13.

Sherlock hated pools, so of course he went to them often. He didn't get in them, and hated himself a little for it, but he could watch other people swim without cringing. It was a bit cathartic even. Little boys and girls, people his age, old people, all of them splashing and ducking underwater and none of them turning blue or not moving. He still twitched though, when a kid floated upside down, or their play got too rough.

He had declared the experiment of pool watching complete some years before and hadn't been back since. And then Moriarty happened, and his games. The pool was the obvious meeting place. It was like going back to the beginning, for all of them. Cathartic.

Until Moriarty had John, and if Moriarty had tried drowning instead of explosions Sherlock might have completely lost it. Instead he exploded the world. And for the second time in his life, he drowned.

For a moment he was seven, sharp pain behind his eyes as his head banged against porcelain and the large hands held his head, immoveable as stone. He couldn't scream, he couldn't breathe, and the world was turning dull and empty. His aunt's voice still rang in his ear.

"Little beat. Devil child. You killed my boy, you killed him, you killed him." The voice followed him into the darkness until Mycroft dragged him out. Most would say it was minutes before he knocked his aunt aside, before he forced the water from his brother's lungs. For Sherlock it took two years. His aunt was declared insane and taken away. It wasn't her voice he heard now, as the water became the world. Rupert was in the water, John was…his aunt's hands held his head and there was no air to scream, and Mycroft…

Mycroft wasn't there this time to save him. John was.

John dove, swimming without hesitation to the side of the pool where Sherlock hung limp and suspended in the water. In his head, he was counting time, how long until the brilliance of Sherlock's brain was dulled, how long to be destroyed, how long until Sherlock would never breathe again.

Battle fields and criminal chases flashed through his mind. He wasn't dying, he wasn't, but in the seconds it took to reach Sherlock he could see the entirety of his life flash past him, and in the seconds it took to haul the body limply to the side of the pool and heave it up, he was able to stare bleakly at all the future years.

Sherlock had to be in them. Because he was wrong. Because what he did with Sherlock was as close to any dream he'd ever had as a child as he could get. Because the world was wrong, so they needed to change the world, and he couldn't do that if Sherlock wasn't a part of it.

"Breathe," he ordered, voice hoarse and urgent and fierce, "You breathe."

He started resuscitation.

There was no room on his list for number fifty-nine.

Sherlock's lips tasted of chlorine and blood, cold and lifeless and useless, and it didn't matter what they were like, what mattered was what wasn't there. No answering breath, no gurgle, no sign of life.

"Breathe," he ordered, somewhat breathlessly himself, forcing Sherlock's lungs to compress. Water spewed out at last and he turned him on his side as his body jerked beneath his, choking and coughing and gasping.

Finally he stilled. He didn't open his eyes and he still looked more dead than alive, but water no longer filled his lungs and ragged breath after ragged breath was forced in and out between his lips.

John sagged himself, wet and cold and sore, and grinning like a maniac. There would be no number fifty-nine today.

Later, much later, Sherlock was awake and alive and very vocal in his complaints that he had to stay in a hospital for such a trivial thing as water in his lungs. Mycroft visited. He gave his brother a book and told him not to do that ever again. Sherlock glanced at the book, snorted, and tossed it at John's lap. John read the title with some confusion.

"Pinocchio?" he asked, wondering why Mycroft felt the need to give his brother a children's book, and such a whimsical one at that. Perhaps it was an absurd reference to being swallowed by a whale?

Harry stopped by as well.

"I did come to scold you, you know," she said, after thrusting an alarmingly fluffy bear at Sherlock, "Putting my John into danger. He's supposed to be safe now. But…he is happier. So I suppose I can forgive you. Just this once. But don't go getting yourself blown up again. He'd be sad again if you did."

Mrs. Hudson sent soup. And tea. And cake. Lestrade showed up before Sherlock woke up but after he was situated in a bed. John had only just arrived himself, after some well meaning doctors insisted on checking him over. He was bruised but not broken, miraculously neither of them was badly hurt. John looked at Sherlock lying still in the bed, attached to various machines to monitor his condition, and thought it was bad enough.

Lestrade stared at Sherlock for a while before turning to face John.

"He's alright," John thought to say. For someone who called himself a sociopath, Sherlock was quite good at getting people to care about him.

"Take care of him," Lestrade said at last, "I'll be back later for your statements."

When Sherlock did open his eyes, he looked like he was trying to puzzle out the ceiling, his face twisting up with confusion. John thought about seconds again, and minutes without oxygen, but for once in his life he decided to be optimistic.

"If you don't like waking up in hospitals," John remarked, keeping his voice calm and mild and without hint of the relief he was feeling, "You shouldn't shoot bombs."

Sherlock turned his head to face him, and there was nothing of the dullness in his eyes that John feared.

"We survived then?" he asked, his eyes raking over John with fevered interest, taking him in.

"Yes," John answered simply.

"Did I drown?" he asked, "I remember…water."

"Yes," John answered again.

"You saved me." This wasn't a question and it was more than a guess. Sherlock continued to study him.

"Yes," John agreed. Then a doctor came in, wanting to do some tests now that his patient is awake. Sherlock only gave part of his attention to the intruding doctor, still looking avidly at John with an odd, curious expression on his face.

"Sherlock," John said, once they were alone again, at least for a short while.

"Yes, John?" Sherlock answered. He seemed lighter, somehow, then he had been. He hadn't even asked after Moriarty yet.

"When we get out of here…I'm teaching you to swim."

And for the first time in twenty-five years, Sherlock thought he might be ready to learn.

The End.

Except for an epilogue of sorts in which I shall finally endeavor to write that which the prompter actually requested: John teaching Sherlock how to swim.