Arguments, like men, are often pretenders.
-Plato

"What, we're not on for Friday anymore?" asked Lestrade, confusion creasing the craggy lines of his face. "I mean, you could have called." He leaned forward on his desk, hands clasped together underneath his chin, looking concerned all of a sudden. "Unless you just wanted to talk, which is…fine. Do you want to sit down?"

I had been pacing his office for the past few minutes-not as easy feat, given the small size of it. I think he was starting to worry I'd bore a hole in his carpet. I stopped in my tracks and turned to him.

"No, I don't…look, I'm not depressed! Why does everyone-"

"No one said anything about you being depressed," he reminded me gently. He didn't have to say the rest-he was thinking it. It was in his look and the way he was sitting and now it was starting to ooze out into the air as something alive, choking, constant. Everywhere I went, the same look.

Someone's in denial, whispered the voice. Maybe you need the medication. Who are you to question a trained professional? Who are you to trust Sherlock over people who've seen the aftereffects of almost a year spent in a slow, torturous game for someone else's amusement? Who are you to even trust yourself?

But I ignored it, for the time being. It wasn't helping. I resumed pacing to give my feet something to do.

He frowned suddenly. "This isn't about all those missing badges, is it?"

"What? The police badges?" I laughed entirely unconvincingly, my insides squirming with guilt at the thought of the pile of stolen police badges that I hadn't had the heart to return. They were still under a floorboard in Sherlock's room. "No! No, don't be-of course it isn't. How would I know where they are? Ahaha. Right. I have no idea where they…could be."

"Right," he echoed, sounding just as unconvinced as I was. "So is this about Sherlock?"

"Er, yeah. Kind of. Well…this is going to be a bit of a shock."

"He's left me a house in Paris? I know his brother had a summer home…"

"If memory serves me correctly," said Sherlock, walking into the room, "I left you next to nothing. Well, except John. You've been taking horrible care of him, I have to say. Has he told he wants to propose to Sarah yet?"

I turned around slowly, fists clenched. "Thanks."

Lestrade didn't react except to raise his eyebrows.

"John?" he asked, sounding hurt.

"Yeah?"

"This isn't very funny."

Sherlock smiled glibly. "I don't make jokes. At least not according to you."

"You…faked your own suicide."

"Yes."

"Why."

This time, Lestrade had the courtesy to let Sherlock finish his story, more than I could say for myself.

"…and so basically, I've been traveling the world, lying low, multiple false identities. I spent a few weeks in Cancun, which was quite nice. That's all."

The Inspector nodded, then threw his entire plastic pen-holder at him, which promptly caused Sherlock's nose to start bleeding again.

"WHAT THE HELL, SHERLOCK!"

"Okay," I said a little nervously. I didn't know his face could turn that shade of red. "Okay, let's just…he's already gotten this talk from me-"

"WELL, SOME REINFORCEMENT ISN'T GOING TO KILL HIM!"

You might, I thought.

"I wanted do see you aboud de Adair burder," Sherlock plowed on with a kind of mad, suicidal audacity, pinching his nose to stem the blood flow. "You'be been handling it better dan usual-which is to say you handled it pretty terribly. "

"He means," I amended hastily, noting the deepening shade of scarlet the Inspector was going, "He means your team handled it badly, not to imply…wait, not that your team is…er…ah." I scratched the back of my head nervously. "Can I start over?"

"Out," he hissed. "Out. Get out. Now. Both of you."

We hurried into the hallway. Mercifully, Sherlock's nose had stopped bleeding. He deliberately stood on the other side of the closed door, just under a painting of sunrise on a glacier.

Two could play that game. I stood on the opposite side and looked in the other direction.

"Two bloody noses in one day," he said abruptly. "That's got to be some sort of record."

"What, for you?" I snorted, replying despite myself. "Can't be." I glanced over at him to find he was looking at me. We looked away hurriedly. I cleared my throat.

