A/N: Wow, thanks for all of the alerts and favorites so far! Hopefully you guys will continue to enjoy. :) This is not Brit-Picked or Beta-Read btw so if anyone sees anything disgustingly horrible to read (lol oh irony how I love you so) due to my American-ness please let me know.

Warnings: Same as first chapter with a nice dollop of added Pre-Slash into eventually Slashiness, but that's not till later on. If you want to read as Gen you can as long as you skip out on the eventual epilogue which is where it's going to get slash-y. ;) Also, we have Mycroft being Mycroft. And it is maxed up to an 11 folks. TREAD WITH... WARNINGNESS.

Disclaimer: First Chapter Says It All. :D

"All these twisted thoughts free-flow to everlasting memories; show soul.

Kiss the stars with me and dread the wait for stupid calls returning us to life.

We say to those who are in love it can't be true 'cause we're too young

And I know that's true because so long I was so in love with you…

So I Thought.

A year goes by and I can't talk about it."

-'So I Thought'; Flyleaf

kiss the stars with me

part two: stupid calls returning us to life

John awoke what felt like days later with a migraine pounding angrily against the left side of his head and eyes burning with unshed tears temporarily held back by closed lids. Instead of opening his eyes John let his mind muddle through what it knew, the continuous days he had woken buoyed with the weight of his loss, trapping him in his purgatory like an anchor on dry land. John felt the days, months, years hang around him until it fogged his perception in a haze of disappointment-

Disappointment in himself, his abilities to "protect" (both himself and his supposed loved ones), his best friend whom he had felt so much guilt towards; why hadn't he seen it coming, why hadn't he had done more for him, if he had been just a bit more clever, he could have prevented it all from happening, if only he could be that much more amazing like Sher-

Now though, John wasn't quite sure how he was supposed to feel.

Wait.

That was wrong.

He knew how he was supposed to feel.

He just couldn't afford himself to actually feel it.

"I know you're awake, John."

The smooth baritone slid musically into the partially comatose man's ears like a long-lost melody they could not do without. The emotionally battered doctor shed the torrent of sensations threatening to drown him and clung ostentatiously to the pure joy thrumming with every beat of his heart.

And when John opened his eyes and stared at the gangly figure in front of him he felt like everything could finally be right again.

Except it wasn't.

And John wasn't sure if they ever could be.

The overly rambunctious detective had felt a fleeting moment of panic at the sight of his friend dropping to the ground not three seconds after looking straight at him but suppressed the urge to check the overly-taxed man's vitals over and over again until it became clear that John was fine (fine was such an imperative word now and not even close to meaning what it used to in Sherlock's calibrated library of words) and moved the tiny doctor into the sitting room without a second thought.

Sherlock then spent the time waiting for John to awaken staring at him, cataloguing every change just as meticulously as he kept track of what had stayed the same. It was obvious that the past three years had not been particularly kind to John, negating the familiar stance John had adopted before the inelegant fall (Sherlock would not be able to think of that word objectively ever again, he must find a way to recalibrate it properly within his hard drive…) and the increase of wrinkles and return of his limp were blatant in that regard.

But those years, they had not been exactly easy on the Consulting Detective either and the sooner John realized this the sooner they could get back to where they were and return back to the most important thing; the work.

The grey-eyed former vagrant refused to believe their relationship could not be salvaged, something Mycroft had repeated excessively in the past to the point where Sherlock had debated just how badly his dear brother's help was really needed.

Mycroft, unfortunately, had all the connections Sherlock needed to end Moriarty's syndicate once and for all and as much as he hated to admit it, he could not afford to waste time being petty.

For John Sherlock would concede to Mycroft's interfering tendencies and bite his tongue.

For John Sherlock would do whatever it took to make things safe again, or at least as safe as two men as adrenaline-addicted as they were could manage.

That was the point of all this wasn't it? Sherlock had sacrificed it all for his friend and he would continue to do so, all in a bid for his physical and mental safety.

