Return of the Death Frisbee

There weren't as many people as John thought there'd be. In fact, the conference room seemed very bare to him, topping out at maybe 50 reporters, curious civilians, and delicately placed agents of Mycroft for crowd control. People like John and Molly, invited privately, got to stand or sit along the sidelines. Several of the Yard, (young, hero-worshipping officers John had seen occasionally at crime scenes,) were also congregating at the walls, giving John panicked looks every so often, like he was about to go on a shooting spree.

John shifted uncomfortably. Tucked in the inner pocket of his bomber jacket was a fresh new deer stalker, plaid and lined with sheep-skin, something John thought would look miserable with Sherlock's curly hair but would satisfy his urge to punish him for being such a prat.

He covertly scanned the crowd of reporters, who had already been seated when he arrived. Sherlock had to be among them, somewhere.

A thrum of panic laced through his chest, sharp and fast like a gunshot.

What if he's not here?

What if he really is...

Dead?

John's throat worked around the rock that had settled there. With forced concentration he focused on Lestrade, milling about behind the microphones. He tried to make his thoughts organized, carefully detracted from each other as he imagined Sherlock's mind to be at times.

The strained echo of a violin played in the back of his head. He smiled a bit.

Sherlock had settled in the centre-left of the crowd, wearing an old black jacket Molly had borrowed from her boyfriend and a pair of jeans ever so slightly too large. He was itching to rip the jacket off of him, it felt like cheap polyester and smelled of hospital sheets, a clear sign that Molly's little friend was short on cash and sneaking into the hospital to wash his laundry. He missed his coat. And his scarves.

Sherlock sighed irritably and tried not to fidget too much. He knew Mycroft's agents were in the crowd, to keep the reporters in check, and drawing any attention to him would ruin the act.

He fiddled with the ballpoint and notepad he'd stolen on his walk to the Yard's conference room, writing in quick, cursive gibberish that he hoped looked like personalized shorthand to the nosy journalists around him. He thought about trying to create his own language in the six and three-quarter minutes before Lestrade was supposed to present the findings of the investigation and dropped the thought half a second later. His mind was scattered in all directions as it was, he couldn't focus at all.

The one person he wanted to look at he refused to. It might not seem suspicious to the other reporters, who had all stared openly and whispered when John settled along the side of the room, but Sherlock knew if he looked up at John he would never stop. In fact, he would look and look until John's gaze met his, and then he didn't know what he might do.

The pen turned and turned in his long fingers. All at once he wished for his violin.

Lestrade started early, apparently satisfied that all the invitees had arrived. Mycroft slipped in the door just as they were preparing to lock it, giving the crowd and single, hard glance, and then fixing on the Inspector with up-most attention.

"Right," Lestrade began. Sherlock resisted a snort, and wrote down loquacious as always. "We're here to talk about the alleged criminal activities of one Jim Moriarty and Sherlock Holmes, both deceased. This investigation required several weeks of analysis looking at the facts and numbers, as you know there have been several scandals regarding the subject. I'm here to report to you the facts, so here's the final story." Lestrade took a bracing breath and launched into a succinct listing of all the evidence, and then pieced together a storyboard of events.

Sherlock watched carefully but refused to listen. There was little he hated more than hearing what the Yard got wrong, down to the littlest detail, and for the sake of the game, he had to hold his tongue for the very end.

The meeting threatened to drag on for over thirty minutes, just of Lestrade talking into the microphones. Sherlock itched, shoulders stiff and face blank as time muddled on. His eyes began to twitch, desperately trying to distract him from his overwhelming boredom. He wanted to look at John, see John's reaction to him among all of these rumourmongers and enthusiastic journalists. What would John do, if he called attention to himself now?

John kept two fingers on the hat, but listened to Lestrade patiently. Time seemed to be going very quickly for him.

"It seems some type of coercion lead to Sherlock Holmes' suicide that day," Lestrade sighed, "As someone who worked closely with the Consulting Detective, there is very little I can think of that would lead to his decision, but we have no motive, no note, nothing to indicate what his thoughts were before his death." He raked the crowd with hard eyes, "Please don't ask me, I'd rather keep my opinions out of the investigation."

Sherlock looked up once Lestrade started talking about his death, and was surprised to note that he didn't say anything about the phone call.

Probably deliberately ignoring it, Sherlock thought, nodding to himself as he raced through all the possibilities. Makes me seem more innocent if I didn't 'leave a note.'

"Any questions?" Lestrade asked, looking as if he'd rather there weren't.

There was an instant three seconds of chaos as reporters raised their hands and shouted for attention, The Herald, Inspector, wants to know...

Sherlock glanced momentarily at John and saw the man looking wearily at the crowd. Sherlock fixed his eyes foreward again and knew his time was counting down before someone, John, Mycroft, any of the officers in the room, recognized him. Lestrade answered a question from the front, about when the written report would be released.

