well to come up with a story to throw him off.

Best keep that story in mind in case Marcus caught wind and became curious, too.

Completely confident in his ability to take care of that later, he felt a sliver of excitement as he thought about his mental project and running the simulation.

The trial run of the simulation, of course, because he had to do a run through of the attacks without other people present to make absolutely certain it would happen exactly the way it was supposed to.

The human factor was going to be added shortly enough and then he would allow himself to truly become immersed in it.

He just didn't factor one very important thing into his plans.

Sleep, as it turned out, was very critical in the course of mental projects.

Something he'd not partaken in since the night before the collapse.

The thing about sleep is that it allowed the mind to float and the subconscious to play with reality.

Dreams were simply a construct of the mind, allowing the deepest fears to surface and situations to spiral out of control and beyond all recognition.

So, it stood to reason that the thing he would be thinking about would follow him into his subconscious.

What he wanted: A simulation – possibly multiple – where he had control of everything, or at least had a majority of control.

What he actually got: An uncontrollable maelstrom of chaos that dragged him under, throwing at him everything he'd placed in a corner during the course of the past week. Every thought, every feeling, everything he hadn't even realized cluttered his mental faculties as a direct result of his research came at him with the force of – well, of a plane hitting a high rise skyscraper at top speed.

He wasn't even aware that he was trapped in a night terror until he hit his head as he fell off the sofa.

Heartbeat thundering in his ears, he swallowed and choked on dry – not dust-filled – clear air. His eyes wildly spun around the room and landed on the clock that revealed the time as just after six in the morning.

'We're okay. We're okay.'

He was at the Brownstone. He was in a safe place.

He was not in Lower Manhattan, not covered in dust, but it seemed so real.

He'd been caught in the double collapse as he'd struggled to get to Watson, who he'd been so certain was trying to help with triage at the –

Watson!

He was up the stairs, through the door and almost diving into bed with Watson before his mind finally caught up with him, but he didn't really care about anything else.

Watson – beautiful, whole, breathing Watson – was dead to the world as she slept on, completely unaware of the impropriety he'd almost forced on her.

She was there, they were in the Brownstone, the air was clear –

'We're okay.'

'We're okay.'

'We're okay.'

He sunk into the chair across the room and tried regulating his breathing, still wild gaze running all over her in a desperate bid to replace the sharp panic produced by the dream. The night terror that had taken hold of his mental project, ripping the control from him and sending him into the most horrifically helpless situation he had ever come across and hoped fervently that it would never happen in real life. O again, period.

Certainly not while he was still breathing.

He ran a shaking hand over his mouth and blinked as his hand encountered dampness on his cheeks.

Watson was okay, Gregson was relatively safe at home in his own bed and Bell was likely the same.

It was alright.

They were safe.

'We're okay.'

And the crippling relief flooding him sent more tears coursing down his face and he just sat and breathed and reveled in Watson's sleep. As long as she was there and alright, he would be fine.

They would be fine.

They were fine.

'We're okay.'

He could almost hear the words as clearly as if they'd been spoken right into his ear and he clung to them with ferocity and relief, like a young child and the favorite toy.

'We're okay.'

He couldn't help believing it, his remembered fear slowly vanishing in its wake as he drew more upon the three voices chanting in unison.

'We're okay. We're okay.'

He sat and listened and soon started to note Watson's increased movements, reluctantly getting up and leaving her room without leaving a trace of his presence.

Somehow, he found himself on the roof, sitting in front of his bees.

Watching them relaxed him further and he finally buried his face in his hands with a deep breath.

'Well, that's me never sleeping again for the rest of eternity.'

Because it had been a horrible experience, completely decimating any control he'd had over his mental New York…

But.

Perhaps the project wasn't a failure in that it took him by surprise – just as it did to so, so many others. It had made him completely helpless, something else that the real event had done to the witnesses. I had also induced a lingering panic in him to check on the welfare of his closest circle – not unlike the country during the day of and days following 9/11.

So, in a sense, the entire project was a complete success – in a bit of a happy accident sort. He should be thrilled that the mental experiment went so well, even to the point of surprising him.

He wasn't easily surprised, which made this particular project that much more impressive, so it should be the most accomplished thing he'd ever completed.

So, where was that familiar rush of excitement t a task well done?

That sense of accomplishment and closure he so craved?

Usually, he would be chomping at the bit to get everyone up so he could crow at his personal success and flaunt his incredible abilities while coming up with tests for Watson to expand her own already developed abilities.

Instead, he felt…

Unmoored.

Scattered.

Anxious to see Watson, who was just waking below him.

Anxious to talk to Detective Bell and see the Captain, both of whom he hadn't contacted much since his project began.

Alarmed at the thought of going more than another moment without contact with the three of them.

Ill at the thought that virtually anything could have befallen them since their last contact.

Hollow and exhausted.

But perhaps the most overwhelming, as he looked across the river to see the Manhattan skyline lined with gold, was the sense of profound loss.

---

Exactly one week following one building's collapse, Sherlock decided to finally pay homage at the shrine built to commemorate another's.

Two of them, to be specific, though the aforementioned Marriot on the Plaza and Building Seven seemed to be constantly overlooked in the twin shadows they'd stood in. Even now, but he wasn't quite there for them.

He spent the entire day there in the Museum and soaking up every detail about every word, every picture, every artifact on display. Then he took himself out to the Reflecting Pools surrounded by names that evoked memories and pictures and stories.

And for once, his thoughts were still and silent.

For once, he was just like everyone else who browsed the hallowed grounds alongside him. An adopted member of the City of New York.

For once, he wasn't deducing. He was just another in the crowd of visitors, fellow pilgrims to the shrine with the same need to touch, reach out, connect.

For once, he didn't care.

Because here, no matter one's background, skillset or intelligence, everyone was just like everyone else.

Instead of being grating, there was a rightness to it he would be hard pressed to explain. One just had to experience it for themselves.

He ended the day sitting amongst the trees, the noise of the falling water contained within the pools faintly drifting toward him on a very slight breeze.

Perhaps he would return once more before the holidays. He would definitely come back in the future, so he made certain to bookmark this place.

Despite his disdain for anniversaries of date, perhaps the upcoming celebration here would find himself in attendance.

And while he bookmarked this place for the future, he revised his stance on shrines and memorials and their utter banality and influence on the masses. This particular shrine wasn't so much a flaunting of a party's resources or might as it was a tribute to something utterly undefinable. The wonder of what was lost writ in memoriam for the future to learn and mourn and grieve and, ultimately, create and carry on the legacy left.

Something was present here, undefinable and awe-inspiring, sobering and uplifting.

A place borne from devastation and tragedy, a glimpse of an inner strength lifted up for the world to see. 'Look,' it said as leaves rustled. 'Look how strong we can be,' it said among the drops of the pools' falling water.

'Look how strong we are,' it said, whispering on the breeze.

'We have been knocked down. We have been dealt a grievous blow, but that matters little compared to what we can do. Because we're still here and we will continue to be here. We will get back up again, time after time, blow after blow. Go on,' it challenged everyone who cared to listen. 'Give it your best. As long as the memory of this place, of what happened here in this place, we will arise from the ashes. All that is needed is hope, the smallest ember, and the reminder that whatever happens, whatever comes next, we will be okay. And then we will build again. Don't be frightened of the future,' it implored in the sunshine that slowly faded. 'We will be okay. We are okay. Because that is who we are.'

If Sherlock had learned nothing else over the past week, it was that human nature was resilient and defiant when – by all rights – it seemed hopeless. He saw this for himself as he scoured material and ambled along this very ground.

A thought came to him and a slight smile twitched his lips.

New York seemed an unique sample of the American Spirit as America seemed to reflect the City in turn.

That, however, he would keep to himself.

If he'd learned nothing else in the course of being in America, it was that Americans were a bit under the illusion that their individual cities stood apart from the rest. He wouldn't claim those cities were unique, er se, but the American Spirit perhaps residing here at Ground Zero had a habit of traveling.