So once those warm cerulean blue eyes opened and focused on the man at hand Sherlock could not contain himself, automatically standing up and flittering about in some strange dance of celebration.

"You have questions." Sherlock excitedly informed the bleary-eyed doctor awkwardly reclined on the couch.

"And you have answers." John returned stone-faced. Little by little every part of the former soldier's body stiffened, obviously rejecting the idea that Sherlock was here and is this a dream in equal instances. "Are you a hallucination by any chance?"

"Oh John," Sherlock huffed out irritably "if I were a hallucination how, may I ask, would you have gotten to the sofa after your… delicate collapse? Honestly I know you're in shock but use your brain for once!"

"Sherlock?"

"Yes John?"

When Sherlock hit the floor with a thud and felt the blood gush from the side of his mouth like a well, he wondered when John would ever stop surprising him.

John smirked as Sherlock held his jaw in obvious pain, right hand aching from the brute contact.

That, he had decided, had felt much better than it really should have.

"I suppose I should have expected that," Sherlock garbled as he rubbed his cheek. "Only you could go from shock to physical brutality in such a rush John."

"I missed you too, Sherlock." John sweetly countered, the two men grinning despite the tension still walled between them. The older man had honestly had no intention of hitting his former flat mate but after the snarky remark his body had gone on autopilot, obviously feeding off of the resentment still harbored beneath the warmth and excitement John was desperately holding onto. "Now would be a good time to explain yes?"

Sherlock nodded vacantly as he sat down on sofa John had just inhabited, eyeing the doctor in a way that suggested that the seat next to him was to be filled immediately. Though the idea of being so close to the detective made a small part of him to cringe, John refused to fall into newly acquired habits with his best friend, his still alive and completely whole best friend who saw everything and said more now present in front of him.

John knew he would have to find a way to hide this new side of himself from Sherlock but he also knew that it wouldn't be long before his best friend figured everything out in a blaze of deductions and genius. John, without realizing it, wore his heart on his sleeve and Sherlock, who usually could not understand human behavior without having John relay it to him in a simple manner that even he could understand, read him better than any crime scene. The doctor would make a mistake and the detective would be there to piece it all together.

John just had to be ready for it when it all fell apart again.

It felt like hours passed as the two men sat next to each other, the sound of silence blanketing over them saying more than simple words could say.

Eventually however that wasn't enough to convey all the things that needed to be said so Sherlock, as always, took the plunge and began his sordid tale from the moment Moriarty had come into their flat to the… finale so to speak, before Sherlock's indefinite hiatus.

"So…" John blinked as he absorbed all of the information he could, "Snipers?"

"Yes."

"And Moriarty threatened to-"

"If I were to save you along with Lestrade and Mrs. Hudson I had to kill myself. I obviously wasn't nearly as suicidal as Moriarty kept alluding he himself was, so having had an inkling of where it was the mad man's plans were leading me to, I had a contingency plan set in place so that if I could not stop him by regular means I could at least hold the upper hand in this way. I had not expected him to actually kill himself, mind you, but I knew that if he were willing to end his own life that he had planned ahead in order to make sure that I would do the same. There was no way to know if you or any of the others were safe John. I had to end Moriarty's legacy once and for all."

"Then… you're done with all of this nonsense?"

"Ah… just… about."

"Sherlock." John's voiced became deathly serious very quickly. "Who's left?"

"Just one. His very best in fact." Sherlock's newfound smirk grew obscenely, a tinge of morbidity hanging off every word. "The sniper he had on you could only be described as the best of the best. It would seem that Moriarty would only trust his most lucrative of pets to take care of the one person he felt would destroy me. After all, Lestrade and Mrs. Hudson had some sort of chance of living were the assassins instructed to do Moriarty's bidding if you think about it. You however were special. You would have no chance."

"The sniper… on me…" John felt his mind fog as he thought of all that was relayed to him, one day in particular forcing its way to the forefront of John's memories with a viciousness that tore him apart in ways Sherlock could never understand. His head began to ache at the temples, a sign which had always lead John to trust that bad news was over the horizon. "What was his name?"

