Greg wished he could have dismissed John's panic. He had seen Sherlock insulting and being condescending towards people long before the doctor had known him; had watched him turn from a cocaine-addicted genius whom he could never imagine truly liking into one of his best friends who admittedly still could not abide those he considered "idiots".

He had even seen him scream at Mrs. Hudson on the very evening of John's and Sherlock's first case together.

But screaming and calmly – according to John, almost cruelly – dismissing her – it didn't sound like Sherlock. If it had been anyone else, if it had been Anderson or Donovan or perhaps Kitty Riley, he could have understood; even if it had been him or John. He would have been astonished, but he wouldn't have been worried.

But Mrs. Hudson. The woman who had been like a mother to him ever since Sherlock had ensured that her husband was executed. It was still strange to think about the nice old lady as the wife of a baron of a drug cartel, but Frank Hudson, according to his research one night when curiosity had got the best of him, had certainly been one of the most powerful drug lords in the state. By the time Sherlock had arrived, Mrs. Hudson had become disillusioned with her marriage and the life she had chosen and had been relieved to be freed of her brute of a husband, and ever since then, she had seen Sherlock as a son. She had also immediately adopted John and during the last few years, Greg had noticed that she even pressed him to stay and eat or at the very least have a cup of tea and seemed to include him when she said "boys" and he was in the room as well. It was a comforting feeling.

That was just it. Mrs. Hudson was comforting. Not someone who should be treated dismissively. And Sherlock knew it.

So why would he talk to her like that? Especially when he had no case and wasn't in the least stress? According to John, he had been reading. And about a case that had taken place over a hundred years ago at that. Therefore he should have been his usual, if a little tiring, self.

"Has he been..." he trailed off as he remembered his uneasiness after Sherlock had left. He couldn't explain it then and he couldn't explain it now.

It seemed like John didn't understand his own worry either. After all, it was such a little thing. Not even worth mentioning.

So what was going on?

"Did he say anything?"

John shook his head.

"No. He didn't apologize". They smiled briefly at one another, knowing that expecting Sherlock to apologize was an idle way of passing the time. John grew serious again and continued.

"But the way he – he had this look on his face – I've never seen him look like that".

That was worrying indeed. John lived with Sherlock and he knew every expression on his face. After the consulting detective had returned, he had been hovering near him to a point where even Sherlock had noticed that he was worried he would disappear again and had made sure that he stayed in John's line of sight until he felt comfortable watching him leave. John knew Sherlock – maybe even better than his brother did, because from the first, John had been interested in the heart of the man he had met and not just the mind.

Mycroft. Greg suddenly realized that until now he had not taken him into account.

"Has Mycroft visited you lately?"

It didn't take much to figure out that the British Government had been busy lately – another economy crisis plus the revelation that the popular Minister of Inner Affairs had been cheating on his wife with his secretary for months, which of course had been trodden out in the press gave him more than enough to do – but he couldn't imagine that he wouldn't notice that something was wrong with his brother. He had surveillance on him – true, a little less since John had come to live at Baker Street, but still. And even if Mycroft had been too busy to notice, there were others. Several agents had been on Sherlock's trail regularly for weeks now, and Anthea had stared at enough screens to notice when he was behaving oddly.

"No" John replied.

"That's a sign he doesn't think anything's amiss, surely?"

"Until now, I didn't think anything was wrong with him" John answered.

"But what about – "

"I know, I know. I shouldn't have been so easily pacified. I should have kept a close watch on him". John looked down in his pint. Greg knew what this was all about, knew that John still blamed himself that Sherlock had had to go through two years of fighting Moriarty's web alone. He would have dropped everything and followed him if he'd let him, and he still thought he should have realized what he was about to do, should have known he wasn't dead and come looking for him. It was obviously an idiotic train of thought, as Sherlock would have said, but that didn't stop John from entertaining it.

Greg was a policeman and he had never thought that he should have known. If Sherlock wanted to make people believe something, he did. There was no way they could have realized that he had only faked his death. And thank God that he had. John had been slowly falling apart.

It was no wonder that he was so worried.

"John, we don't even know that there's something seriously wrong with him". John began to protest, but he held up a hand to stop him.

"We have to be rational. What would Sherlock say if we weren't?" That brought him a weak smile, at least. "He would tell us if something was going on. If he was concerned about his own behaviour". John didn't look so sure, but Greg continued. "If this was a bad as you thought, it would interfere in Sherlock's work. He wouldn't allow it. He would tell us before it got to a point where he wouldn't be able to function".

True as this was, it didn't reassure either him or John, although they both pretended that it did. They had to be logical, wait, collect more evidence or Sherlock would never take them seriously once they felt they needed to speak to him about it.

"I guess you are right" the doctor sighed, "but if this happens again, I will have to speak with him about it".

Greg nodded. It was good enough for the time being.

As far as he could tell, nothing had changed in his mind palace – apart from the changes Moriarty's presence had already brought, of course. It was still full of shadows, and some corridors seemed to be longer or shorter than he remembered. He had been looking for something obvious for a while now; he wouldn't just have snapped at Mrs. Hudson. Whatever had made him act like that must have had a huge impact on his mind palace.

He had run through his memory rooms, trying to see if anything caught his eye. But aside from a brief feeling of repulsion as he relived the moment Mrs. Hudson dropped his skull last week, nothing unusual had taken place, and it wasn't strange that he should feel this way. He liked his skull – she should know that since he'd kept it on the fireplace for years – and her muttering had reminded him how often she had tried to get rid of it. He had been annoyed, and he'd had a right to be.

But even then, he hadn't treated her like he had today. He would have apologized, but she would demand an explanation – then again, not exactly. Mrs. Hudson wouldn't ask. But she would look at him with bright eyes, like she had done after he returned and he found himself telling her the whole story without her having said a word. And if he should tell her about Moriarty inside his head...

He bit his lip as he walked through another corridor that used to be light and comforting. He hated the shadows, but he had given up trying to shove them back. They always returned, almost clinging to him as he made his way through the palace he had built that had become so strange without him noticing until it was too late.

He couldn't think like that. He couldn't think it was too late. He had already lost if he allowed himself to think like that. And if Moriarty took over his body... he was clever. It could be months or years until someone noticed he wasn't Sherlock. Until he committed a crime, until he...

An image of John's bloody body flashed through his mind and he swallowed.

Someone cleared their throat behind him. He wasn't surprised.

Moriarty smiled at him.

"Hello, Sherlock. How did you think I did, solving your case?"