Twenty
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John's visit had been good for me.

Even if the only thing that had taken place had been the outpouring of all my pent up emotion, it would have been good for me. In the days following it, I did find myself feeling at least a little bit better about my situation. It was as if I had been abandoned in the wilderness, taken refuge in a cave, only to find the opening swiftly blocked by heavy snow. Now the snow had melted and I could breathe without harm befalling me. I was in a safer place than I had been, but I most certainly wasn't out of the woods yet.

It still hurt, maybe even more than before, but it was a controllable pain. I was beginning to understand it. I recognised what hurt the most, what was the sorest, what left me feeling hollow. I knew what the pain was.

I just couldn't bring myself to contemplate what was causing it.

Two other significant events had happened in that minutely brief visit. One of them I refused to think about too much, knowing it would only exemplify my troubles. The other, however, lingered in the atmosphere around me. It had been so simple, almost certainly meaningless.

Then why couldn't I reign in my mind every time it started to wander down that dangerous path?

You should come back.

Four words – that was all – just four words. Yet they wouldn't leave me be. John was right; I was being too stubborn to see the truth. My goddamn pride had swallowed my entire being, creating a refusal to budge that would never lift no matter how much I was willing it otherwise.

Maybe, just maybe, John was right about this too.

After a week of tormenting nightmares and fantasies, I couldn't stand it any longer. It was the doubt that was the worst thing about it. I hated doubting the decisions I hadn't yet made, let alone the ones I already had.

It couldn't have gone on – I was positive about that. But running away? Had I been too hasty?

On Thursday 3rd March, I finally came to a conclusion. It wasn't a conclusion to the questions themselves, but it was a conclusion to a means of answering them. And anything was good enough right now.

The keys scratched in the lock as I cautiously pushed on the heavy door.

"Uh, hello?" I called far too quietly to actually attract attention. "Hope you don't mind me letting myself in?"

There may have been a response from inside somewhere, but I wasn't concentrating earnestly enough for it to reach me. I took a large breath, yanked the keys out of the lock, and tried to stop my nails digging too far into the flesh of my palm. My foot wavered, but it knew what needed to be done.

Astonishingly, no thunder rolled nor fires sprouted as the sole of my kitten heel struck the floor beyond the entrance.

It was done.

I coughed, my next words coming out a little louder than the soft murmur they had been previously.

"Only," I took several more steps into the building, each footfall urging the next to come quicker and less timid, "the doorbell wasn't working."

I climbed the narrow staircase surprisingly easily, delving deeper into the home I had so desperately been avoiding for the past two months. I reached the landing and continued, the level of my voice almost what I would consider normal, "It looks like somebody shot it."

My new-found confidence instantly evaporated.

Wha-

It couldn't be.

Not now. Please, not now.

"Melanie," John spoke, sounding ridiculously shocked at my appearance in the 221B living room, "it's not what it looks like."

I wasn't breathing. John had stood from his chair by the window, but I barely even recognised it in the corner of my eyes. I was too busy staring resolutely at the other people in the room, not even blinking in fear that the scene would shift. Because if this was real, then I needed to know.

One of her eyebrows rose in an elegant arch.

"Which one are you then," the words tumbled smoothly from her lips, turning the air around her to dark silk, "the boring school teacher?"

The man seated in the armchair whose back she was leaning over casually tutted. "That was months ago. Do try to keep up."

He didn't even glance at me.

"I… " I stuttered, finally allowing my eyelids to flutter shut for a microsecond before yanking them apart again. "This was a mistake."

I turned, not desiring in the slightest to risk a peer back as I did, and ran.

"Melanie, wait." John's voice rang from behind me.

His footsteps began chasing after me as I hurtled down the stairs, trying to block out that silky voice when it commented dryly from the distant above, "She seems like a barrel of laughs."

John finally caught up to me about five buildings down the road, having to grasp at my arm to stop me from escaping.

"Melanie," he said in a clarifying and slightly commanding tone, "she was just there when we got back. Nothing's happened between them."

I spun around so fast I could have easily lost my balance in the process. My arm lurched forward, my finger stretching out as I pointed wildly in the general direction of that unholy flat.

"That's her? That's her? All that anguish over her?" I shouted manically. I growled, not giving John a chance to reply to my frantic queries, and retracted my pointing hand, clenching at the scalp beneath my hair. "What the hell is she doing here?"

John placed a hand on each of my shoulders and stared me down, his eyes screaming at me to just calm myself for a few moments. Maybe he was becoming self-conscious, not liking the looks we were receiving from the passers-by, but it was more likely that he just wanted me to let him explain without lashing out.

"She's in danger and needs help." He spoke slowly, annunciating each word. "We can't kick her out."

I scoffed and shrugged out of his hold, but my voice was no longer yelling with my next words. "As opposed to what Sherlock did when I was in danger. If you'd care to remember that little adventure – all he did do was kick me out."