"Moran." Sherlock's voice grated heatedly against the silence of the room. "Sebastian Moran."

John felt his stomach roil at the name, the memory of that name, the acrid taste of vomit rising up his throat and choking him in a flash.

"John," the concerned look on Sherlock's face was more than John could bear, his left hand shaking, his breath coming out in halts, his heart, palpitating, it was beating so fast-

"John, calm down!"

This was the mistake.

He couldn't afford to make it now.

He could do this right now.

But his heart-

It wouldn't stop ringing within his ears, and screams he thought to have extinguished over the years echoed within his ears, hoarse and bloody, filled with rage and terror.

John was horrified.

don't think about it don't think about it don't think about it

"John?" Sherlock's face became clear through the haze of mania clinging to the edges of John's vision; an anchor to his momentarily madness. In three years, John had not once allowed himself to feel the fear that had consumed him within what he called the night. And just hearing the name-

An echo of fright stirred up within the pit of the doctor's stomach.

"John, are you alright?" Sherlock's voice teetered into a tenuous lilt that reminded the shaken man that his breakdown wouldn't just affect him. For all that the Consulting Detective spoke of 'divorcing himself from his feelings', he did have them and John could pull at them without even realizing it most days.

'I'm ok.' John remembered telling Harry and Ella and Sarah and Greg and Mrs. Hudson-

"I'm sorry." John told Sherlock instead, his voice hoarse and eyes still glistening with unshed tears. "I'm so sorry I couldn't-"

Sherlock cut the man off with an embrace, awkwardly arranging his limbs around his blogger with all the impulsivity that rattled through a man as differently able as Sherlock was.

"It wasn't your fault John."

John froze.

Did…

'Has he figured it out already?'

"You couldn't predict that Moriarty would do what he did." Full lips grimaced against the tufts of graying blondish hair pressed against them. "He knew exactly had to play all of us, me most especially. I let my hand show early on of course… the three of you were in constant danger even before that night at the pool."

John felt his hand shake as he attempted to pull away from the hold, relieved he had not been found out but anxious to not be touched.

Sherlock, however, refused to let go.

"I would do it all over again to keep you safe. Even if you never speak to me again and decide not to come back to Baker Street with me, even if I could never have a cup of tea with you or solve another case without hearing you cry out brilliant in the background or sit down with you and simply be. You're my…" The timid baritone grew quieter and quieter as the embrace grew all the more stifling, John wanting to support his friend but wanting more to get his space back. "I kept lying to myself about what you meant to me. I realized that when we were speaking on that phone… when I left you my note. I do have friends. What's more, I have a best friend and I would do so much to keep him alive and well. That day proved it didn't it? John?"

The older man finally managed to slip out of Sherlock's quivering grip, giving himself the distance he needed to think without wanting to push his friend off of his person. Staring up at the bluish-grey eyes that had never seemed too exude anything but aloofness, John bit his lip and welcomed the genuine anxiety pouring from his companion in waves. This was not Sherlock shamming in any way. The great oaf of a man didn't do things by halves and John knew that his friend's confession was not something said without at least a morsel of some sort of veracity; a stymied truth only seen through Sherlock's eyes.

"I need to go lie down, Sherlock." John carefully positioned himself so that Sherlock could not grab him again. Those long spindly hands were already twitching towards him and John didn't think he could take another moment of being caged against the Consulting Detective's limbs. "I can't tell you what I think because I don't… know."

He had never seen Sherlock look so lost.

John knew the feeling.

"May I… stay for tonight?"

John smiled, the edges of his lips crinkling in a smile that had nearly disappeared in the past three years still sitting between them, the elephant within the room.

"When did I say you could leave?"

Once John has made it into his bedroom, he barely made it to the floor before hissing out in pain as the cold wood did no kindness for his leg.

Sherlock had made no comment about his leg but John knew that he knew.

It wasn't psychosomatic this time.

And his best friend would have questions for him too.

John closed his eyes and concentrated on the fact that his miracle had come.