"Today at noon," Lestrade nodded to another reporter.

"What was it like working with Sherlock Holmes?"

Sherlock's muscles tensed—he had just been about to stand and drew attention to himself, but this, blatant sentiment, was too good to miss. The whole room grew quiet.

The Inspector closed his eyes for a moment, and Sherlock was impressed that was all he gave away. He knew the man was somewhat fond of him, despite how much of an ass he could be. Lestrade had once been very much like John, blatantly admiring of Sherlock's skills. That had all ended when Sherlock mentioned his wife's affair, but he supposed maybe, he had deserved the resulting animosity.

"Sherlock," he began, "was a brave man. Many of you wrote about the end results of his cases, but few noticed how often he was on the front lines. Sometimes he went in places the law was too afraid to, I am sad to say." Lestrade looked down at his clasped hands. "He was brilliant, and despite what some might say, we should always remember he chose to work for us, without pay, despite all derision, despite the danger. He was honourable. A great man." Lestrade paused, glancing at John, "And a good one."

The room was sobered as reporters wrote this down, or took a moment to absorb what had been said. Sherlock looked at Mycroft, who was staring at the Inspector with little-seen respect, and then John, who was smiling down at the floor, and chose his moment.

He stood, tucking the pen and notepad into the pocket of the borrowed coat. His voice carried easily over the heads of reporters and cameras as he proclaimed, "Why thank you Detective Inspector," he carefully kept the glee out of his voice. "I highly enjoy working with you and the rest of the amateurish, disgustingly blind idiots you hire as well, it makes for an interesting crime scene—but I find your sentiment blindingly inappropriate. These reporters as well as I came here to get some facts and yet you are feeding them flammable media material to embellish the rags they print. Honestly, Inspector. Have you no shame?"

He waited, holding his head high as melodramatically as he could, basking in the agape faces of the reporters, the semi-hostile looks he was receiving from Mycroft's men, and the complete shock on Lestrade's face. Sherlock wished someone would take a picture.

Suddenly a camera did flash, and the whole room exploded into motion.

Sherlock remained calm, sandwiched as he was between the mob of reporters and bright camera lights now all angling towards him. He could just see Lestrade at the edge of the crowd, shouting at reporters to sit down and let him through. Many of the other officers were standing dumb and pale. Sherlock saw Donovan leaning against the window out in the hall, hands clasped over her mouth. Sherlock met Mycroft's gaze from the centre of the crowd. His brother's face was pale as snow, his eyes bugged out, and it looked like he'd was about to be sick. Sherlock smirked at him and tipped his head in a mock-bow and promised to remember that expression for the rest of his life. Rarely did one pull the wool over the British government's eyes so neatly.

Just has he was starting to break out into a grin, someone stepped very close to Sherlock, bringing his attention around. He prepared himself to push the offending reporter away and saw, instead, John. Staring up at him.

Sherlock's eyes got very large in an instant, his ears deafening to the sound of reporters even as they began to back away at Lestrade's command. John was grinning ear-to-ear, his eyes brighter than Sherlock expected. He looked...well, relived, but not in the faintest surprised! Sherlock narrowed his eyes and focused closely on John's face. Shouldn't he look amazed, at least? Shocked? Angry?

He was taken completely off-guard when John shrugged a bit self-consciously and pulled him into a terribly tight hug, trapping one of Sherlock's arms at his side. He felt the powerful grip of the soldier, and relaxed. There was something forgiving about the whole situation. He hesitantly hugged back with his free arm.

John pulled away and shuffled in his jacket, but Sherlock was too focused on staring at John face, his hands, his shoulders, deducing him blatantly, to pay much attention to that. "What took you so long?" John said, glancing up at him, still grinning—almost laughing.

Sherlock's eyebrows perked. He felt his face slack as a tidal wave of realization ran him down. You stupid idiot, he thought.

He knew. He figured it out—saw something.

He had just opened his mouth to ask but all of a sudden something large and fuzzy plopped on top of his head. He looked up, as if he could see it, and went to touch the hat even as he knew what it must be.

"You have got to be kidding me," he growled, sending John a half-hearted glare. The doctor merely grinned. About a dozen cameras went off at the same time. "Stop that!" Sherlock snapped, taking the deer-stalker off. "For god's sake people, it's just a hat, you have about twenty pictures of me in the same thing."

"It—it is you!" Lestrade gasped. Sherlock looked at the Inspector and raised an eyebrow. The man's face contorted into an unappealing mix of relief, happiness, and anger. "I don't know if I should punch you or take you out for a drink!" Before Sherlock could say anything, he whirled on John, "And you," he barked, "you knew!"

John clasped his hands behind his back and smiled, "I did, yeah."

"And you didn't think it wise to tell us?" Lestrade's face was shading an alarming red. Sherlock almost stepped in to help, but thought maybe he would risk murder if he did.

