-ooo-

'You won't tell me what your plan is, Sherlock. And you're only keeping it a secret because you like to be the hero. We've talked about this before...'

Sherlock disguised a smug smile from John. The suburbs night was deeply immersed in darkness, only pierced by the repetitive hallos of the lamp lights. The street was well know to the both of them, as one of them lived there and the other one avoided with all his might to visit him there.

Sherlock had always flat out refused to visit John and Mary's home or created the most inventive excuses not to do it. The only exception being that one night with Molly, to pack overnight bags for the Watsons. For as much as he had avoided entering that house, as he did so with Molly he felt like he knew it by heart already. John's study was a room with a window facing south, and every weekend he got a small redness sunburn in his right earlobe from the sun crossing the window, as he had obviously angled the table so the light would fall upon his papers undisturbed by his dominant left hand. The kitchen's refrigerator had a stubborn door that needed to be shut hard and so John had started to do the same thing to Sherlock's refrigerator out of habit. The living room's sofa had a small long and hard pillow that John always placed on his favourite chairs to help with the back and shoulder pains he got on damp spots, and unfortunately his house was damp according to a small rustled leaf John had carried on his sleeve, from his garden, a species accustomed to wetlands. Sherlock knew all this and much more even before he'd actually set a foot inside the house. And yet, by his side, his friend was acting all serious and socially adequate, promising he'd show him around the house, to make Sherlock as comfortable in it as he was in Baker Street.

'You will, of course, notice the fundamental difference of the lack of body parts in my house', John noticed, with a smirk.

'I'll bear through it', Sherlock promised back.

'I really wished you could just cough up your plan already.'

'Patience. It's all under control. Just don't get surprised. This time you're here as the public, that's all, John.'

John didn't feel appeased at all. 'So, what did everyone do?' he circled his original question.

'Mrs Hudson transported old war ammunitions in a gym bag by bus, and Greg got me as very special rifle from the Yard's locker, Molly assembled a simile coating for the bullets.'

'And Mary?'

(Mary is the bait and the hero, how about that for your love life, John?) 'Oh, she's got an important role, I wouldn't let her out.'

Suddenly, as they walked down the street, there was the sound of a heavy bullet fired and glass shattering. They staggered in surprise. It came from the Watsons residence. Sherlock looked over at his watch. No, the timing was wrong, something was wrong. And before he could think, John had read it in his expression and dashed in a mad run towards his house, where a window stood with a broken glass.

'John!' Sherlock raced after him, he couldn't understand what went wrong, who had started it and why so soon, all he knew was that John was now running towards a house that had just been shot at, with no plan at all, just a mad scare gushing inside him. 'John!'

'Mary!'

As John raced headfirst into the house they shared he hardly had notion of how he called out her name, in despair, with a course voice. He needed to make sure she was alright, that he hadn't just lost her, that he hadn't caused her loss by going in with an unknown plan. Last thing he noticed was that someone else was calling his name in a scared voice. His friend followed his mad race, trying to get some sense into John, to make him more rational.

John raced up the stairs several steps at a time, high on the adrenaline of the moment, fighting how slow his body could be, how in his mind he already explored the recesses of the rooms upstairs, frantically searching for Mary. Behind him, Sherlock was losing the race, overcome by exhaustion, holding his arm in a tight grip, cursing the protective streak in John that made him totally useless, hardly rational, incredibly obsessive.

John was already entering and leaving different rooms in the first floor, racing from one to the next, throwing himself into the line of fire, in complete disregard for the danger he was in. Finally Sherlock was able to catch up with him, as John was to pass him by and race back downstairs. He grabbed John by the arm, trying to halt him.

'Mary's not here, John, she must be fine', he tried to calm him down.

'They wouldn't have shot into an empty room', John replied in a strained voice and pushed him aside to pass and run downstairs.

'You need to be careful!' his friend protested, realizing he'd just have to race downstairs now.

'Just stay there!' John snapped back without giving a damn about careful. Sherlock sighed, leaning against the balcony on the top of the stairs. He was exhausted, and quite frankly he already knew what John himself could have deduced if he wasn't so blinded by emotion. The shooting had been a mistimed isolated incident promoted by Sherlock, Mary was okay and up to speed on Sherlock's plan. And if the detective hadn't let John in on it, it had been precisely because of that sort of reaction. John would have never accepted a plan in which Mary was bait. Safeguarded bait, for sure, he had taken the adequate precautions and she was well aware of the plan.

Downstairs, John came back from the kitchen to the corridor with his gun in hand, gasping for air, a terrified look on his face, as he strived to assure himself that everything was okay. He took out his phone and dialled Mary's number, halting on the corridor. He closed his eyes tight, desperate to hear her voice and not the intermittent machine beep of the apparatus.

To Sherlock's complete surprise, a phone ring echoed from the first floor bedroom, behind him. John and Sherlock exchanged a very brief scared look, then both hasted towards the source of the sound.

