Chapter 4

Time ticks by. John sitting. Sherlock standing. Close. Patient.

"That does seem to make it worse," John continues.

"You seemed to imply that knowing… that… before. Might have made things better."

"It seems I was wrong."

"You often are."

"Thanks."

"Everyone is." Sherlock says matter-of-factly.

"Wrong?"

"Frequently. People don't know what they want. What is right."

"I know that throwing yourself off a building in front of the person you say you love isn't right."

"It was a necessity. A necessity is always right."

"Of course it isn't."

"How?"

"I can't believe you're even asking that question." John struggles to contain his incredulity.

"I don't know the answer."

"You wouldn't, would you? Wouldn't understand."

"Make me." Sherlock requests.

"It's… It's. How." John looks at him desperately. Where to start. "If it was, as you say, necessary. Then." A blockage, in John's throat. " Suicide Sherlock. Suicide is never right"

"There was no other way."

"There must have been another way."

"I considered them all. I assure you, there was not."

"Then, ok. Then, how you did it."

"It was necessary that you believe."

"It's not like you to repeat yourself Sherlock,"

"You keep making it necessary."

"The repetition? Or the death?"

"This is getting confusing." The roll in Sherlock's eyes is implied.

"It's always been confusing."

"You're trying to argue that what I did was wrong."

"Of course it was wrong." John counters "I didn't think there was any arguing against that."

"I'm trying to make you understand that there is no arguing for it." Sherlock counters.

John sighs, continues:

"How you did it. How you left it. That was wrong." A pause "I didn't know."

"It would have been dangerous if you had known."

"I didn't mean about the 'not being dead' bit Sherlock. Though it might have been nice to know that before now."

"You couldn't."

"No, I'm beginning to understand that. I think. Bizarrely."

"Then what didn't you know?"

"What I was to you."

"You were John." Sherlock states simply.

"That doesn't make any sense."

There's a long pause. One in which John gets the curious sensation of watching the scene from outside himself. Circling around them. Serving and volleying and questioning and explaining and separating and accusing. His head is singing with it.

Sherlock breaks the silence. Voice low: "I'm not dead." A summation.

A pause.

"I believed in you." John's response.

"I hurt you." Sherlock again.

"You love me." John.

"You love me." Sherlock.

"I haven't told you that." John cuts him off.

"Not in so many words."

"They're the kind of words that a person should say."

"But you never have."

"Neither had you." John cuts in.

"Why?" Sherlock ignores him.

"Because I wasn't sure, if I did. If you did."

"I was."

"What?"

"Sure."

A pause. John begins again:

"'Alone is what I have' you said that."

"Because I wasn't alone. I was trying to push you away. Your life was in danger."

"I think it's time you explained that to me."

For a long moment Sherlock contemplates him, from a height. Before he steps back:

"Alright," As he speaks he pulls his scarf from his neck, pushes back at his coat so it falls across the arm of the sofa. He is staying.

Sherlock sits.

"Moriarty liked to find the uncomplicated in the complicated." Sherlock begins. "Enough money in the right person's pocket, enough leverage, he could get anything he wanted."

"We know there was no code." John supplies.

"It never existed. It was just bribery. Uncomplicated. Less. Beautiful."

"Bribery certainly isn't beautiful."

Sherlock's eyes flick up to John's:

"He told me once he'd burn the heart out of me."

"I was there."

"That turned out to be uncomplicated too. Three shooters. Three people that counted."

"Mrs Hudson," John thinks for a moment, "Lestrade. Me."

"They were under instructions to kill you, unless they saw me die."

John exhales.

Sherlock continues: "One loophole in that: Moriarty himself could call them off. I could have made him call them off. People are uncomplicated,"

"He stopped you. He killed himself. He wasn't all that uncomplicated."

"He was insane."

"But you, you expected that."

"I'd prepared for if I had to die,"

"How?"

"Molly."

"'She counted'"

"She helped me, despite everything. Despite who I was, despite what I did to her."

"People are complicated."

"And you believed in me, despite what I told you, despite the fall." Sherlock keeps looping back around to that thought.

"I'm not complicated."

"You are,"

"I believed that you died. I believed what you wanted me to believe."

"Because you loved me. That's not uncomplicated."

John sighs, suddenly aware of how long they must have been having this conversation. This dark room: the streetlight through the window and the slow glow from the lamp beside the sofa, throwing half of Sherlock's face into shadow. Was the world still going on untouched outside? Were people still laughing and drinking and talking and working, despite the fact that Sherlock fell, and that he returned?

"But why now?" John asks.

"Because it's over."

"You said that," A pause, "God, you said that hours ago now."

"Moriarty didn't work alone."

"You had to find the people he was working with."

"Death was the easiest place to do that."

"I could have helped."

John's thoughts: spoken aloud. His internal monologue blown up and painted in cursive script across the walls of this room. This flat.

"You didn't let me help you," John continues. "If I'd known..."

"No." Sherlock says "Your life was in danger." He repeats.

"It's been in danger before. Has been practically every minute since I've known you."

"I couldn't lose you."

"I lost you."

A pause.

"It was…" Sherlock begins.

"Please God don't say 'necessary' again."

"It's the truth."

"So without Molly you couldn't have..."

"I needed someone that he didn't think counted"

"He knew I counted." John realises.

"Who do you think he was talking about when he promised to burn out my heart?"

"So he knew I counted. But I didn't"

"You've never professed to be particularly clever." There is a smirk in Sherlock's tone.

"Thanks for that."

"You're going through my things." Abruptly Sherlock changes the subject, looking away from John and instead surveying the room; the books, the papers, the notes. Practically obscuring Mrs Hudson's nice wood floor.

"Yes, your papers."

"Why?" It's Sherlock's version of a time out. Like John's tea.

"I'm not sure. I thought, perhaps, I'd write them up. Some sort of book. Stories. Like the blog."

"But they're old cases."

"You were an old case. You were dead."

"Why would people want to read about those?"

"They want to read about you."

"And why would they want to do that?"

"You're interesting"

"No I'm not."

"If nothing else it's interesting how you can believe that committing suicide is a valid way of solving a case." John can't help himself circling back to the topic at hand.

"It was the only way to solve the case."

"The case of saving my life?"

"The case of you."

"You are nowhere close to solving the case of me."

"What's why you're so interesting." Sherlock references himself.

"Interesting enough to pass the time."

"Petulance doesn't suit you."

"Emotion doesn't suit you."

"That's why I try to avoid it."

"You just told me you loved me."

"I failed." A pause "At avoiding emotion. I always have where you are concerned."

"Oh."

"That's why you're interesting."

"I'm normal."

"You're not."

"No, I'm very normal. Just stay alive. I'll be happy."

"Tell you how I feel." Sherlock suggests.

"Not all the time. Just the odd word. Now and then."

"I thought I made myself clear."

"You never make yourself clear."

"I've never…" Sherlock pauses, feeling his way "Never shared my life like this before. I thought that said enough. I didn't think words were necessary."

"Actions speak louder and all that...?" John supplies.

"Yes."

"Like jumping off a building?"

"Oh."

"Yes." John pauses "It doesn't matter what you think your actions said up until that point. That pretty much negated everything that went before it."

"I'm starting to see that now."

"Thank you." John is grateful for the breakthrough.

"But it didn't matter either way." Sherlock takes three seconds to rescind it. John blinks in surprise. "If I'd told you. All this. It would still have had to happen."

"Ok. But it might have made things easier. Since."

"Are you sure of that?"

"Not in the slightest."