"That was a really…horrible…thing to say," I said, still determined not to make eye contact. "About Lestrade. I mean, even for you."

"He's been floundering ever since I left. The solve rate's at an all-time low. They need me." He sounded smug.

"And that makes you happy, does it?"

"Yes, what a terribly selfish thing, wanting to feel important."

Wanting to feel needed, I thought. How long ago was it that you felt the same way? I frowned. This is different.

"You don't want to feel important, you want to feel…I don't know. I don't think you care about how you feel. Or how anyone else does."

"I never said that. I'm capable of caring."

"You've got a funny way of showing it."

"Just because I'm not some bleeding heart that goes around crying at every drop of a hat-"

"I'm talking about basic courtesy!"

"Which most people barely deserve. The world's full of idiots."

"And I'm just another one of them, that's it, right?"

"Remind me again how much your therapist charges per hour?"

"None of your concern."

"You're being defensive."
"I am not."

"And now you're defensively insisting you're not being defensive. I wonder what she would say about that."

"Shut up," I snapped.

"How original," he spat back, turning to face me. His eyes were blazing with anger. "I thought you would be better than that, Doctor Watson."

I was about to reply when Lestrade opened the door.

"All right, you can come back in."

I felt, not for the first in my life, like I was being called to the headmaster's office; however, Lestrade was much more avuncular than the short, balding man at Kelmscott. The DI had a startling capacity for both intimidation and understated kindness, which was why he was so well liked around the Met and so good at his job.

He put a hand over his face, as though trying to rub the frustration from his eyes. "I'm sorry I lost it. I shouldn't have yelled, or thrown things. You wanted to hear about the Adair murder?"

This was such a sincere and concise apology that I think even Sherlock was taken aback. At the least, he seemed a little flustered.

"Er, yeah. Yes. I'd like the official version first."

"Fine, then."

"I can do that," I interrupted. Sherlock stared. I crossed my arms. We didn't both have to be childish about this. "Well, if you don't want me to…"

"No, go ahead, Doctor," said Sherlock, clipped.

Lestrade glanced from me to him meaningfully, then tilted his head in question. I moved my head back and forth as slightly as I could. Later.

He pursed his lips, but let it go.

I felt the urge to start pacing again, but there wasn't enough room in the cramped office.

"Two days ago, Will Adair, son of an Australian diplomat, was murdred. He didn't have any enemies or anything like that. I think the papers said he had a gambling problem."

Sherlock's eyes lit up at this, but he made no comment.

"Anyway, it wasn't a robbery since there was nothing missing, he was just sitting at home alone. He was eighteen. His parents were out. They came back a few hours later to find him dead on the floor, bullet through his head. It killed him instantly. That's all they know."

He nodded slowly. "That was pathetic investigative reporting on their part, but okay. Lestrade?"

"The door was locked, hadn't been forced, there was even a security system on the flat. No one was in there."

"The windows-"

"Were open-it was nice out-but a few of the flats below them had flower beds and they were undisturbed. So they couldn't have climbed up. We thought he had to have been shot through the window, but no one's that good."

Sherlock looked at me and smiled fleetingly, remembering a certain cab driver incident four years ago. I smiled back, and for a moment all was well again until we remembered we were mad at each other.

"How far away was the building across the street?" he asked coolly, mirth melting off his face.

"About a hundred feet."

"Then you're right…no one I know of is that good with a handgun. John, what do you think?" he asked, directing the question at the window.

He was asking for my opinion? "Er…I think maybe it had something to do with the gambling…they weren't very specific about how bad it was, probably the family leaning on the press…he could have owed someone and they got tired of waiting around to collect."

"In which case they would have tried blackmail."

"And they wouldn't have been able to. He was a model student, about to head off to Oxford, head boy, all that. No secrets."

"Everyone has secrets."

"You won't get anything out of the family," warned Lestrade. "They're barely cooperating with us."

"Oh, I don't plan to." He turned to me, cocking an eyebrow. A challenge. "How good are you at poker?"