Even if everything else didn't seem quite so right.

What happened to him?

SH

I shall see you tomorrow Sherlock. Do give the good doctor some space in the meantime yes?

MH

He's had enough space.

SH

Then he shall have to have a little more. Do listen to me for once Sherlock, I hate having to repeat myself.

MH

Sherlock threw his phone on the sofa and paced the entirety of John's sitting room until the sounds of John settling into bed echoed from his room. He hated this distance.

Worse was that he had created it.

And someone, something, had helped nurture it.

Sherlock just had to figure out what that was and destroy it in its tracks.

When John first got up, he thought the day would start as any other day would.

He'd gather his clothing and raid the bathroom for an hour or so before drinking the same brand of tea he did every other morning, readying himself for another dreadful day filled with the same old thing.

One step out of his bedroom and John was met with a face full of Sherlock Holmes standing just millimeters away from his person, changing that perception very quickly.

The doctor felt the smile curl around his lips before he could even think of conjuring it.

It was no ordinary morning after all.

"You'll be fine then?"

John had been nervously hovering around Sherlock since he had woken up this morning, though Sherlock noted in the back of his mind that his aversion to touch still stayed very much the same.

And Sherlock had tried to touch. It was ingrained in his being to be able to steer John in whatever direction he was going or pull and push him away from the Consulting Detective's person at a moment's notice. John, however, managed to out maneuver Sherlock every single time and his irritation at each attempt was growing more and more palpable at the fact.

The twitchy doctor nodded as his friend snorted, contorted precariously on the chair that had formerly been next to the table and was now perched next to his desk, which held John's now open and hacked-into-it computer.

At least some things don't change.

"I'll be home by 3:00 p.m. I actually have a double shift today but I'm sure one of the other doctors wouldn't mind covering for me tonight. I've accumulated a lot of spent time in that hospital you know?"

"So I've heard," Sherlock muttered as he scrolled down the laptop screen and frowned. "I can't imagine how bored you must've been without me around to give you a distraction from all of the tedium regular London life has to offer."

"Sherlock."

The quiet staleness laced within his name caused the former recluse to glance up at his best friend. Sherlock kept his gaze steady the moment the twisted grimace on John's face became reminiscent to one the detective hadn't seen in years. Literally.

"Bit not good John?"

Hazy blue eyes narrowed as three long years sat between what they used to be and what the two men were now. A broken pair that needed more than just a bit of repair.

Sherlock knew now that this wouldn't be a simple case. It would certainly be interesting, though, and Sherlock always took the interesting ones.

"Beyond just a bit Sherlock."

"John…?"

"We'll talk later." There was he resigned expression John used to always employ whenever Sherlock overstepped some sort of social aspect that the gangly man ignored for one reason or another, mostly because he honestly didn't care. But those expressive eyes didn't sparkle with the underlying mirth or the subtle agitation that lingered even as thin lips pursed into straight white lines and nostrils flared extravagantly.

"If you say so." Sherlock softly replied as the door closed behind the stoic doctor's retreating back. The phone next to him chirped cheerily but the dark-haired investigator did not immediately spring to attention as was his usual reaction.

It took five minutes for Sherlock to will the care to read the message and another three to write a response.

Mycroft could wrangle the nerve to sound smug via text message with barely the use of a couple of words, let alone a whole sentence. Condescension was nothing new to the Holmes brothers but when used against each other it became especially irritating as Sherlock's immaturity mixed with Mycroft's unending supply of prissiness only served to grate on the other's last nerve without even a word spoken between them.

For John, though.

Sherlock had already sacrificed his life for the man.

What more did he really have to lose?

I gather the good doctor has left already. Shall he be making it to first and second shift today?

MH

John shall be home at 3.

SH

Of course he will. That is why I've scheduled you in for 11. You're welcome little brother.

MH

Piss off Mycroft.

SH

Sherlock brought his hands under his chin and stared at the phone on his lap.

All of the visual and audio clues did not add up.

