Chapter summary: Anthea ships Johnlock. Problem?

The current state of 221B is pitiful at best. Sherlock sits in total silence, while the rooms are being practically torn down. He shrugs when it is declared from one room or another, that nothing remotely suspicious could be found. Mycroft grips his umbrella and huffs, not in a relieved way.

"In my previous misjudgement I gave your flatmate a signal shield, and it has been activated daily." Mycroft waves the glowing list of activation records to Sherlock. "It will be crucial for us, to find out what he had been concealing even from his endorsers. Any thoughts?"

Sherlock skims through the time intervals, and shakes his head. "As far as I remember, which is all of them, he stayed in his room."

The ensuing search in John's bedroom takes the longest while, not because of the quantity or complexity of the contents, but because of the expectation to actually come up with something. Finally, Anthea descends from the stairs, a log-pad in hand. Mycroft takes a step forward, but she bypasses him, and hands the pad straight to Sherlock, who acknowledges the unconventional act with a grateful nod, provoking a deeper scowl from Mycroft.

Anthea turns back to Mycroft. "Sir, the activation records of the S-field are exactly matched in time by the daily logs in this pad, the only exception being last night. Concerning the private nature of these logs, I have taken the liberty to ask first for the judgement of Mister Holmes the junior."

Mycroft raises a questioning eyebrow at the glint of sympathy in her voice, while Sherlock could not help an untimely grin in his peruse. The sheer number of entries reminds him of just how much time they have spent together. John's account resembles much of Camina Burana, plus some detection and minus the drinking – that is, lamentation over unrequited love and Fate in general. The farther he reads, the more lost for words Sherlock gets. The events of the last few days are rapidly rearranging themselves in his Mind Palace, intertwining, untangling, forming a new picture, until the longing to see his short sturdy clone of a flatmate again makes his heart ache. Funny. Didn't know I had one.

Ignoring Mycroft's outreaching hand, Sherlock gingerly puts the log-pad into his own pocket. "Have faith in my judgement for once, Mycroft, that despite being a subordinate, John Watson takes no part in M-lab's conspiracy. A rescue is in order instead of a hunt, if you are remotely interested in serving the public good, by bringing Moriarty down."

The same pleading look from Anthea does little to dispel Mycroft's doubts. Nevertheless, he relents, as always. "I don't know about bringing down anyone, but I do what I can."

An alert brings Mycroft's attention back to Anthea. "The S-field has been turned off, Sir, soon followed by your Identity accessing a maintenance passage at Citadel Station."

Oh, John, brilliant. "I know exactly where he is going." Sherlock springs out of the armchair, "Leave this to me."

Moran nervously adjusts his headgear as the shuttle passes level 60, the lowest he has ever been yet. "Where is he, James? Talk to me."

"Ah, reaching Level 40 soon. The construction cart is regrettably faster and more agile, and funny enough, our dummy seems to know his way around there."

"Level 40? The Jet-way doesn't even go that low!"

"Well, for maintenance it does. Since there is no way out below Level 43, it looks like our dummy is heading straight for the ground."

"But I have never been to the ground!" Moran screams, gathering general dirty looks from his fellow passengers, for most of which the ground is also an exotic concept.

Moriarty chortles in response. "Worry not, my dear, aren't we capable of making him feel anything? It should not be a big deal to pull him to a halt with – a stroke or something." Turning away from the monitors, he pores over Moran's haphazard interface for the first time. "Now, which button do you push?"

"No, no, stay your hand -" Moran is positively panicking. "The neural commands are interlocked and you can't – ugh, just stop. One wrong command, and we risk debilitating our dummy totally."

The implication of his inadequacy at the techy parts irritates Moriarty greatly. He oppresses an urge to smash the interface and see what comes about. "Fine then, get your arse back here, and we'll treat him properly. What's wrong with total debilitation - you think the rebel can still be salvaged?"

"I feel like there is something in him to be salvaged."

Lower, lower, lower.

As elephants choose their spot of eternal rest, so should I.