American cities reflected America through different lenses, but it was still America and it was still the American Spirit that was present in some way, shape or form.

Strength, resilience, defiance and ingenuity.

A potent combination, indeed.

As for being an citizen of New York, perhaps that was open to interpretation. 9/11 was most certainly a defining moment – that wasn't an argument -, but maybe that didn't define a City or New York would have stretched from one coast to the other.

'A puzzle for another day, I think,' he decided as he hailed a cab to get back to the Brownstone. He had the craving for Chinese and Watson had definitely been outside of his radius for far too long.

The cab took him over the bridge as he thought and process his day and he was really barely aware of the world outside.

A glimpse of a successful case closed two months ago, there.

Here, on this street, one of Watson's earliest cases before he left.

The fire truck racing past on its way to the Brownstone.

One of their former clients out on the town with her girlfriends.

A future school board candidate actually deciding to run for the school board.

A group of joggers taking a stretch break.

Didn't know why he bothered with windows, really. Tragedy strikes and life goes on and –

His Brownstone was on bloody fire.

Good thing the stoplight turned red when it did because diving out the window of a moving vehicle was something he really wanted to reserve only in circumstances where his life was in or approaching mortal peril. As it was, he barely remembered to toss money at the driver before bolting out onto the sidewalk and racing down the street.

His heart raced in time with his steps and panic pushed him faster. Not for Clyde – who just this morning was delivered to Ms. Hudson's trusted care to try a bit of turtle-sitting – and not for the bees – who had taken considerable time moving to pre-arranged locations for yearly bee duties in personal gardens and the like.

No, the reason for this panic was in the almost certainty he had that Watson was in the Brownstone.

He couldn't think of where else she could be and she'd been having a bit of a break since the collapse a week ago, which mean that she was doing who knew what at the Brownstone and possibly wasn't even aware that her life was in danger.

She could be anywhere doing anything and it still would guarantee that she would make it out.

He absolutely had to get there – to do something, anything – because he'd rather die trying to reach her than be without her and it was a terrifying prospect on a good day, but he didn't even know which bloody Tower she was in and he was not being stopped by a roadblock because didn't they know the bloody pair of them were about to collapse?

He needed to get to her – to know her location -, because they were okay when they were together and they would get through this, but only if they were together and they weren't together and he wasn't okay when she wasn't next to him because she lit up the darkness like a conductor of light and he wasn't going to forgive himself if he didn't at least try to return even an eighth of the light she gave him even at the cost of his own life.

The smell of smoke reached him before he got even close to his street and he experienced a disorienting moment jolting him from some sort of living flashback/nightmare before rounding the corner to see fire trucks and personnel all up and down the block. It being a weeknight, a good number of people probably didn't even know their houses were being consumed by a flaming mass that burned everything it touched.

"Watson!" he ran toward their Brownstone and was ready to dive into the flames, but he was almost tackled to the ground before he had the chance. "Get the bloody fuck off of me!" he demanded, struggling against the bands of steel he found himself enfolded in. "WATSON!"

"She's not there!" a familiar voice yelled into his ear. "Holmes, she's not there! We checked!"

"Listen!" a different voice added in his other ear, the voice more than likely attached to the arms restraining him against a chest. "Bell and Gregson are on their way! But Watson's fine! She's not here!"

His hand was wrapped around a wrist and a calm pulse met his fingers.

"Feel the truth!" a third, feminine, voice demanded. "I know that you can! Watson's fine and not here. I'm not faking the truth and you can tell that! Holmes, deduce! Please, we've seen you do it! Just stop!"

He struggled against the unrelenting arms and the unrelenting panic until he focused on the pulse thrumming calm and steady against his fingers.

It brought to mind the memory of a black hand grasping a tan, finely boned wrist as the first hand's owner looked to him for calm that he readily gave and the chant taken up by a trio of voices.

'We're okay. We're okay. We're okay.'

The beat against his back and the other against his fingers grounded him as a hand squeezed his bicep in encouragement. "That's it," the second voice urged, relief slowly replacing the urgency as he calmed, closing his eyes and grounding himself.

We're okay.

We're okay.

We're okay.

His eyes opened and saw a female face he'd noted several times around the Precinct. Her eyes watched him intently as he took in her off-duty attire, her brown wrist clamped in his hand.

A different face entered his vision and he noted one of the usual back-up Uniforms Bell usually called in to help with a case. He, too, was out of uniform.

"With us?" the familiar voice asked, Sherlock finally able to place it.

"Detective," he swallowed against his dry throat. "Didn't realize you lived in the area."

"I don't, but Dispatch put the word out and I guess we all recognized your address 'cause a lot of us showed up in and out of uniform," the broader man – one of the senior Detectives at the 11th – told him.

A movement behind the female officer caught his eye and he focused on it to see another female, this one in uniform – and then he quite suddenly realized that he'd been virtually surrounded by familiar faces from the Precinct who had, in effect, simply dropped everything when they had heard his address on the radio.

"…"

The 'why' would have to be puzzled out at a different time.

He snapped his focus to the ensnared wrist still in his grip and its owner. "Watson," he managed to tamp down the panic enough to think. "You – you said –"

"She's safe," she smiled reassuringly, light brown eyes reflecting the flames as the fire burned seemingly all around them. "She's actually on her way back. We called to see where she was, but she didn't know where you were and you actually turned your phone off."

While she looked expectant for an explanation, he found none to actually offer.

He would normally just say where he went, but there was something that stopped him.

9/11 was, very much so, a 'very big deal' to New York specifically and he couldn't take the chance that he would inadvertently provoke some sort of flashback even if the officer in front of him had still been in Secondary when it happened.

"Out," he decided finally. "Off… gathering my thoughts," which wasn't technically a lie. "Forgive me, I… I…" he uselessly waved a hand, not sure how to finish, though understanding flooded the faces around him and he let them draw their own conclusions.

His gaze was drawn to the carnage before them and deductions went lightning quick through his mind.

"Even if they do manage to douse the flames," he thought, "Watson's room is most certainly gone. And the entire block will have to be destroyed if it's going to be rebuilt."

"When," someone interrupted.

"What?" he frowned, giving the second man an absent glance.

"When it gets rebuilt," he told him firmly, in no uncertain terms.

He stared at him, completely uncertain about what he was talking about and almost absently certain he might be going into shock. "What?" he asked again before glancing down and remembering the wrist he still held. "Oh," he quickly released it. "Sincerest apologies. Is it hurt? Watson's a former Doctor, you know. She'll take a look at it if you ask."

"Don't worry about it," she responded, not even rubbing her wrist despite wanting to.

He turned his gaze back to the Brownstone, the Detective finally releasing him as he frowned at the place where Watson's room had been.

Something… was niggling at him, but he couldn't seem to pin it down as he usually could.

Something about Watson's room.

Why was there something about Watson's room?

Something… something in there?

He grasped a handful of his short hair and fisted with a slight tug.

There was really nothing he couldn't find elsewhere – most of his possessions scattered all over both the City and the globe -, but Watson was more attached to things than he was. Well, they were both attached to the Brownstone – it had been a home for both of them so long; a sense of stability and belonging had been attached, a security blanket and relative constant -, but he was concerned that Watson wasn't as adaptable.

The strange sense of loss that had plagued him in varying degrees for the past few days had taken on a different, more intimate, feel. But he would certainly get over it.

Watson was a factor he was more concerned about and he kept finding himself coming back to Watson's – now former – room.

Something was there, but he couldn't – he didn't know why he couldn't recall.

Watson was more attached to things than he was.

Something kept pulling him back to Watson's room.

He felt the fire's heat even from this distance.

Had it always run so hot?

Shadows were abound, from facial features to silhouettes, and he'd half a mind to do some sort of experiment if his Brownstone wasn't currently ablaze.

Shame, really. It was such an interesting idea, too.

Maddeningly inconvenient time for his and Watson's shared space to be in flames.