'Not enough data. Does not compute. Not all of the necessary components are available. Need more data on the problem at hand. Relevant, what is relevant? John? Why John?'

The pieces didn't want to connect the way they should have in his head and the only person he could rely on to do the brainwork in this case was the one person he really did not want to confide in at the moment. But John would not speak to him… What was John so afraid of him for?

His older brother had a lot of explaining to do.

"Hello, Sherlock."

"Mycroft."

"Hm, lovely little flat isn't it?" The dark umbrella swung to and fro against Mycroft's lengthy legs, clothed in their perfectly tailored trousers. "I helped him acquire it you know. Couldn't manage to ever get him back into Baker Street but I always made sure the option was available to him."

"John wouldn't have approved even if he hadn't felt responsible for my death. You know this."

"How well you think you know him." Mycroft gave his brother the most simpering smile the younger man had ever seen, and that was a record for the older Holmes. "You may have known well the John Watson of three years ago but make no mistake Sherlock, today's John is a different man; unrecognizable to the sturdy soldier who had thirsted for the battlefield when you two first met. Just as war changed him your death did its fair deal of damage, and this change did not come without certain… consequences."

"We have spoken to each other four times since I've been gone and not once did you speak of anything happening to him."

"You never asked."

"It shouldn't have had to have been implied!"

"Be careful, brother of mine. Your temper is showing." The government official (Or should we just say The Government?) sat down opposite his temperamental sibling with all the grace of a royal settling down for a cup of tea. "Not once did you ask me how John was doing nor did you ever imply that you wished to know. Pretending that neither of us don't know why that is, is tiresome and a rather waste of a conversation don't you think little brother?"

"No, it is not worth the words to uphold some charade we both know would be some caricature of past arguments. This is about the man you left behind…" Mycroft paused as Sherlock's face darkened considerably, his sharp features gaining the feral silhouette that had blanketed the detective these last three years without his conscience there to remind him of the amorality behind the supposed sociopath's actions. His Heart had been shattered and though Sherlock may not have directly known, he was feeling those repercussions quite thoroughly now. "However many pretty ways you wish to sugar coat the reality Sherlock, that is what you did. It may have saved his life at the moment but you had plenty of time in between then and now to rectify his state of being. You chose to live without him just as easily as you chose to forget what bond it was the both of you shared, making it easier for you to keep going without having to wonder what poor John Watson was doing. What did you imagine would happen, dear brother? A white picket fence, small dog, beautiful wife and the beginning of a Watson brood? Would that have been your preference having had done everything you have done to return to him happy without you?"

"We both know it would have killed you to see such a travesty. You'd have spirited him away the first chance you could get and forcibly reminded him why you are so vital to him. You would have sucked the life he had fought for while you were off gallivanting in your adventures without him and destroyed his existence a second time all for the sheer need of wanting him all to yourself."

Mycroft stared at the expressionless face before him, knowing for all that Sherlock wanted to hurt him he could not refute his logic, and that made all the difference.

"I had wished he would have found himself a new life after you. Especially after playing the part that I did. It would have done you some good to have something out of your reach for once, spoiled that you are. But I know you suffered in your own way, in those tiny minute instances where you couldn't suppress that need anymore and you missed him, all in your own way. But you did not see what I saw and you did not feel the guilt that I felt." The hand around the handle of the umbrella tightened until each digit was blinding white and the knuckles circled around the cylinder of wood cracked under the pressure. "John cared for you so much. He still does, you saw it when you returned. He would have given up anything and everything to have had you by his side again. That is love Sherlock. What John has given you is the purest form of affection I have ever seen one person give another. And when you played him how you did with Moriarty as your constant excuse, it became tainted. Not with hatred towards you but with a distinct self-loathing that I don't think even the most dutiful of emotional masochists could master."

"John put himself at a standstill when you… departed from us." Mycroft threw the word out distastefully, the mere thought of it obviously erupting a bitter taste within his mouth. "In doing so he managed to gather himself in a situation he refused to escape from because he believed it was his repentance in some twisted fashion. You were his breaking point Sherlock, make no mistake about it. But what happened to John after that was what eviscerated whatever was left."