John continued to smile, immune to the Inspector's anger. "He was going to come back eventually," he said, laughing a little. "Come on, Lestrade, the Yard could last a few weeks without him. I would've made him come back in a heartbeat if something really dire was going on."

"Oh, like faking his own death, maybe?"

"How would you make me come back?" Sherlock asked, giving John an incredulous look.

John looked up at him, brow wrinkling, giving him the you know what I'm talking about look that almost made Sherlock feel like nothing had happened.

"We should go," John said, finally, shoving the hat back on his head. Sherlock growled and reached up to rip it off, but John smacked his hand, "Uh-uh!" the doctor chided, eyes sparkling with mischief. "I bought this for you, Sherlock, you have to wear it. It's a gift."

That all sounded very amiable and sweet, but the look on John's face read, if you don't wear the goddamn hat so help me god your punishment for this will be ten times worse.

Sherlock elected to wear the hat. He even adjusted it a bit tighter.

"Let's go then," he announced, weaving through the crowd. "I know you've gotten a cat, John, and I find we must correct that as soon as possible."

John shoved a few particularly pushy reporters aside and hastened to catch up. "Hey!" he said, "Sir is a lovely cat, you'll like him."

Sherlock paused at the door, hand on the lock, and gave John an incredulous look. John snorted. The curly hair mixing with sheep fluff around his ears was too much. He looked like he had a serious ear-hair problem.

"I highly doubt you require a cat anymore," Sherlock said, voice low so only John could hear it.

John blinked, "Why not?"

Sherlock rolled his eyes, "Because I'm back, obviously." He hit the latch and pushed the door open, leaving John caught half-way between laughing and blushing.

"Did you ever think that maybe I just like cats?"

"Irrelevant!" Sherlock waved a hand in the air. Donovan and Anderson cowered against a cubicle as he walked past, as if he were a ghost. John thought at first Sherlock hadn't noticed, but after they passed them, Sherlock looked over his shoulder at John and smiled wickedly.

John looked back once, just before they took the stairs down to the main floor. He saw Mycroft most prominently, leaning on his umbrella, chin high and face coldly calculating, as always. John grimaced and flicked his eyes over Lestrade, who was holding in the reporters, and the trail of horrified officers they'd left in their wake.

That's great, he thought, following Sherlock through the door. If we ever walk in here again we'll both be shot.

He turned into the stairwell and abruptly started to giggle. Sherlock paused at the first landing, looking up, a smile breaking over his face as well. "We shouldn't laugh," he said, as John had to lean on the railing to support himself walking down the steps. "I'm sure Mycroft's going to have me tested to ensure I'm truly his brother. The war, John, has just—"

He cut off abruptly as John hit the landing and flung his arms about Sherlock, leaving both arms free this time.

"John," Sherlock said quietly, baritone reverberating against the stairwell. "We already did this."

"I know, you idiot," John's voice was muffled by Sherlock's shoulder, "I'm doing it again." John sucked in a deep breath. He could hardly believe what he was feeling-heat, sinew, bone, blood. His friend, who he had seen as a corpse, was undoubtedly alive underneath him. It was hard for him to follow.

Sherlock glanced up at the stairwell door they had come from, but didn't hear anyone about to come in, so he threw caution to the wind and looped both arms about John's shoulder's and pulled tightly, as John had done in the conference room.

They stood like that for awhile.

Eventually, John was reasonably sure that Sherlock was back again, for good, and felt relieved enough to pull away.

"Really, though, Sherlock," he glanced at the floor to covertly bat the sheen from his eyes. "What do you have against cats?"

Sherlock, who hadn't missed one movement of John's, waited until the soldier looked at him again. Sherlock assessed him silently for a moment, and then said, "Maybe...I can make exceptions."

John smiled, missing the notes in Sherlock's voice that indicated that he wasn't just talking about cats.

"Better be off, hm?" John said, walking down the next flight. "Home?"

"Sounds lovely," Sherlock agreed, joining him on the stairs. "I'm sure skull has missed me. Really, I don't know how he's survived without me."

"Really Sherlock?" John laughed and shoved his friend's elbow. "Mrs. Hudson will have a heart attack when she sees you."

"You people are so dramatic," Sherlock sighed, tipping his eyes upward.

He was smiling though. Perhaps, now, things could return to normal. Better than normal, maybe.

A.N- Did you notice I was trying to end it like three times but just couldn't and continued on? Sorry for lack of editing, and the lateness of this post. I was stuck for a few days, but now I think it's good. Thanks to all my reviewers, really guys, I didn't think it was that good but apparently I was wrong. I hoped you liked this conclusion! If you have any prompt suggestions feel free to shove them on to me. I have a few ideas of my own, but not that many.

Thanks for supporting me and my story! You all are the light to my day.

PS

Sherlock belongs to BBC.