Watson was attached to her things. Things in her room, which was now lost.

Damn it, what was wrong him? He pulled his hair again in frustration.

Focus!

He knew everything – every inch – of Watson's room, he'd been in there for hours at a time as she slept on. He knew what things were present –

No.

No, he didn't.

Realization dawned as the memory finally surfaced.

In his time watching over Watson, he grew very familiar with her things.

Except.

He'd once gone snooping through her bedside table – earlier in their years together – and had come across a rather curious drawstring pouch stuffed in the back of the bottom drawer.

Obviously, something important had been inside, but he'd left it alone.

Now, however, he was kicking himself for stopping because he'd had no honest idea what had been in that pouch, but it had been important.

Important enough to keep it close, but hidden.

There was a high probability that it was now gone and he knew people did stupid things for what they deemed important, but surely Watson wouldn't dare try running into the fire to try to save the pouch and the mysterious contents?

He glanced up and to the side in time to see Watson frozen mid-step toward him, her wide eyes locked on their Brownstone as the color slowly drained from her face.

She would.

"WATSON!" he dove as she changed direction and he slammed into her before she could even try to get to the door.

"Let me go!" she struggled as his arms wrapped around her waist and became steel. "Let me go!"

"Watson! Clyde and the bees are safe!" he grunted as her struggles increased. "They are all safe!"

"No! You don't understand!" she shrieked.

After all these years, she still hadn't mastered the technique of not letting her emotions get the best of her and he – would probably feel a little guilty for this later – took advantage of that fact because she was consumed by panic and unable to recall their lessons of breaking holds and fighting back. It made it easier for him to keep a firm grip on her as words became wordless screams that he'd never thought her capable of.

The hair on the back of his neck rose as she kept screaming, like a piece of her soul was being consumed and she could feel the burning as a physical pain.

Her panic fueled her strength, however, and several hard jerks almost broke his hold. In order to restrain her further, he initiated a controlled fall that took them both backwards and possibly earned him a slight concussion he promptly ignored as he rearranged his limbs to keep her gripped firmly against him.

Somewhere between one moment and the next, her screams suddenly morphed into sobs that jolted through him at the degree of heartbreak he heard.

Because it was most certainly heartbreak and he couldn't help her.

He couldn't fix it because whatever had been in that pouch was gone and her heart was breaking in a way that not even losing Andrew had done.

That was the most terrifying of all: that Watson was broken beyond all repair and he could do anything about it. And it hurt, Sherlock never taking it well when Watson was hurt in some way, but it was also unprecedented because Watson. Never. Cried.

In joy, yes.

In mirth, yes.

In anger and frustration, yes.

But not in whatever soul burning pain the loss of the mysterious pouch generated.

The fight suddenly went out of her and she went limp, her slight body rocking even his with the force of her heartbroken sobs.

"It's alright," he said in her ear. "We're okay. We're okay. We're okay."

She slowly shook her head in the negative, but he persisted.

"It will be alright. I'm here. You're with me. We're safe. We're okay."

He held on to both the mantra and his partner and suddenly Marcus was there, wide gaze wildly moving all over them as Sherlock felt a hand in his hair.

The other man's mouth was moving, shaping words he couldn't hear above Watson's distress and his own words.

His head moved and Marcus eclipsed the burning sky, connecting their gazes and Sherlock noted his lips shaping familiar words he couldn't hear.

We're okay.

We're okay.

We're okay.

He closed his eyes -

- and opened them.

The first thing he noticed was the figure he was curled around, Watson's hair touching his nose and he gave a deep sniff almost absently. The scent of shampoo, soap and Watson was calming and it was quite honestly a shame that he'd never noticed before.

The second thing he noticed was that they were both under sheets and on something soft, yet firm.

Odd, considering the fact that he was fairly certain they'd just been in the street.

The third and final thing he noticed was the late afternoon light creeping through the partially closed curtains.

"You slept almost twenty four hours," Gregson's voice had Sherlock craning his head to see the older man sat in a chair at the foot of their bed.

Sherlock blinked for several moments before frowning. "The Brownstone's on fire."

"They put it out after midnight last night," Gregson shook his head and sipped from his cup, Sherlock's deductions telling him that he'd been up for at least three days.

"Preliminary findings?" he put his head back on the pillow and drew Watson in a bit closer.

"Something electrical, but too soon to tell. Six units went up, including yours," Gregson shifted. "Bell's stepped out for a couple hours to scout the area and we've been taking turns staying until we're absolutely certain this isn't anything other than faulty wiring somewhere."

"A wise course of action," he squeezed his eyes shut and opened them again. "And I presume only the four of us knows our exact location?"

"You presume correctly," Gregson confirmed and Sherlock nodded slightly. "I also need to be sure that whatever case you've been workin' the past week isn't gonna blow up in our faces."

He honestly wouldn't call it a 'case' so much as it had been a 'project', an experiment to understand reactions to a 'small' building's collapse. But Gregson had been at Ground Zero, so he shouldn't cause upset by telling the man exactly what he'd done. 9/11 was a very sensitive topic and probably the only one that he refused to rile anyone about, especially Gregson for reasons that Sherlock wasn't sure enough to make much sense of.

"My whereabouts the last week have put us in no danger," he declared. His mind brought up pictures of burning Towers collapsing in on themselves and the horrid urgency to find them and he gripped Watson tighter.

'We're okay,' her heartbeat told him as he felt it against his chest. 'We're okay. We're okay.'

"It has a slim chance of 'blowing up in our faces'," especially when it already had and that had been due to a miscalculation he thought he'd been rid of. "It is very unlikely that my actions have done much to warrant any type of backlash from other parties, so it is not there that our search begin."

Gregson was suspicious, but decided to let it go and Sherlock was glad of that. 9/11, especially now, wasn't something he felt up to discussing. "We'll probably know something by tomorrow. The fire was at your place pretty much at the same time it reached the other end, so I'm thinkin' that it started in the middle somewhere."

"Possibly," he conceded. "Though I will admit to being uncertain about how we ended up here when the last thing I recall is being at the scene," not that he was complaining, of course. Tiredness and fatigue pulled at him, whispering that it wouldn't be long until he was back in the darkness. He was rather loathe to move.

"Yeah, that tipped us off that you've been busy the past week. Figured you haven't been sleeping and bein' horizontal dragged you right under."

A considerate way to say he'd passed out, but true all the same.

"Hey," Gregson's voice gentled and he could tell that there was possibly a sympathetic – nay, pitying – look on the man's face, possibly also an unconscious one. He would rather not see it, thank you, so he kept his gaze trained on Watson's hair. "I'm sorry about your place. You ever need anything, I'll see what I can do. And you can stay with me if this really was something unrelated to the work you two do."

"And if it wasn't?" he needled, narrowing his eyes as he slid them to where Gregson sat outside his purview. "Would that offer still stand? I'm sure we would understand your withdrawing, especially since your and Bell's lives would be in danger right alongside ours."

"Well, considerin' me and Bell as your security detail regardless, take a raincheck. And you should maybe remember that our lives have always been in danger before we met you."

He didn't need the reminder that Gregson had been at Ground Zero. Chances were high that it was a fact he would never forget.

They fell into a silence that Sherlock spent breathing almost in unison with Watson. Almost, of course, because he wasn't sure that he wanted to sleep again just yet.

It took a moment for him to realize that Watson – even in spite of a deep sleep – only moved when he moved her. And her heart was slow and consistent, exactly the same as her breathing.

He'd spent many an hour observing her every movement, memorizing her breathing's every hitch, and everything he started analyzing made him sharpen in alertness because Watson was deviating from her natural rhythms.

"Watson?" he moved up and bent over her to confirm what he already knew.

She wasn't naturally insensate, due to an outside inhibitor.

