A/N: Don't hate me, but I'm going to Australia next week and won't have wi-fi there either. So-ahem, I've prepared part 1 of part 3 for you because Rayee, alleyalice, and luv dove -10's reviews all inspired me to get something published (while getting down to the last nitty gritty details of packing and such) to hopefully satiate your needs until I'm back from Oz.

A/N 2: Australia was great. The winter was a refreshing change of pace. I also got to watch Doctor Who with my homestay brother, Daniel! He had all the DVDs and a Matt Smith suit t-shirt...I couldn't've been put with a better family!

Thank y'all so much for the sweet reviews. This last chapter is dedicated to everyone who's favorited/followed/reviewed which helped spur me on to finish whilst on a long car ride home.

John stared groggily at the ceiling above him. It was strange; tiled. Not Baker Street. Something was mildly irritating his nose—like some bug had crawled inside. His head hurt, bad; even worse than the hangover he had last week. Or was that two weeks ago? Time had become a very distorted unit of measure.

John's head kept pounding harder and harder. He squeezed his eyes shut tight to keep the light of the room at bay. It wasn't working. John could feel his stomach clenching up. There were voices in the background but he couldn't hear him over the pounding. Attempting to lean over the bed; however restrained by unnoticed bars and tubes on his face, John vomited.

An unrecognizable face came into view and made cooing noises at him; which only made John feel even more sick. He vomited again. After dry heaving and shaking, a warm, moist cloth cleaned the contents of his stomach and nose off his face and out of his whiskers. The hands gently pushed his shoulders back onto the bed and then adjusted the nasal cannula back into his nostrils. John couldn't be sure when he confirmed his suspicions, but he knew he definitely wasn't dead. Something must've gone wrong; he was in a hospital bed.

The slap of footsteps reverberated from across the room and began to grow closer.

"Sir, right now isn't the time too—," the nurse tending to John began.

"Move," A man's voice said gruffly before pushing the nurse out of the way.

Another figure loomed over John. Now he had doubts over whether or not he was alive.

"Honestly," John's nurse began talking to someone else in a huff.

"When you tell this story later, the term we use at Scotland Yard is 'dangerously codependent'," another voice resounded in the background. However, John wasn't listening to Lestrade's voice, he was busy staring at the man staring down at him. His head started to pound again with confusion. Was this actually what death felt like? If it was—it really sucked. But at least he was here. Now he could be with Sherlock forever.

"John?" Sherlock's voice asked.

John couldn't help but smile at the sound of that voice. However, Sherlock wasn't smiling; not that John was terribly surprised as Sherlock hardly ever smiled...but he figured in death Sherlock would be happy to see him.

"John, do you remember what happened?" he asked.

"I did it for you," John explained. He wouldn't have to be depressed anymore.

Instead of understanding, Sherlock only seemed more distressed.

"I had to see you again, dying was the only way," John's voice rasped.

"In all my career of imperative impeccable decision making skills, I have only made few mistakes. But this, John, you can forever call me an ass upon," Sherlock's voice seemed to begin breaking.

"Am I dead?" John finally asked the question.

"Don't be stupid," Sherlock replied before wincing; realizing some people would find having the idiocy of their question being singled out as

'rude'. John had been the one to point that out to Sherlock many years ago; up until then he believed he was helping keep the earth's IQ up by telling a person when their 'logic' or two sense was slow-witted in approach.

"John, I just meant that you couldn't possibly be dead," Sherlock moved to pull the metal bars on the side of John's bed down and sit next to him. He then reached out and put his hand upon John's chest, "Do you feel that? That's a heartbeat, a heartbeat John," he worked to steady his voice and pulsed his hand more firmly against John; anything to make him see.

"That's the rhythm of your ventricles and arteries opening and closing, it will beat 100,000 times a day, 3,600,000 times a year, and about 2.5 billion times during your lifetime. 7,570 litres of blood moving through over 95,000 kilometres of blood vessels; all done by a muscle the size of your fist...and all proof you're so alive. "

That was not a tear that just slid down Sherlock Holmes' face, it absolutely wasn't. However, those were certainly tears on John's face.

John picked up his wired hand and put it on Sherlock's chest. Sherlock could feel the weakness in the trembling hand.

"Your ventricles and arteries are opening and closing too; beating 100,000 times a day, 3,600,000 times a year, and 2.5 billion times in your life. That's 7,570 litres of blood moving through over 95,000 kilometres of blood vessels...you're also alive—how're you—you didn't have a heartbeat last time I touched you."

Which certainly wasn't the most difficult part of that farce, Sherlock thought. He pulled his hand back up to his body so he could steady John's.

"A few years ago you asked me for one last miracle; one last trick up my sleeve...is it so hard to believe that now?"

John smiled slightly, "You're impossible."

"I'm so, so sorry, John," Sherlock's voice was barely a whisper, "I shouldn't have left the drugs around, I shouldn't have left you. I thought—I thought you'd be strong enough to handle—" Sherlock broke again. Being mindful of his words was ridiculously difficult.

"I thought I was protecting you. Honestly, I did. If I had thought for one second that it would hurt you so much, I would have let you know..."

"I was a pawn," realization struck John's face, "A pawn in your stupid game."

"You were a pawn in Moiarty's game—for me you're more of a rook," Sherlock began to hastily explain while feelings of anger and betrayal were beginning to coincide within John to create a drug worse than cocaine.

"The only way for people to believe I was dead—the only way—was if the person closest to me believed it too. Being apart was also a necessity. Up until I was standing on that rooftop, I had forgotten why I didn't allow myself to get to close to people. Friends are an open weakness for the enemy; I know that hurts normal people but it's the truth. I had to protect you, John, and the only way to do that was to stop being your friend. On top of St. Bartholomew's I attempted to get you to believe in Moiarty's ploy...anything to get you to willingly walk away from me—of course you didn't believe that for a second," Sherlock smirked slightly at John's loyalty.

"All the same I was foolish. The game Moiarty and I played was high stakes to say the least. We were finally stalemated. He lost his life, and I lost everything else. Even with all the loss, at the end of the day I felt I had bested Jim...until here he is, from beyond the grave, still trying to beat me by playing with the consequences of my mislaid plans."

"You shouldn't worry so much about me," John quipped, Sherlock gave John and his surroundings an incredulous look. "I know I've complained about your methods...but they're amicable and undoubtedly remarkable."

"You and I have shared many perilous dangers, Sherlock."

"None, I fear, causing you to be so close to repose."

"I hope this isn't our last danger faced together," John sincerely supplied, "I can get better and—and things can go back to the way they were."

Sherlock released a breath and looked at the machines supplying oxygen to John and the other various wires and tubes. He knew things suddenly couldn't 'go back to the way they were.' When he got out of college it had taken Sherlock a long time to get out of his drug addictions and the depression caused by being so different. No magic fairy would appear, wave a magic wand, and turn time back to before Moiarty's games. He'd lost so much time with John...hopefully he could make some of those missed heartbeats up. "I was considering retirement, actually."

Both their eyes met, and gazes held for less than 2 seconds before both men burst into laughter.

Fin