John pushes open the last iron door, breaking up the new ivy vines grown over it on the outside. He steps into the bright rays of mid-afternoon; a long shadow is cast by a tall figure straight ahead. And Sherlock turns around, the last thing John thought he'd see again; at the same time, he is not surprised.

"Getting some air?" Sherlock's voice is flat, as usual.

John's mind races. How long do I have? Just get to the point. "There is something I need to show you. I am going to take my shirt off – don't be alarmed."

"But it's cold."

Is that a way of saying he cares? John smiles bitterly as he unzips his coat and throws it to the ground. "Well, there won't be time for me to catch anything." His undressing goes on, until his upper body is bare.

Just above John's left chest, the sinister band of metal glistens in the sunlight. Sherlock stretches out his right hand to trace its outline with steady long fingers, his gaze fixed on John's face.

"There are five more in my brain, and they wire what I see to the M-lab. Guess that wasn't a nice thing to do – sorry. Anyway, I have walked out on their lot, and termination could happen any second now. Sherlock," John's breath is getting short and heavy, "whatever Mycroft has told you, it's true. I'm telling you now, I'm not, erm, real. Honestly, there were times that I thought you weren't either." He chuckles softly. "but let me say this before I go: I am sorry for whatever part I've played in their plot, and I'm glad to see you expose it. You're the best man I have ever known, and I am grateful to have shared my days with you. Goodbye, Sherlock." He pauses.

Oh, come on. "I love you." It brings an unbelievable amount of relief, to simply spit it out. Well, I said it, and that's settled.

Sherlock's face stays perfectly unimpressed, except for the minimal constriction of lips. And John's smugness wanes, as Sherlock's unreadable misty grey eyes penetrate his. Sherlock's fingertips slowly trace up from the chest, to gently curl up along John's jaw line. "Yes, yes you are."

With that, Sherlock's lips come over John's.

Oh.

Oh hell no, the M-Lab is watching –

Oh God yes.

John's half-naked body is electrified. Too many funny signals are shot up to his brain at the same time, and he couldn't quite figure out what he's feeling. Warm – burning, soft – cutting, gentle – snapping, the confusion is more than he could take. He groans a little, only to be more fervently cuddled in Sherlock's grip. Ah, sweet primal impulse, it's in our DNA. But there's something more prominent, not wired, not coded, not double-helix churned, but simply is –

'Tis a happy ending, if I expire at this moment, thinks John. Not that he has any capacity left for thinking.

"Error: Dopamine overload."

"Error: Serotonin overload. "

"Error: Endorphins overload. "

"Error: Hardware failure. Restarting."

"Attempting to reconstruct data sequence. Reversing."

".You love I"

The piercing siren tearing through the M-Lab arouses curious peeps from colleagues, who are shooed back to their cubicles by Moriarty's look of wrath. While the monitors flashes in red, Moran tries all the buttons he could in frantic agony, to no avail. He falls back into a chair, and pushes himself away from the now-defunct interface for a while.

Moriarty locks his eyes onto the last bit of data stream on the frozen screen before the chips snapped and burned. "Ah, sentiment, thou art nonlinear."

"My bad, for under-designing the load of happy transmitters." Moran mutters.

"To be fair, the exponential rise in a matter of milliseconds is near impossible to manage in any circumstances. Apparently machines fall in love too, and I mean the both of them." Moriarty sighs. "When I initially envisioned the perfect partner, I meant as in intelligent conversation, not in - bed."

The reference to intimacy stirs up Moran's fond memory, and his dejection recedes momentarily. "Well, Jim, what do we know? When you initially hired me, you wanted me to handle your prick, not your project."

Moriarty chuckles at the reminder. "How did they put it, love from the brain, and boner from the heart?" Speaking of the heart, his expression turns grave again. "Back to our broken dummy - at least the chip in his chest is still functional, undisturbed by the drama in the brain. Carry out the termination procedure then, and we shall start with a clean slate."