"We had to keep her under," Gregson's voice was heavy with worry and regret, his expression mixing that with a haunted look as Sherlock whipped his head around to demand an explanation. "When you were out for the count, we were kinda stuck with lookin' out for her and she tried to get inside the house once before we sedated her the first time. I had to give her the next two doses because she tried to leave the room and the last time was because we couldn't yet give her a chance to put herself in more danger. We'll stop dousing her tomorrow." He buried his face in his hands for a long moment before scrubbing it and leaning back in the chair with a deep sigh. "What in the world is so important that she would actually risk her life just to retrieve it?"

"Was," he quietly corrected. "What was so important. I don't know the answer, but it was in her room. In a pouch in her bed table. I never saw it and I never asked, because it just seemed like something one shouldn't poke his nose in. Especially since I hadn't thought about it in a long time. Only remembered last night at the fire."

"Then I guess we're all in the dark," Gregson watched Watson sleep for a long silent moment. "Think she's gonna be okay?"

"Only time will tell, I suppose," he followed his gaze down to his partner, himself uncertain.

Maybe in a few days, he would ask. Perhaps it would help to talk about it like she had done many times in the reverse with him.

For now, though, he lay back down and adjusted his grip on her as the lack of sleep captured him again, its grip relentless as the world fell away around him.

---

PART FOUR

---

As it turned out, the fire really had been ignited by faulty wiring and the owners of that abode had more than once tried telling someone about it to no avail.

There were already noises about legal action and Sherlock may or may not have put his resources on the trail of the alleged perpetrators, because there was always a trail giving red flags long before the initial disaster. There were no casualties or fatalities and two of the units had their occupants off on one last summer hurrah of holiday. Another unit's occupants had gone to deal with a family emergency out of town.

Of the remaining three, his and Watson's Brownstone was really the only one unoccupied at the time the fire broke out.

A teenager in one of the other units had been taking a nap after having completed a sports competition and had been awoken by the smoke. The unit next to that one was already on fire by the time the four occupants realized anything was amiss.

A call to Emergency Services had alerted members of the 11th Precinct, who in turn had alerted others as well as Gregson and Bell. Both had arrived after Watson and Gregson more or less charged in from there.

The Brownstone that Sherlock and Watson had occupied was a loss, but he'd had several offers from clients and colleagues who had become aware of their situation and all of them – bafflingly enough – were adamant that the Brownstone be rebuilt as close to the original as they could get.

He'd even received a number of missives from Everyone, who were willing to assist as much as they were able and it had actually confirmed a long held suspicion that a few of their number either had been or was currently experiencing similar circumstances and felt some empathy or sympathy for them. At least one was of Asian ancestry and felt a sort of kinship with Watson, while a different one hid behind the guise of paying back a non-existent favor.

Sherlock wasn't completely certain why everyone was fixated on fixing their home, but he did admit – if only to himself – that none of the other properties available to them would feel even remotely like somewhere to belong.

Wouldn't feel right.

He didn't want to decide anything without discussing things with Watson, who – hopefully – would be living there, too, but since Gregson stopped keeping her asleep…

It was probably a horrible thought to have, but, sometimes, he wished she was still asleep.

He'd been in the middle of a rather large sandwich platter when she'd first exhibited signs of consciousness, Gregson on the other bed as Bell gave Sherlock looks of both amusement and slight concern at the degree of ferocity with which he was using to attack the sandwiches.

Gregson had been propped up against the headboard of the extra bed with reports scattered all around him when Watson had started moving. Almost immediately, all three of them knew that Watson's lost pouch had held something so very irreplaceable that she was profoundly affected right down to her very soul.

Her gaze was empty, her expression was hollow and she was completely resistant to anything and everything they could try to make her respond to.

Several times, Sherlock had announced to the room tha he was leaving to meet a new drug dealer specializing in flammable sea urchins; that he was going to walk off the roof because Moriarty had paid him a visit for tea and threatened Mycroft's life if he didn't; he and Bell were going undercover as an engaged pair; he was opening up a tea shop at Everest Base Camp; and, after robbing several casinos on the Las Vegas Strip, he was going to buy China, rename three Provinces in her honor, dismantle the entire Great Wall and frame North Korea for a bank heist smokescreen to distract from a plot to assassinate a young Royal's pet goat.

Not.

A.

Twitch.

At the very least, he'd expected a response to the one about his sacrifice for Mycroft's safety, because the both of them well knew that the only one who was going to be walked off a roof was Mycroft himself.

It was very concerning that she hadn't leapt on the one about a drug dealer who didn't even exist. Just the idea of a drug dealer should've had her up in arms, yet she just sat there.

She'd completely withdrawn into herself and he was utterly helpless to do a bloody thing about it.

Bell had suggested to let her family spend time with her and Sherlock reached out to her family to make arrangements for her to stay. The newest addition to the family had demanded some of her own 'sister' time and Bell's Chantal had offered to host the pair for a girls' night right after the Watsons had their time.

As for Sherlock, Gregson offered his floor again and Sherlock was agreeing almost without thinking. Bell had 'been in the neighborhood' the first night and had yet to leave, not that Sherlock had any mind to bring it up.

It was a week and one half since the single collapse and Sherlock hadn't slept since that first night in the hotel. Every time he'd thought about it, he'd remember an icy chill and three absences and a pair of collapses and be wide awake all night.

He wanted to have some space to himself, but just couldn't bring himself to take cases outside the Precinct. He couldn't bring himself to take cases at all with Watson's… uncharacteristic solemnness.

So, he'd contented himself with cold cases in Gregson's living room, office and the department conference room.

This night saw him alone in the Captain's house, the clock telling how far into the night it was.

There hadn't been much going on, but his temporary flatmates were going to be home a bit later and that he shouldn't wait up.

He wasn't sure why he should wait at all, but he'd already greeted them during his self-induced insomnia so perhaps they expected it at this juncture.

Humans had patterns and routines and they'd evidently fallen into one a bit accidently, the three of them.

Again, not that he had any mind on it.

He scowled at the file and tossed it on the coffee table with a huff. What he did mind was all the files not making much sense. Did these people even know how to fill out paperwork?

At least his compatriots at the 11th Precinct knew enough to be interesting or slightly entertaining. The sorry excuse for police officers at whatever District these files originated from would do well to study at the 11th so to at least know a complete sentence when it showed up!

If only it were ages ago so he could write a scathing letter to the persons in charge without getting ensnared in some nonsensical territorial dispute.

Obviously, nothing was going to work that night and he threw himself on his sleeping bag for lack of anything else to do.

He lay there in perfect darkness, clicking his torch on and off.

The electricity was at his disposal, of course, but a good challenge helped keep his wits about him, so he'd been working by torchlight as long as the other pair were out. That way, he could work without questions.

Unspoken as they good-naturedly worked with their own torches, but questions nonetheless.

He clicked the button again.

On.

Off.

On.

Off.

On.

Off.

It was actually a rather rhythmic metronome…

He woke up with a snort, morning light drifting in through the windows.

'Bollocks,' he frowned at the room. 'Must've accidently fallen asleep.'

The two sleeping bags on either side of him hadn't been touched, which meant that Gregson and Bell hadn't returned home last night.

He retrieved his mobile and frowned at the lack of messages.

It was 8.30 a.m.

He rubbed his eyes and yawned as he levered himself up and stretched. Bouncing to his feet, he made his way to the kitchen and to the tea kettle as he made the coffee for the Americans. It made him miss Watson that much more.

He'd been incredibly lucky to have a flatmate already conditioned to tea and he'd never missed Chinese tea more. He liked to think Watson was now partial to the British blends, not that he was opposed to her heritage. Frankly, the more exposed to the heaven in a cup, the more demand it would bring.

It was neither here nor there, so he simply allowed himself a leisurely start up as the tea got ready.

He was taking his first sip when something started niggling at him, an icy fingertip moving down the back of his neck as his eyes traced back to the still made sleeping bags. His mobile was in his hand and his fingers were flying across the screen. 'Watson, were are you?'

'Making my way to Manhattan. Some sort of accident at the Towers. Maybe I'll be able to help.'