John rolled his eyes. "Yeah. He's a dick sometimes, and agreeing with him is always a pain in the arse, but I do think that was an entirely different situation."

"Yeah," I spat mockingly, "I'm not a sexy dominatrix with a whip."

John didn't dignify my statement with a response, instead keeping his gaze firm, but a sympathetic edge swept over his expression. "You came back though."

My anger dissipated, being replaced with something that worryingly resembled embarrassment. I looked at the ground by my feet.

"Yeah, well," I grumbled dismissively, "I had nothing else to do today."

"Right." John agreed, not mentioning how painstakingly obvious it must have been to everybody just how much of a lie that was. I wouldn't admit it, though. My pride had been bruised enough already today.

"It was a stupid idea." I muttered with a shake of my head, attempting to clear the negativity from my brain. "Your stupid idea actually."

A tiny small pulled at the corner of his lips. "I'm full of them."

I sighed, still refusing to look the man in the eyes in fear that he might see what was behind my carefully crafted mask. "I should go."

"No, don't." John appealed before I had managed to turn away from him completely.

I bit the inside of my cheek and looked to the eerily white clouds above our heads. "Why not?"

"Because he's too busy thinking about a case at the moment. You know what he's like. He'll realise in a few minutes."

At last, I met the doctor's pleading gaze, hoping against hope that the moisture in the corners of my eyes wasn't visible from where he was.

"And then what?" I asked hopelessly.

John's mouth twitched in a subtle smile. "And then you can shout at him all you want."

I frowned and pouted, all the malicious thoughts I had been harbouring over the past six months jumping into the front of my vision. The best I could actually express, however, was a simple, "Can I punch her really, really hard?"

A small chuckle left John's throat. "I wouldn't hold it against you."

I fixed my view on the sign outside the small bistro pub we were standing next to, not feeling like joining the laughter. We could joke about this all we wanted to, but it wouldn't ever matter. None of it would come true.

I blinked back the not-yet-spilt tears before they had a chance to free themselves from my evil clutches.

"We both know I don't have it in me, John." I said, whole-heartedly defeated by this turn of events.

John's light tone vanished. "Why do I have the feeling that you're not talking about punching anymore?"

"I mean," I sputtered, my eyes roaming over the sky and buildings around us, willing my voice not to crack, "I can't… not while she's there…"

The weight of John's limb landed on my shoulders as he wrapped an arm around me and gave me a reassuring squeeze.

"I know." He whispered softly, no doubt expecting me to burst into tears in a manner similar to last week.

It was understandable. I was feeling so weak and powerless at this point. Pathetic. Totally pathetic. I had finally managed to gather enough strength to venture back here, to show my face to the man I had so missed and yet so despised for such a long time, and now I couldn't bring myself to step through the bloody door again. With her there, though – with that woman standing so indifferently in the room – there was no way I could face him. They had been too physically close; the sparks of chemistry were almost visible between them. She was wearing his dressing gown, of course – the same dressing gown I used to wrap myself in when relaxing.

He hadn't been concerned about my apparition at all. Sherlock hadn't even flinched.

I didn't let the tears get the better of me this time. I pushed them back, determined that today at least I would preserve as much of my dignity as I could. I sniffed and stood limply without shifting a muscle in my body.

"Why is it always you comforting me and not him?"

It was supposed to be a casual flippant question that would bring a little bit of sun back into this conversation, despite however seriously the issue was affecting me underneath. All it actually succeeded in doing, however, was to remind both of us of what this discussion had so far been able to navigate around without crashing.

John was the first to step away, but I quickly followed suit. That secure hug suddenly seemed extremely dangerous.

He picked at the hem of his shirt, apparently deciding that the other side of the street was intensely interesting.

"Yeah," he awkwardly said, trying to keep the atmosphere jovial, "it's funny that, isn't it?"

I nodded and fumbled around in my pockets for something that didn't even exist. "Sure is."

A silence swept over the pair of us. The discomfort was practically palpable. Neither of us had any clue whatsoever of how to begin this. Just what could be said? It was too strange. I mean, we… We kissed.

"Look," John finally dared to disrupt the safe silence and wander into the unknown, "Melanie, about what happened last-"

"I know." I interrupted before he could continue and make this even more uncomfortable than it already was. "I know. I was upset. You were there. That's it."

I risked a glance at him. He was nodding gently, his expression utterly unreadable. "Yeah."

"It happens to lots of people." I continued, keeping my voice as under control as was possible in these desperate times. "There's no need for us to feel awkward at all."

"No. None at all." John agreed, determination highlighting his features.

The quiet smothered us once more, the tension mounting in ways that made my stomach do multiple backflips.

Finally, I remembered where we were standing. The answer to our problems was staring us in the face.

I pointed with my thumb to the nearest door.

"Drink?"

John let out a loud breath of relief. "God, yes."

Someone may be returning properly to the story in the next chapter, but who could it be? Is it a bluff, or a double-bluff, or a triple-bluff?

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