In the morning John was exhausted, he's been running through heads all night, some of them quite feisty. The pills have made him a little groggy and his brain was simply exhausted. It was like final exams times twelve. But it was worth it. Sherlock wasn't awake, it wasn't that much of an improvement, but he was breathing, his heart was beating.

John stayed crouched by Sherlock's side, his fingers on his pulse for hours, panting out low grateful breaths. He wasn't awake yet, his eyes weren't open, he wasn't speaking, but it was close, he was almost there. Every once in a while Sherlock would take a short, little, almost gasp.

John's left eye was a ruddy almost black so that no white showed; his right eye was almost the same, there was only a little white left in the top corner when he looked to the side. He found a pair of glasses that were nearly opaque and always wore them out of the house. His hand was gentle on Sherlock's forehead, watching the pale forehead crease, the fingers twitch in dreams.

He met Sarah in the park, on a bench out in the middle of everything, it was a bit, well, public for what he was pretty sure will be a private conversation. She looked small and pale, incredibly self-contained, bending into herself.

"John," she asked him and there's a long pause. "Are you alright?"

He smiled at her gently, exhausted, Moriarty had started trying to fight back, "Yeah, just still getting over it. These have just been hard months for me."

"You just seem… off," she said with extreme care.

"I'm grieving Sarah, my best friend went off a cliff."

"I've been thinking," she said quickly, her breath coming soft and quickly, like a frightened rabbit. "You've been so good to work for us. At the surgery. How about you take a few weeks off, paid?"

"Are you sure? Flu season is coming and-"

"Just take it," Sarah said quickly and then seemed to come back to herself. "It's fine John, when you're feeling more yourself come back."

John narrowed his eyes behind his sunglasses, but then his face shifted into his easy self-deprecating smile. "Alright. A couple weeks then?"

Feel more himself? He's felt more himself these past few weeks than he had his whole life, and it was only getting better.

"Boss, you don't look so good."

"I'm perfectly fine," Moriarty snarled.

He got a little bit of satisfaction from the way his second in command leaned back.

"Are you sure you look-" Moran's eyebrows came together in something like concern.

"I said I'm fine, but this!" he swept all the papers onto the floor with a roar. "This is NOT fine!"

"I'm sorry, Boss its-"

"One, two, even seven. Sixty, sixty.Sixty is not a coincidence or an accident or a hereditary history of heart trouble. It is an attack."

"You'll figure this out." His second's concern, which usually amused him, or gave him a sort of sadistic pleasure to be able to someone such a flighty intimate kind of discomfort, grated on him. He wanted to rip out his concern with a pair of rusty pliers.

"Greece is down Sebastian. I've lost Greece. Everyone is either dead or running scared. In one night I lost an entire country. I'm going to find whoever it is and kill them slowly over a period of twelve years."

"Should I take care of the runners?" That was good, Moran always knew what to do.

"Yeah, yeah," he knelt down to gather up the papers he had spread across the floor. He was going to need a map and a calendar. "Question them first, torture them please."

When he woke from his tumble through a few members of a Colombian airline (run by a shadow corporation of course, he had let the receptionist go, she was young and didn't know for whom she was working) there was sound from Sherlock's room. The sound a wounded animal made as it dragged itself away. John was on his feet and down the stairs in a dark flit, swinging open the door of Sherlock's room. He felt caged by the door frame, bound in, but he couldn't leave it. Slowly, his panting mouth curled up, up, up into a grin, a little giggle escaping in joy. A solo burst of light.

"Sherlock!" he was on his knees, bringing his shoulder up under Sherlock to prop him up. His arms tight around his chest, tight enough so he could feel him breathing.

"Where was I? Where was I?" Sherlock was shaking and has started to cry. "I was somewhere… I was somewhere…"

"It's alright," John was blubbering, caught on repeat, itsalright,itsalright,itsalright,itsalright. Sherlock's long limbs were knotted and sprawled all over each other, half on the bed and half in John's arms. He was spilled, struggling to find a bone to hold his body up.

"No, it's not, I can't remember. What happened? I was in the-"

"That's enough," John barked, "you're here now. You're here and safe Sherlock. I'll take care of you; no one will ever hurt you again. I won't let them, I won't let them."

Sherlock looked at John, eyebrows coming together, when his eyes focus on John he screamed.

"Hush, hush it's okay-"

Something solid seemed to have been found in Sherlock, because instead of flopping uselessly in his arms he pulled back his hand and cuffed John across the face. Yelping, high and sharp and betrayed John scurried away back against the wall of the bedroom breathing with thin little wheezes.

"I'm in Hell," Sherlock whispered in the smallest voice John had ever heard. That's not right, Sherlock should be happy, why wasn't he happy?"This is Hell and I'm in it."

"No, no," John whimpered and slowly moved closer, as if he was afraid he might get cuffed again. "It's okay. You're home, this is 221B. This is Baker Street."

"But you're, you're… What are you?" John could see the great big beautiful force of will that belonged to Sherlock force the gear to start turning again. Forcing down the analytical response.

"I'm John," he cried mournfully, like he was dying, like he'd been gutted and old husks of hearts were spilling out onto the floor. "I'm your friend. How could you Sherlock? How could you just plan to die and leave me alone?" He sobbed, wiping away at his big dark eyes with the ends of his jumper sleeves, still trying to make himself as small and nonthreatening as possible, exactly like a dog that had suddenly been kicked when it was expecting to be petted. "How could you do that?"

"Shh," he said suddenly, "stop crying John."

"I can't help it. I don't mean to," he was still scrubbing at his face.

"John," Sherlock asked in the same tone as someone might ask, 'did you leave the milk out?' with only the barest tremble underneath, "Did you go mad?"

"Yeah," he said, nodding apologetically. "A little. I need you; no one else understands the hunt."

"John," there was a pause; John peeked at him, from behind his jumper sleeves. The horror was gone, Sherlock's face was blank, like a mask, a mask that's trembling slightly like something behind it was trying to get out, but the strings were tied on tight. "Did you do something awful?"

"Yeah," the word slid out in a big gasping sigh. "Just a little."

"This is going to sound like an odd question John, but I feel under the circumstances it is a pertinent question."

"Okay," the crying had stopped and John was kneeling, head tucked down, sniffling slightly. John didn't mean to be this way he was a soldier, but after all his work, all his exhaustion, all his efforts to be rejected…

"Did you sell your soul John?"

"No," John said softly.

"What did you do then?"

There was a vague hand gesture, a movement from his heart, or his head or some other deep, deep place. "I gave you their hearts." John's hand reached out, suddenly kneeling very near to Sherlock and pressed over Sherlock's sternum, Sherlock was shivering. Under John's palm there was suddenly the beat of dozens of hearts, beating for Sherlock. "I took their hearts and gave them to you."

Sherlock looked sad.