Accident at the Towers?

He frowned and pulled up a news report, almost inhaling his tea as he got a look at the first images coming in.

One of the Twin Towers was on fire, a rather substantial hole ripped through it. Smoke was rolling over the top of the Tower, but he could tell that this couldn't be accidental.

The fire was all over the point of impact and it was too big for anything less than wildfire level efforts. If a plane had hit the bloody thing, it was a large one with the amount of fire and smoke being generated.

And if a plane that large had hit the Tower, it was no accident.

'Please be advised: Not an Accident,' he sent the text and took another mouthful of tea as he flicked on the telly so he could get a broader glimpse of what was happening without his usual methods of doing such.

His mobile buzzed – the ringer off to keep from disturbing the sleep of two highly conditioned individuals to react before thinking – and he glanced at it.

'Thanks for the head's up, but nothin' we can do about that,' Marcus' response flitted across the screen.

He realized he'd sent the text to Watson, Bell and Gregson. It was something of a muscle memory reflex, at this point.

'Did Joan head over?' Gregson asked a moment later. 'We're en route.'

His thoughts stilled, eyes unable to move from the words that caught them.

'We're en route.'

That could only mean that Gregson and Bell were on their way to reach Watson, who had possibly already reached the stricken Tower.

Which also meant that his closest colleagues were in the proverbial Hot Zone and where was he? Lounging in a kitchen as events unfolded.

A flare of urgency had him draining the rest of his cup before readying to go out to join them.

He refused to stay on the sideline as facts poured in and he damned well knew that pure, unadulterated facts only existed at the point of origin. That way, he didn't have to wade through other – possibly unintentional – interpretations as stories and rumors inevitably began to spread.

He was in a cab on the way to Manhattan when the radio announced the crash of the second plane into the second Tower.

It was entirely possible that he'd leapt from the moving vehicle, because he was now running as fast as he could toward the Towers. While alarm, urgency and adrenalin mixed with the sudden onslaught of panic in his being, determination to reach the others colored his every move as his mind brought up images of the Plaza, marking where his friends would likely be, and he knew that it was only a matter of time before the Towers went down.

He focused everything on running as fast as he could, racing down empty streets and alleys, the world unnaturally silent as he passed. He was on the Brooklyn Bridge and saw his first real life glimpse of the two Towers pouring smoke into the clear blue sky.

He had to reach them before the second Tower collapsed, taking scores of people with it who were trapped above the impact zone.

Firefighters were doubtless making their way up the stairs still, but the New York Police Department could very well be inside, too. And Watson might have watched this all unfold from the Triage set up in Building Seven before deciding she would better find something to do from on-site and could very well be on her way up the stairs with Bell and Gregson and he had to get there to reach her so that he would help her out before the building collapsed.

He would get them out or perish right alongside them trying, because he didn't feel as alone with them. He felt stronger with them and better and he was going to reach them or die trying, because he couldn't do it.

He couldn't see himself surviving their deaths, because the house would be too empty.

Empty, yet full of memories that would stick themselves to his mind's walls and torture him with them when he least expected it. And the station and a Brownstone that he wouldn't live in without that familiar presence always nearby, the familiar presence that watched over him when he didn't deserve it, the very same presence that he would look for in every passing female of Chinese descent as his stomach would broil at the thought of Asian cuisine.

He was alone on the streets as he made his way over the bridge, on his way to Lower Manhattan, his thoughts blank as his memories pulled up one picture after another: Watson making tea in the kitchen; Bell providing stake-out snacks and hiding pleased smiles at their enjoyment; Gregson lurking in doorways with his cup of coffee as he surveyed his domain – either at the Precinct, his home or the late Brownstone -; the friendly – comforting? – banter he knew what to do with, the offers of support and assistance he didn't; always knowing who he could go to for silent company, advice or even a tuned out ear should the urge to ramble about the most obscure of things overtake him. They wouldn't even have to be listening, just someone to be present was enough.

What would he be without them?

A shell of what he had been, of what he was.

Yes, Alfredo and Hudson and others he and Watson had collected over the years were relatively safe, but it all came down to three.

We're okay.

We're okay.

We're okay.

But there was the terrible knowledge that, should even one be lost, 'okay' would most assuredly be a very distant memory.

He took as many shortcuts as he could remember and didn't give a passing thought as to where everyone had gone as he turned down one empty street after another.

"Watson!" he called as he got closer and closer to the foot of the Towers. "Bell! Gregson!"

But no one answered back as he suddenly looked up and knew time had run out.

The second Tower – the one hit second and the designated 2 WTC – was falling in on itself and he watched, motionless, as it began to fall almost slowly at first. Then faster and he dimly realized that he had to move.

The cloud overtook him came with winds so strong that he was picked up and tossed like a child's plaything. It was thick and dark and he couldn't breathe – couldn't see anything in front of him.

"Holmes."

It lasted ages, centuries, choking him and his every thought as he kept trying to move, but his limbs refused to obey.

"Holmes?"

There was something heavy, something holding him down and panic flared as he tried to get it off by any way he could.

"Holmes!"

He couldn't call out for help as dust flew into his mouth and nose and lungs with every breath he took –

"Hey!"

- and he was scared that the help he sought wouldn't come as he called and coughed and the darkness went on and on and the weight wouldn't move no matter how much he struggled.

He couldn't tell if he was completely still, but it almost felt – at one point – as if he was floating before he was being dragged back to earth on something soft and the jolt dislodged the weight and he bolted upright.

"Hey," a hand was squeezing his arm. "Hey, man. It's okay. We're okay."

Sherlock stared at the familiar face watching him with concern before a beam of light cutting through the darkness drew his attention to his other side.

"Okay, now?" Gregson eyed him as he stared. "That was some nightmare."

Nightmare.

Nightmare?

That's – that's really all it was?

He looked back at Bell, who was sitting back on his heels, and the last thing he'd remembered was being overcome by the first collapse. He'd had no idea where his friends had been and the panic started building again.

"We're okay," Bell squeezed his arm and Gregson dropped a hand on his shoulder and they were okay.

They were safe and okay and with him and they were okay.

'We're okay,' someone and yet no one told him and he didn't even make it to the sink before he was sullying the Captain's floor with what remained in his stomach.

He was shaking and he thought he was talking, but he couldn't hear much beyond his racing heart and 'We're okay' echoing in his ears.

A hand was coaxing him up and a strong arm was guiding him, taking the weight that his legs didn't want to support.

He was put in the tub and sat under the warm shower spray and he vaguely noted the harsh gasps and ragged sobs echoing around him, but he couldn't concentrate on their source as he choked on the memory of dust that slowly floated down the drain.

Eventually, he looked down and realized he was still in clothes he'd had delivered yesterday by Ms. Hudson, who had taken it upon herself to do the clothes shopping both he and Watson couldn't do.

He numbly took off the sodden clothes and left them in the tub as he washed the memory dust away.

He finished and found dry clothes waiting for him on the sink with warmed towels on the pile and it was obvious they'd been put in the drier. What wasn't obvious was how long he'd been in the loo and a peek outside showed no difference in the light.

He crept from the loo as reality trickled back into his thoughts, embarrassment pushing him against the walls as he moved back to the living room like a naughty child wary of waking the authorities sleeping nearby.

It was even more ridiculous since he'd never quite cared when he had been sneaking around corridors as a child, but he was no longer a child which made his childish behavior that much more… regrettable?

The floor in the kitchen was clean and scented with lemon when he crept over to peer around the door.

Bell and Gregson were at the table with steaming cups in front of them, another sitting on the counter and obviously his.

Something must have caught their attention, because they suddenly looked over and he was suddenly aware of how ridiculous he looked. Straightened, he locked his eyes on the cup and moved toward it.

Tea, he realized as he brought the cup up to sip. Tea made the way he preferred.

"You okay, now?" Bell sounded uncertain as they no doubt watched him from the table.

