A/N: the story of Sherlock, through snapshots of different years. A lot of this is from my headcanon. My first Sherlock fanfic.

Characters: Sherlock, Mycroft, John, Lestrade

Pairings: John/Mary (sorry all you Johnlock shippers but I'm attemtping to folow ACD canon for this one. Doesn't mean I won't be posting Johnlock elsewhere though, if the inspiration hits)

Rating: T for drug use and the occasional swearing

Inside My World

He is thirty-one, and he wonders if it is really his birthday anymore, because technically he is dead, and without John, he hasn't got much of a life to celebrate. So he treats it like any other day, like he did in the years before John (there is a distinct division his life, he thinks, before-John and after-John), and he tries not to wonder if back home they are toasting him and telling stories, because such thoughts are pure sentiment, and 'caring is not an advantage, Sherlock'.

But when his phone blips minutes later, Sherlock can't help but smile (a mere twitch of the lips, but a smile nonetheless) at the message flashing on the screen.

Happy Birthday Brother – MH

He is thirty-two, and a stranger in a strange town. The locals pay little attention to anybody, drifting through life in their little backwater without a care for the outside world, and one more lonely man at the bar seems to make no difference. They watch him in half-hearted curiosity for a night or two, until he fades into the background of smoke and whisky and is forgotten. After three days cooped up in the corner of the grotty pub, he can tell them their life stories. They don't even know his name.

Nor do they notice the gun that he carries everywhere, concealed by a battered leather jacket that is never quite as warm as his favourite coat. He misses that coat, but he is on the run, and recognition by anybody would be deadly. His current clothes are infinitely more practical; for once, he blends in with the crowd, and coupled with longer hair and sunglasses, Sherlock looks like a different man.

He hates every moment of it.

He is thirty-three, and you can't believe he is back. He's fallen asleep curled up on the couch, a sight so familiar to you that it almost hurts, but one that you never believed you would see again. Still, it is three years since you've last seen him, and he is, if possible, even thinner than you remember him. His hair is longer, wilder, and the fresh bruise blooming across his cheekbone blends into the fading yellow of old injuries, leaving you to wonder just where he had been before he turned up at the flat, exhausted but happy to see you.

Not that you regret punching him, because the bastard deserves it for letting you believe he is dead (even if it was to save your life), but the doctor in you can't help but worry at the pallor of his skin and the slight wince you noticed he was trying to conceal every time he twisted sharply.

Moran must have known about the injury, because the single punch he had managed to get in was to the ribcage, but you've managed a quick look at it (bruising around an old wound, healing nicely), and you don't want to wake him up. Instead you wander into the kitchen for some tea, and a smile splits your face as you realise that for once, the second cup is no longer an extra.

Sherlock is home.

He is thirty-five, and when John brings Mary Morstan back to the flat for the first time, Sherlock doesn't think it will last. Over the years there have been a string of women too long to remember, and each and every one of them has left after a month or so, unable to put up with the part that Sherlock plays in John's life.

But Mary doesn't insist on jewellery and movies and expensive restaurants, doesn't seem to mind when Sherlock crashes their dates because "There's been triple murder John, come on!" In fact she seems truly interested in their cases, and as the months go by and Mary stays, Sherlock is forced to consider that she may well be the one woman who can steal John Watson away from him. But what is worse is that he cannot bring himself to hate her.

So when, at thirty-six, he hears two pairs of footsteps on the stairs and deduces correctly that Mary has said yes, he pushes away the sadness and the fear of abandonment and allows himself to be happy for John's sake.

He doesn't sleep that night.

He is thirty-nine, and John, at forty-three, is angry. Not at Sherlock, who is laying pale and feverish on the bed in his and Mary's spare room, but at Mycroft, whose stupid bloody case it was that had made it necessary that Sherlock chase down two men in the pouring rain in the middle of winter. Because really, John thinks, it could have waited. Neither men had been armed or even particularly dangerous, but it had been Mycroft's insistence that they had to be caught today, no matter that his brother was running low already, or that it was nearing zero outside. Sherlock, seemingly closer to Mycroft since his return to 'life', had perhaps understood the importance, but John is a doctor, and he'll be damned if he doesn't lose his rag now and again at the Holmes brothers' apparent ignorance in the matter of personal health and safety.

Although, when he turns and sees the genuine concern and regret in Mycroft's normally icy expression, John feels his anger melt away just a little. Because everybody makes mistakes, and if Mycroft has made more than is perhaps his due when it comes to Sherlock, John can be reassured by the softening of those eyes that Sherlock does have someone else who cares about him.

But that doesn't stop John from schooling his concerned features into a stern look as he stares hard at the offending brother.

A/N: Slightly longer chapter for today, seeing as it's been a while. Not sure where I am going from here, but please keep the ideas coming.

Please review :)