"You say all this but I still don't…" Sherlock's steepled fingers stretched against his chin and neck, back arching in a bow as he leaned forward in a confused whirlwind of thought. "It doesn't make sense. It's JOHN."

"You see, but you do not observe." The older gentleman spoke quietly. "Your emotions are blocking what you would think was obvious in others. Take John's name out of the equation Sherlock. Put a pedestrian in his place and what does the evidence tell you."

"Not John." The Consulting Detective murmured to himself. "He wouldn't. He's a good man who wouldn't do this to himself. He has more sense than me, than you, than just about anyone."

"What, put himself above self-flagellation?" Blue eyes squinted with minor annoyance at the denial the younger man seemed to cling to with every fiber of his being. "John has always been remarkable in his own way. You are brilliant Sherlock where he is steady. What would make you think he could not find a way to obliterate himself that wouldn't require his own hand?"

"I destroyed him." Sherlock mournfully wallowed, full lips trembling involuntarily. "I never meant to. I swear."

"You only meant to cripple him, I know. But you forget Sherlock that a man once wounded may eventually survive and carry on but a man deserted is a spirit who tends to forget there's something more worth fighting for." Tapping the tip of the umbrella against the floor, Mycroft didn't even bid his brother good day before he was off of the chair and through the door, leaving only a shadow behind in his wake.

Sherlock didn't even protest at his brother's dramatic leave, the data rearranging itself within his mind at a frightening speed until the dots were connected in such a way that distantly Sherlock could not believe that the answer had ever been out of his reach.

Distantly, he knew it had never been about the data at all.

When John returned, it was with a slight hiss and a bag full of take-away within the hand not clutching his cane, wanting nothing more than a quiet night in with his best friend.

Sherlock stared up at him from his spot on the sofa, grey-blue eyes calculating even as his sprawled limbs told a different story.

Calculating.

"Hello." John uselessly called out from the doorway.

"May I ask you something John?"

Blond lashes fluttered against weathered cheeks. The weary former surgeon knew that particular tone. "Yeah…?"

"Would you mind terribly coming over to me? I wish to see something."

"What?"

"Your hand."

"Why?"

"I wish to examine it."

"For what exactly?"

"Experiment, now will you cease these nonsense questions and come here or shall I have to get up?" Before Sherlock could even make it off the furniture, the tired doctor hobbled his way to his sofa and gave his friend his left hand. Sherlock smirked in victory as he tenderly took in the limb within his own and turned his dissecting eyes on the piece of flesh carefully cradled against his fingers and palm.

It trembled within the investigator's grip, fingers curling defensively as the wrist kept jerking out of the younger man's gentle hold.

"You're afraid." John snatched his appendage out of his friend's hand, the amazement within that smooth baritone too much to process.

"Why would I be afraid of you Sherlock?"

"Not of me, obviously." Not knowing when to stop, that being Sherlock's specialty, kept the detective going even as the once inviting curiosity only repelled the former soldier. "Of intimacy, even the most innocent of it. You do not wish for any sort of touch. That's when your hand started shaking, when I reached out and made a grab for it. You were anticipating something and it was not one of pleasant kind."

"Leave it alone, Sherlock."

Instead of backing off of John's personal space the Consulting Detective invaded it, backing the older man until his back hit the wall and there was nowhere left to run. "Tell me, John. Tell me something other than what it is I know to be true and I will believe you. I will delete everything speaking otherwise and I will follow your words as if they are gospel in this one instance."

"Why?"

"Because you are my friend."

"Sherlock Holmes doesn't have any friends."

"Just the one then." Sherlock gazed intently into John's eyes. "Just you really."

"I can't." John felt his eyes water, hands trembling, voice failing, body sliding, down, the floor, he's reaching the floor-

Dark curls flooded the doctor's vision until they blurred into the inky darkness that John was so familiar with, a faint ringing of words tickling his ears until they seemed so far away, they couldn't have been said.

"Then neither can I."