He took a few more sips before feeling confident enough to face them. "Captain," his eyes glanced back toward the recently cleaned spot. "My sincerest apologies for my earlier… transgression."

"You mean freakin' the hell out after a nightmare?" Bell smiled slightly. "Not the first to get one of those and you won't be the last."

"Also not the first guy that I've had lose their dinner in my kitchen," Gregson added with a tilt of his head.

"But that dream must've been somethin' else," Bell frowned. "You… want to talk?"

"Not particularly, no," he swallowed hard and sipped his tea. "One session of getting ill a night, I'm afraid."

They nodded and returned to their cups after lingering glances.

The three of them just stayed in their positions as they drank their drinks for long silent minutes.

"Any word on Watson?" Sherlock eventually broke the silence, no longer wanting to remember the collapse he'd dreamed himself into. Well, he couldn't not remember, it was him after all, but he wanted to at least attempt to distract himself with something else.

"Did get in touch with her brother, Oren," Bell rubbed his eyes. "He thinks he knows what the problem is, or at least suspects, but it ain't somethin' he feels comfortable tellin' us. If we're gonna find out real answers," he looked at the both of them, "it'll have to be from Joan."

"Fair enough," Gregson nodded. "But she doin' okay? None of us could get anything out of her."

"Tough to say, really," he shook his head, "but he says to just give her a few more days before she'll start talking and then we can ask."

"Very well," Sherlock nodded. "In a few days, we will have at least some idea of… of how to go about helping Watson with her loss. If… if that's at all possible."

"Hey," Marcus frowned at him. "If there's a way, we'll find it. Alright? I mean, yeah, it probably ain't gonna be somethin' we can replace, but we can at least remind her that she ain't by herself. She's got friends and family and we're here for her and we'll understand when she wants to talk."

Sherlock was reminded again of the difference between Britons and Americans: the willingness of the latter to talk about feelings. Feelings and emotions and sentiment, it appeared to be an American characteristic that he simply couldn't find it within himself to easily mimic.

Here Marcus and Gregson were, articulating thoughts so readily, while he struggled to even come up with a thought to say that didn't clog his throat.

He finished his tea as the others finished their own drinks and he took the cups to wash as they got ready to sleep.

The three of them reconvened at their designated sleeping bags and climbed in as Gregson flipped the light switch to plunge them back into darkness.

Sherlock lay on his back as the other two remained just as awake, rustling on either side indicating restless shifting – possibly already giving the illusion that they were settling down.

They eventually quieted, but were both still awake.

Obviously waiting for him to fall asleep and return to the dream he'd woken from. "I can find a place elsewhere to sleep, if you'd like," he quietly offered. "Brought this on myself, I suspect."

"The only place you'll be sleeping," Gregson was audibly scowling, "is right here in this house so we can keep an eye on you."

"And how the hell do you come up with nightmares bein' your fault?" Marcus chimed in with his own frown. "Ya can't force yourself to have nightmares."

One could, technically – such as a highly imaginative individual willingly putting oneself on a 'ghost tour' and being at the mercy of one's own imaginings for nights afterward -, but that was neither here nor there.

"A byproduct of an experiment, I'm afraid," he explained.

"The hell kind of experiment was that?" Marcus questioned. "Seemed like torture from where I was standin'."

"Was this experiment done before or after the fire?" Gregson wanted to know.

"Oh, well before, I assure you," he responded immediately. "A personal bit, purely for personal curiosity."

"And what, pray tell, started this curiosity?"

He opened his mouth and blinked as he was hit with a thought.

Before, when he was actually doing the experiment, he hadn't thought anything of turning 9/11 into little more than a research experiment as a way to study – essentially – New York as presented on 9/11.

Now, after having experienced some facsimile of the event in question, turning something so… so undefinable into what basically amounted as the means to an end…

Just the premise of someone doing so was enough to make his blood boil. Bad enough that he had basically become the villain.

It was one thing to study 9/11 after the fact, purely for the simple reason that there is still a large amount of data generated as a result and only a fool would turn a completely blind eye to that.

Various federal agencies, in fact, have studied 9/11 for the purpose of preventing such a tragedy to happen again. Responders were taking their experiences and applying them elsewhere, as the human response was studied in a manner reminiscent – and yet superior to – other such events from the last thousand years or so.

All of that was expected, because everything in history was more or less studied the same way and it would be dereliction of duty had 9/11 simply been swept under the rug in the terms of having it be entirely off-limits.

It, however, was another thing entirely when using 9/11 to create something seemingly entirely unfeeling and distant and – to put it simply – 'a bit not good'. Just because he wholeheartedly tossed himself into the project didn't mean two native New York citizens – one of whom had actually been at Ground Zero when 9/11 was taking place – would understand.

"Well?" Marcus prompted. "Never been this quiet before since I met you. So, it's either really difficult to explain or it's somethin' the rest of us non-Sherlock Holmes folks ain't gonna like."

"It's the latter," Gregson answered, tone confident. "For this one, 'difficult to explain' never stopped him from tryin' before."

"Perhaps," Sherlock shrugged. "And knowing that, your curiosity should be appeased to prevent yourselves from being uncomfortable."

"Holmes," Gregson sighed in exasperation, "as grateful as I am about you trying to spare our feelings, we damn near broke the door down tryin' to get in here, because we thought you were bein' tortured to within an inch of your life. I want to know what kind of experiment you thought you could handle, because it doesn't sound like it went well."

"I want to know, too," Marcus added. "I was ready to start shootin' almost as soon as we got in and there you were, flashlight on and you gettin' tangled in the blankets. Had to jolt you awake by droppin' you back on the sleeping bag and I can't imagine what kind of hell you were dreamin' about. Don't think I'll ever be forgettin' any of it."

He didn't know what image he'd presented to them, but he couldn't help likening it to what one might see from an addict going through withdrawal.

It made him feel ill again and he hesitated for a moment before speaking. "It wasn't substance, I know better," because of the men he was currently rooming with, because of Alfredo who had worked so hard on him, because of Watson. Especially because of Watson. "But… if you – you truly do want to know. It truly began when the building collapsed on the bombing case. I… I noted the looks of – of panic on the faces around me and… I couldn't understand the depth, the degree. Not… not until Watson spoke of her experiences at what remained of the World Trade Center and…"

"And you started researching everything you could find," Gregson supplied.

"I – yes. I wanted to understand the reactions I had observed and there was only one way to – to truly do that. Except. It wasn't possible to – to actually experience 9/11 in the full sense, but I could attempt to do so. I first needed to understand what the Towers had been and looked through the history and then I went through every eyewitness testimony, oral history and recollection I could find, when I believed that I was sufficiently ready to proceed. Every word, picture, and video was meticulously studied and I began to build New York City in my mind. And then… Then I made a mistake when I fell asleep."

"And you lost control," Marcus concluded. "You wanted everything to happen the way you wanted, because you had some control over everything. That's why you decided to make it an experiment. And 'experiment' kinda implies some kinda 'control'."

"Falling asleep was simply one aspect of that mistake," he quietly confirmed, fisting his hands in the blankets beneath him. "Something I will have to retain for the future."

"And the other part of your mistake?" Gregson just as quietly asked. "What, you underestimated the scale of it?"

"Not the scale, no," he moved his gaze from one side of the ceiling to the other as he finally admitted to himself: "But my response to it."

When he'd been trapped in the hell of his own making the first time, he'd been one of thousands on the street watching in helpless disbelief as first one plane, then the other, had struck the Towers. He'd been unable to tear his gaze away even as the first bodies began to fall, thinking almost absently that the medical professionals were going to have a hell of a time putting them back together.

An image of Watson had suddenly flashed in his mind and his heart had dropped to his stomach as he'd realized that he had told Watson to meet just a block from the Plaza. She was in the line of danger and he had to get to her.

It was only after he'd managed to get past the outermost barricade when he spied a familiar face from the 11th, who'd then told him that Gregson and Bell were already at the Towers.