"No rush, my dear Professor – this matter has been on my mind for a while now. As said before, the removal of John Watson at this point would have unpredictable, maybe largely regrettable, impacts upon dear Sherlock. Moreover," Moran tucks in his chin to emphasise, "Have you noticed how much our dummy has changed since leaving the Lab? How he thinks, how he talks, how he sees the world - John Watson is no longer a dummy for the input to the model. John Watson is the model. The development of his mind under Sherlock's influence is the best demonstration of the self-learning evolution of intelligent systems. While we have refrained from touching Sherlock's brain because he is the only sample," the glare in Moran's eyes is unsettling even to Moriarty, "John Watson is replicable, and I would not hesitate doing anything to him, necessary or not, when his mind matures."

"Hmm, Sebbie, you look extra hot, when you come up with brilliant ideas like that."

"Shut up." Moran smirks, not pushing away Moriarty's hands that's coming onto him.

Apart from the mess that Mycroft had made, the flat is every bit the same as John had left it in the morning. Holding Sherlock's hand in his, it seems to John that an age have passed between them. The thought of the dangling, disconnected sensors in his brain both annoys and exhilarates; he gives the new patch – courtesy of Anthea - a pat, now in his right pocket. The threat of the sixth chip still lures, but at least, his mind is freer than ever.

"Great, now I have shrapnel sticking around in my body like a true 2000s' soldier."

"I'm sure something could be done," Sherlock says, the softness quite uncharacteristic.

"A word of warning – now that nobody gets to tell me to be nice, and with that thing called 'free will', I might come across as somewhat, what's the word, bitchy?"

"I look forward to it." Sherlock grins, looking goofy and adorable at the same time. "Really, John, you are good at surprises. It never occurred to me that you were sentimental about – crappy shows."

Receiving his own log-pad from Sherlock, John takes a moment to figure out what he is referring to, then a warmness reaches his eyes. Nevertheless, he tells Sherlock decidedly, "Oh, one more thing – please, I would like to keep my logs private. I know you're good at cracking codes, but just don't."

"Noted. Anything else I should know?"

"That's all for now. By the way, that was an epic kiss," John impulsively licks his lips a little. "Somehow I am reminded of a children's tale -"

"Where a female royal entity in permanent dormancy is revitalised in a similar way. You are shamelessly self-flattering by alluding to the Sleeping Beauty." Their shared giggles come to an end when John says, quietly, "But the Witch stands, and looms over many."

"So we will stand up to him, together." Sherlock puts his hand over John's as John takes out the patch to set it on the coffee table. "I trust that we won't be needing this forever."

They are both silent for a moment, until John says, "According to Mycroft, the original Watson was a doctor, got married with two children, and lived to a prosperous old age."

Sherlock nods. "How tedious."

"I suppose he lived quite enjoyably." John muses. "The point is, however twisted the rationale for my current existence is, I am happy to be here, right now, with you."

Their lips brush again, until Sherlock pulls away hastily.

"John, I assume another rush of endorphins would not break anything?" Sherlock drops his voice low, and puts both hands to John's hip.

Notes:

1. Concerning Moran's operational interface – by "all the buttons" I mean ctrl + alt + delete. Joking – I don't think the M-Lab runs on Windows.

2.

EVERYONE WHO REVIEWS WILL GET A LOVE POEM

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Thank you for reading,

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Oft have I lamented the amount of feedbacks on this work as contrasted against the abhorrently long hours it takes to get each chapter done – largely due to my own over-thinking. But then, my mind goes back to the hundreds of much more wonderful and deserving stories that I have flailed over without leaving so much as a kudos. Yeah, I'm that lazy. Nevertheless, I would so love to learn what you think! Not as much as Professor Moriarty does, but it will help me evolve. Therefore, to make a point and in celebration, I shall respond in romantic verse (well, maybe a limerick) to everyone who leaves a review on this final chapter of the first part. Concrit is the best, while casual remarks are equally welcome! If you have a tumblr, I will make it a blog post for sharing – be sure to post your url if it's not in your profile already. To my (15 subscribers on AO3/ 8 followers on FFN, I appreciate your continued interest immensely) and all of you who have read this far: Thanks again for bearing with me, please review, and enjoy some amorous (read: awkward) poetry just for you!