Sherlock would get there first, but he couldn't get his head around the sound he heard. That was not the plan, that couldn't been happening, Mary was supposed to be safe on the outside, not there, in danger, never there, John had been right all along, and now Mary could be hurt... Sherlock got to the bedroom first. The room was drenched in darkness, even as the curtains were drawn open. There was only a small amount of light coming in from the street lamp across the road. Enough to blind Sherlock of any shooter hiding in the shadows behind it, so he hesitated in approaching the window. Instead he stood by the door, peering inside. 'Mary?' he asked out loud, though he still couldn't believe it, they had a different plan, she had agreed.

'Sherlock.' He finally spotted her. Of course she was there. She had been there, hiding in the shadows, with a similar rifle drawn in hand, and was now approaching the window. She had gone rogue with his plan.

John was racing up the stairs and he was just reaching the landing. Sherlock was confused. John hadn't seen Mary as he went through the rooms. But Mary's phone had given her away, the one that kept ringing because neither of them had yet thought of ending the call.

A gunshot echoed at the same time of the sound of more glass shattering from inside the room. Both Sherlock and Mary recoiled, ducking for protection. John never stopped running, launching himself inside the bedroom calling her name. Mary's name. Sherlock should have stopped him, he realized only too late that John was completely disregarding his safety by throwing himself into the line of fire in protection mode for Mary. With his gun in hand, he'd launch himself to the window, over the shattered shiny droplets of glass on the floor, and aim straight up his gun into the shadows of the street. It'd take him a second, not more, to lock the aim over the outstretched hand pistol to metallic flicker of a rifle on the other side of the street. Sherlock tried to race to grab him and pull him down before he got shot. But before he could hardly move, John had fired his gun. Only once, carefully, deliberately, with a deeply pained expression and cold precise body language. He lowered the gun realizing what he had done. Then, suddenly breathing deeply like he was actually gasping from air from his race upstairs, he launched himself to where Mary had been standing all along, standing blankly as she watched him take the nearly impossible shot.

'Mary, are you okay?!'

She nodded, speechless. 'John...' she tilted her head, tears were coming to her eyes. 'You could have been shot, what did you do? What did I make you do?' she whispered sweetly, desperately.

John glanced at the window. His shot had widened the bullet hole in the window pane, and surprisingly it hadn't crashed yet. With a deep sad breath he asked: 'Sherlock, call the police, I have hit our shooter.'

Sherlock was already by their side. 'We need to get out of here at once. I'm not letting you go to prison for this, John.'

John looked sadly to him. 'I did what I had to do, I accept its consequences.'

Mary interceded. 'It was self-defense!'

'It's an unregistered illegal gun implicated with a few other illegal stuff we've done.' John faked a valiant smile. 'It's finally going to be traced back to me. I suppose it's only fair.'

'Sherlock, but this was your plan, that I'd lure and shoot the shooter', Mary insisted, shocked.

Sherlock lowered his gaze, tense. 'With a rifle identical to the one he used. It wouldn't be traced to any of you.'

John asked, strained: 'Call the police, Sherlock, and then take Mary with you. I'll tell them both shots were aimed on me.'

Mary was out of breath. 'Greg, he can help us!'

'He can't cover for this.'

'Your brother then, Sherlock', she insisted.

'He wouldn't get involved... Mary, I did what I had to do. I'll take the consequences.' John insisted bravely.

'Maybe you didn't even hit him, across the street.'

'No one left that house, Mary. Don't you think that if I had missed him, he'd leave at once?'

'But John...'

Sherlock was stone cold pale. He was trying to figure a way out. All he knew was that he wasn't about to call the police on his friend. The rest was still a blur.

'We should assume someone else has already called the police, hearing the gunshots. Mary, you need to get rid of the rifle, finding it here would just be more damning for John.'

'I'll tell them I shot the gun', she offered her own sacrifice.

'You always wear gloves, there are no powder burns in your hands, and there are on John's. They are sure to check for those.'

John was now standing very still, with his head lowered and eyes shut tight, despair tainting his expression. The siren of a police car became audible as it approached. 'Leave now', he asked them, quietly, as the only thing left he could offer them, his sacrifice.

'Don't be an idiot', Sherlock snapped, and at the same time, Sherlock and Mary grabbed him and pushed him out of there, to his complete surprise.

'What are you doing?'

'Running from the police', his friend answered, 'with you. Taking the gun to throw it away where it won't be found and making you disappear long enough for the powder burns to be untraceable. Then all the police will have is just gunplay at your house, John, and no one will believe you could have done the shot from so far away. It's not much, but we can still make it... if the police doesn't catch us here.'

Before John could say another word of caution to the position it got the two of them for helping him, he was pushed along forcefully as they raced out of there.

A/N: Well, some plans backfire. Like in real life, sometimes we just don't get a break. Good thing, he's not alone. -csf

Also, finally a context for the story's title at the end of last chapter. To me, it works both ways between Sherlock and John, it's an (imperfect) way of communicating their unspoken bond, and is the common ground on all the chapters. Sorry it took so long to explain, first-fic - remember? I'm proofing it as we go, hopefully it's not too convoluted and eerie sometimes, I had free reign since I didn't count on publishing/posting back then. -csf