From there, all he could think about was what his life would be like without Watson and Gregson and Bell and his hypothetical future without them just pushed him to run faster. Panic had been all consuming and he just couldn't lose the three closes to him – his inner circle.

He trusted no one else – couldn't trust anyone else – and their loss would drive him further than not even Moriarty had managed to do.

He couldn't bear to recall how that nightmare ended, but the feelings and emotions had remained.

"I did come at the… experiment or project as a scientist," he winced slightly, but it was true. "I hadn't realized what else I had retained until… I was put in a situation where I was at the mercy of the… the fears I hadn't realized I possessed."

They fell into silence for long moments – perhaps an hour – and Sherlock felt uncertainty skitter over him as they stayed silent.

Anger would've been a better response.

"I get it," Marcus' quiet words finally cut through the darkness. "You wanted to get a taste of the action without actually knowin' how you'd feel once you got that taste. You tried to come at it like you always do, but you forgot that you're as human as the rest of us. It's all academic 'til you're actually in that situation and it's scared you to levels even you don't know what to do with. Can't say it hasn't happened to other people, so I should probably let you know that it's actually pretty normal to think you can handle somethin' that'll kick your ass later. Same thing happened to me."

"I'm not detecting anger or disappointment," he blurted, anxiety as possibly having upset them boiling over into words as his blankets took the brunt of it through clenched fingers.

"Should we be angry or disappointed?" Gregson mused. "Said you wanted to understand, right? Well, now, you do, though I can't figure out why the hell anyone would want to understand what it was like. You just have a way of doin' things and maybe there was some part of you that wanted to be as distant from your project as you could get. That's why you designed it to be a project that you could control. Nothin' wrong with that. But maybe another part of you thought that you should feel helpless, like so many of us did, for the full effect. So, maybe it was a success, but you weren't expecting it to go the way it did. Damn sure probably didn't expect to be so affected by it like you have been. That's what a scientist does, right? Like a Detective, you have to go off the information, interview witnesses, analyze evidence, check out the crime scene. You start to have a theory and you work on that theory until either it fits or a different theory comes out. You look at the victim and try to put yourself in that individual's place to try to understand, but you need the experience they had before things start making sense in a way that only an insider could get. The problem comes when you actually find yourself in a similar position and it affects you more than you had ever imagined. More than you had ever thought possible. So… Maybe you were lookin' at this like a Detective, but in a non-traditional way like a Consulting Detective."

It hadn't actually occurred to him in that manner, but it was a relief to him that he hadn't upset the Captain – a person he respected more than his own family.

"At least you did it 'cause you wanted to understand," Marcus eventually added. "You might not know this, but I was a kid who wanted to do somethin' with his life. So, I became a cop. Trained and studied and remembered all the others who actually got to be at Ground Zero and told myself that I would be on the front line should there be a next time. No more sittin' on the side for this cop, that's what I always believed. I heard the stories about 9/11," he shifted slightly, but not quite uncomfortably – something Sherlock was kind of surprised to find.

9/11 wasn't something easily discussed – possibly even amongst those who studied it – and he'd presumed this entire discussion would at best get him transferred, at worst get him shot.

Possibly the other way around.

But perhaps the darkness provided a comfort all its own, secrets whispered in an unspoken agreement that the words went no further than this night.

"Of those stories," Marcus went on, "I guess the one that stuck was about this one guy who was assigned to three other guys at the Trade Center. Didn't really think a lot when I heard about it, but after the first collapse, they lost contact with each other. Couldn't reach the others on the radio, not even after the second collapse. So, he thought he was the only one who made it out, until a couple days later when he ran into one of 'em. Turns out, they were the only two of that team that made it. The other guy thought he was the last, too, because the radio stayed silent and he wasn't sure what was going on. What made it worse was that the other guy was tight with the ones that didn't make it and it hit him more despite knownin' the first guy was okay. Messed him up a lot. Ain't sure what happened to that one, but the guy I heard the story from works in Arizona, now. A security guard. Anyway, I'd heard that story and it stayed with me and… Guess I never really realized that until the building collapsed over a week ago."

Looking back on the incident now, Marcus' reaction now made a macabre sense. It also explained his own panic feeding from his. No wonder hearing a hark back to 9/11 generated such a response. The story he'd heard had more or less come to life right in front of his very eyes. And this time, it was Marcus now in the shoes he'd all but coveted during the course of his career.

"Holmes, you said that it was all a theory o you under a controlled set of circumstances until you fell asleep and let the nightmare hit you like you were actually there. I know the same feelin', because I guess you could say that I did the same thing. It was a theory, one that we believed we could handle until it literally blew up almost right in our faces. You'n'me? We found out the hard way that we couldn't actually handle it. Sometimes, it just shows you how reality actually works: without research or control and the rest of us have to just go with it – kinda like 9/11. You got experience on the Force and think you got what it takes to handle somethin' that big. Then it actually happens and you're just as green as the Rookie you were kiddin' the day before."

"Astute parallel," Sherlock frowned in thought.

He had, of course, come across the same sentiment in a few places that basically did say more or less the same thing.

To paraphrase: The United States had lived under the illusion that it was untouchable, an illusion so deftly shattered on September morning when despicable forces targeted the belly of the giant that America had so erroneously believed itself to be.

The theory: America was safe.

The reality: It was vulnerable.

The wake-up call: Three planes driven into buildings, one into a field.

It was always the same. One goes about life thinking he could handle everything thrown at him. Then something – a nightmare, a silent radio – rips that confidence to shreds and he now has to live with a reality he had never signed up for.

In his and Marcus' cases, however, the reality that hit them as thoroughly as those planes hit the Towers hadn't physically changed their present. But now that this reality had happened to them, they could no longer see 9/11 New York the same way again. Not with a new understanding of what had been lost.

Like a child that had gone through an experience that made them realize how naïve they had been.

Or simply one of any age that did the same.

Reality was full of illusions, yet, perhaps that was exactly a way to deal with reality.

People built illusions around themselves as a defense mechanism against reality and there were times, such as 9/11, where those illusions were detrimental to the greater good. However, other illusions were helpful to certain degrees and others still had the peculiar habit of becoming reality itself.

Yet another fascinating thought to be boxed away for a later moment as Gregson quietly began to speak.

"You've got a point on that," he agreed. "Especially with Rookies who think they know what the real job is like. Holmes was only being Holmes and that backfired on him the same way. Well, his version of the 'same way'. What I don't get, however, is why the both of you decided to fixate on 9/11. Up to that point, I thought I was a seasoned Detective. But no. I came out of that feelin' as shaky as a Rookie and it wasn't until later that I realized that 9/11 didn't care what kind of experience you had. Everyone felt the same way. I knew guys in the Fire Department that lost guys and…" he was silent for a long moment. "9/11 was one thing and losing guys just added onto that, but they might as well have been civilians for all the good their training did them. You don't just get over that in a matter of hours. There are guys still in therapy for what they went through over there, guys who still can't wrap their heads around the fact that they couldn't have done a thing whether they had the training or not.

"And that's what I don't get about people who think they could've done a better job. You know, I'm not sure they would've done anything differently should they have actually done something or been in the position to do so. And then there are the ones who say that they wish they had been there on 9/11 or witnessed something like it. Why?" he asked simply and plaintively. "Why do you want to know what it was like? Why do you want to put yourself in that position? Because, at the end of the day, you don't want to know. You don't want to hear what I heard. Saw what I saw. Been through what I been through. I can promise you, you want to stay as far away as you can from 9/11. I get that people don't want to forget and, on some level, I guess I can appreciate that. But I ain't the one in danger of forgetting. And neither is any number of people who got out. We have to live with 9/11 for the rest of our lives. I wouldn't wish that on anybody – maybe not even Moriarty -, so I don't understand why you or anybody else want to have been there.

"Sometimes, I don't even understand why anyone would want to remember any of it at all. But I can't decide for other people how to feel or what to think about 9/11, because I know that just because I was there doesn't mean that everyone was. I get the feelin' that it wouldn't matter, anyway, because I had the experience. You two didn't. Speakin' from experience is a real thing, somethin' I can't force people to actually have – short of flying a plane into a tower myself. There are times I actually look at someone who I know wasn't there and I think about how lucky they are that they didn't go through the same hell. Then I look at others and wonder how it feels to be them, living their lives without this experience. I think about the people who say they never want to forget and I want to show them my experiences and ask them if they want to remember all of that and why. I can't think of a single reason, except that they weren't there. Then I think about people like Marcus, who have such a bright future ahead of them, and the people like Sherlock, who have come so far from their struggles. Maybe it's for the best that I experienced 9/11 from right in the middle of it, because others wouldn't have to. No one – of any experience level – should have to go through that.

"There's not a lot I can do about that, but I think you should know that I went through it firsthand. I've seen what it's done to people, who think they could take that and I don't want the pair of you to make that same mistake. If you need to talk, my door is always open."

"Or," Sherlock slowly suggested, "you could offer your floor and keep the lights off. I find I rather like this arrangement."

"I'll take that into consideration," Gregson deadpanned, a slight note of amusement coloring his voice.

He nodded and they lapsed into silence.

"Holmes?" Marcus said after a long moment. "How're you holdin' up without your place? I mean, I know you don't know what personal space is, but the Brownstone was your… I dunno. And… guess I just thought you'd have another place all lined up. And I figured you'd have moved in by now."

"True enough," he acknowledged. The Brownstone was the American version of 221b, which he adored equally, but his sentiment toward the former was more fond considering the people he now had in his life. "While I do prefer my own… 'place' in which to process and practice my methods, and I… was very fond of the Brownstone and all that it offered, it was a place. Places can be rebuilt, memories are permanent and I have quite a few of them squirreled away. I am 'holding up' rather well. Thank you for asking," he belatedly remembered to add.

He felt his fingers twitching on his leg as no response was forthcoming.

"What?" he finally blurted. "If there's something you wish to say, then by all means," he waved a hand through the darkness. "I am at your disposal."

"Might not be anything," Gregson slowly answered, "but… Somethin' else happened that you're not telling us."

"Whatever do you mean?" he frowned, casting his memory back to try to make sense of that statement. "I've made no such omission."

"No," Marcus added with his own thoughtful tone. "He's right. We know you, Holmes, and something about all this ain't addin' up."

"I still fail to see the point."

"Look," Gregson shifted slightly. "9/11 was traumatic, sure. Honestly, I'm not sure you would've been that affected based on your history and experiences. You've seen and done a lot of things, so I wonder how you really would've handled 9/11. That said, I'm not sure the mass murder would've fazed you."

"And you said you did research, right?" Marcus added. "About the Towers? You said places can be rebuilt – I guess I'd agree -, but you didn't have the same kind of … tie to them that we did."

"Also true enough," he narrowed his eyes, still not sure of their point.

"Though I'm sure you developed some kind of attachment to them, all the same," Gregson told him. "Nothin' unusual about that, but I think the point we're tryin' to make, here, is that it wasn't the mass murder of thousands of people or the Towers that sent you into a tailspin. It had to be somethin' else."

He was right. They both were, but Sherlock couldn't find the words to explain.

How could he explain that the realization of potential support system loss kept him awake at night?

He couldn't lose Watson – that realization had come hard and swift upon finding out that she'd been kidnapped -, but he'd relatively recently came to the conclusion that losing Marcus and Gregson would be just as damaging to him and whatever balance he had.

He'd given up trying to explain his attachment to both even to himself, so how could he explain to them?

And never mind the fact that he still didn't know what to think about it.

It simply was and he'd long realized that there were things that simply refused to be deduced and classified, but this particular thing wasn't as grating as others were and it had amazed him how easily he'd accepted that.

He wasn't quite certain if he should say something for fear of making the atmosphere awkward and uncomfortable – not usually a problem, but somehow was this time -, but, for some reason, he just felt like he needed to … put something out there. To offer something in return for earlier in the evening.

"Perhaps your instincts prove correct," he offered somewhat meekly. "It is not the quantity of people that bothers me, but the quality of few. The problem with dreams is that reality as you actually know it doesn't exist. Something that you know to be impossible no longer lingers within restrictions. Anything is acceptable in dreams, even things you know to be false. It does not stop them from being completely horrific." Well, mostly false considering where the Captain had been.

He shivered as a chill crept down his clothing and burrowed under the blankets despite the comfortable temperature of moments ago.

"We're okay," Marcus spoke after a long moment, no doubt coming to some conclusion that he's almost afraid to speculate on. "We're okay, you know."

"'course, we're okay," Gregson added, an unidentifiable tone in his voice. "Why wouldn't we be?"

'We're okay,' Sherlock mouthed to himself, the reminder – the mantra – taking root in his chest as he remembered two other voices joining in. 'We're okay.'

"I have that nightmare, too," Marcus sounded a little closer as he rustled, the burst of noise dragging him into arms' length from Sherlock. "That's normal, you know. We're okay."

"As you keep telling me, yes," he voiced, the mantra whispering between his ribs and nestling down deep in the center of them, into the core of his very being.

"It's easy to forget that, sometimes," Gregson mused. "Nice to have a reminder, you know?"

A reminder. Yes.

Three voices.

Two words.

One voice.

We're okay.

We're okay.

We're okay.

He allowed the mantra to encase him like a warm blanket that chased away the chill as a pressure on his arm zippered the blanket closed.

We're okay.

We're okay.

His eyes opened to utter devastation on a scale never truly seen from human hands.

Grey coated everything, several inches think, and the air was finally clear.

Though not for long.

The remaining Tower was seconds from its almost graceful plunge and a second dust cloud would be sure to follow.

He had to move.

He dragged himself up and ran.

Nothing else mattered, except running.

On and on, he ran, but he didn't even make it a mile before the remaining Tower started to fall.

An almost morbid curiosity made him slow and turn to watch the top of the Tower – and its antenna – slowly collapse in on itself, generating a vertical column of smoke in a display that was gracefully beautiful.

Strange how something so devastatingly horrifying could actually end up being one of the most beautiful things he'd ever seen.

It was entrancing to watch as the last of the World Trade Center came crashing to the ground, the cloud racing toward him almost as his mind realized that standing there was a bad thing.

A hand yanked him to the side before he could even begin to run to safety, a weight slamming him into a niche already housing others as the cloud covered them.

Again, the darkness rolled on and on, the weight behind him and the grip on his other side anchoring him when he felt ready to fly apart at the never ending darkness, a silence so complete that he may as well have been deaf.

Eventually, light began to penetrate the darkness and it was just enough to begin making out features.

Features of the wall in front of him and the grey coated hair of the figure buried into his side.

Coughing from behind them revealed a smaller figure against the other's back, while the weight against his own lessened.

"Holmes," a gruff voice coughed in his ear. "I'm not running into another collapse zone to haul your ass out again."

"Were you hit?" familiar hands ran over him as a third voice managed a laugh.

"Maybe if he was hit, he'd have sense not to do that again."

Hands turned him around until his back was to the wall, Gregson, Bell and Watson – his friends, his family, his… everything he didn't even have words for – watching him with concern, amusement and a slight exasperation in their eyes. The loss of two City icons didn't seem to matter to them as they stood in grey lit silence.

They could've been the last four people in the world.

Sherlock stared at each of them in turned, before telling them, "The Twin Towers have come down."

"Yeah," Gregson nodded. "You okay?"

"Yes," he nodded back. "Yes. We're okay."

"We're okay," Bell echoed, catching his gaze with a slight smile.

"We're okay," Watson squeezed both of their arms.

"We're okay," Gregson confirmed.

We're okay.

We're okay.

Sherlock threw his head back and laughed.

We're okay.

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End Parts Three and Four

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Next Chapter: "That's what you lost in the Brownstone."