Author's Note: Quick clarification. I originally wrote on chapter 6 (so long ago!) that the story would be 40 chapters long. However, with the addition of new canon (thanks a lot, surprise canon-compliant TAB), the story is now 41 chapters long.

A thousand apologies had been on the tip of his tongue, but John had thanked him instead.

Rendered speechless, Sherlock found his awareness narrowed solely to the person in front of him. Dark blue eyes watching him uncertainly beneath sandy hair. It was just a few hours before he'd been forced to consider the possibility he might never see them again. But they were open now and active, searching his face.

John: alive, awake, moving, breathing, shifting, small expressions and gestures flitting through his body with the energy that animated him. Warm blood, warm skin, strong pulse: life-force, real, overwhelmingly present. He had come back.

The confusion of John's sudden appearance was compounded by the haze of the drug still hanging heavily over his mind, and Sherlock found he wasn't quick enough to stop his more irrational drives from taking over. He pulled John closer and dropped his face to his neck as though his body knew John's scent was what it needed to calm it. It worked immediately. As he breathed he felt the rigid tension in his muscles finally, blessedly unwinding.

John smelled like warm tea and cold gun steel: the familiarity of home and the thrill of danger at the same time. The scent of his skin was uniquely John, and Sherlock felt the comfort he dragged from it edged with something sharper, something like electricity. Because while he and John had become closer than words could label over their years together, there had never been anything as simple as easy familiarity between them. As comfortable as they were in each other's presence, there was always a hint of tension, a faint ripple of static electricity in the air. The volatility of their relationship could have them clutching at each other, gasping in laughter, or lunging at each other's throats. And Sherlock needed that. It was like a mirror of his work: as familiar as it was unpredictable and as soothing as it was dangerous. John: the embodiment of home and the promise of violence. Everything he needed.

John stepped back just enough to put his hand to Sherlock's jaw, raising his face to meet his eyes.

"Sherlock, I—" John dropped his hand and gripped Sherlock's arms to steady himself as he swayed on his feet.

Sherlock braced him, eyes flashing over his body. "Are you ok?"

John stood up straighter and a weak smile pulled at his mouth. "I'm fine. I just—I might have to sit out on the rooftop chases for a day or two."

John's voice was like a catalyst triggering the release of oxytocin—that unfamiliar, intimacy-based chemical—in his brain. It left him off balance, and it took him longer than he would have liked to respond.

"You should lie down," he said reluctantly. He didn't want John to lie down, because that would require letting go of him, and he was not interested in letting go of him. But John was tired—exhausted—of course he was. Sherlock knew the effort it was requiring for him to simply stand here like this. John would need days of rest to regain his strength while the antidote helped his body to heal.

"Yeah, I should." But John didn't move. Instead he looked at Sherlock with dilated pupils and the subsequent wave of norepinephrine flooded his veins with such sudden force that Sherlock nearly jumped back, dropping his arms and turning away.

John stuffed his hands into his coat pockets a bit awkwardly. "I'll just go lie down for a bit then."

"Right, erm, you should rest," Sherlock said distractedly. "Take my bed; it'll be more convenient on the main floor."

Sherlock noticed a flush around John's neck as he ducked his head and cleared his throat. "Erm, yeah, all right."

He moved past Sherlock, but he stopped and turned back just as he reached the hallway. "You invented an antidote for a poison that had none. You saved my life."

Sherlock regarded John carefully. There was a question he couldn't ask—an answer he needed. He chose his words with precision. "I asked you to come back."

He willed John to hear the question in the words borrowed from long ago.

And he did.

"I know," John said. "I heard you."

John slept on and off for the next few days, vaguely aware of Sherlock moving around the flat like a shadow. He never slept, as far as John could tell. He was engrossed in some experiment involving singed hair—not his, John was immensely relieved to learn when he stumbled out of bed at the acrid smell and found Sherlock's head not on fire.

They barely spoke in the time John was awake, and in many ways he was grateful for the silence. He was exhausted as his body healed itself, and in the brief periods of time he managed in the living room it was inexplicably soothing to sit quietly and listen to Sherlock play the violin, or to watch him methodically working through an experiment.

Yet as absorbed with his work as Sherlock seemed, John thought he could sense Sherlock's gaze on him whenever he closed his eyes, or whenever he walked back to the bedroom. And the weight of it was heavy in a way that made John's heartrate quicken with anticipation. As soon as he was better… As soon as he could, he would.

On Sunday he felt well enough to venture outdoors for a walk. On Monday he went out for longer. Today he felt almost fully recovered, and when he came home from his walk, trotting briskly up the stairs, he was optimistic enough to consider going for a jog tomorrow.

When he walked into the living room, Mrs. Hudson was in the flat and Sherlock was not.

"Oh, deary I'm so happy you're home safe and sound," she said, giving John a tight hug. He realised with a start that he hadn't seen her, or anyone except Sherlock, since he'd come home from the hospital. Was that Sherlock's doing, he wondered, keeping people away until John felt better? There had been no clients, no Lestrade, no cases—as far as he knew Sherlock had never even left the flat until today.

"How are you feeling?" Mrs. Hudson asked him.

"I'm fine," John said dismissively, "just needed some rest. Do you know—"

"He's at Scotland Yard," Mrs. Hudson gave him a knowing smile. "They needed a testimony or something. He told me to phone him as soon as you got home."

"That's all right. I'll text him later."

"Oh," Mrs. Hudson looked worried, "are you sure? He was very insistent I let him know right away. He was a bit scary actually."

John grinned. "Leave him to me."

"All right, dear, whatever you say. Do you need anything? I can make you a cuppa."

John declined her offers and relieved her of her watch.

He looked around the empty flat. There were mugs and cups and saucers left around the living room from where Sherlock had evidently been moving restlessly the night before. John could almost see his pacing—the mug left on the mantel, the saucer on the table by his laptop, the cup on the windowsill… John shook his head. His flatmate was truly— John stopped mid-thought as something twigged in his memory. Leaving dishes around the flat. When Sherlock was talking to him while he was unconscious he'd mentioned something about dishes. John had thought it was his own confusion but what if—had Sherlock…? The sentence came back in full: "If you come back I promise to put the dishes in the sink."

John grinned. He snapped a picture of the cup and saucer on the table and sent it to Sherlock with a message: I believe we had a deal about this.

He only had to wait a minute for a response.

No memory loss then? SH

None. Tough luck.

I've had worse. SH

John smiled. Sherlock, god he'd missed him. His phone buzzed again.

Stay at the flat. On my way. SH

John's smile broadened.

It was a painfully long cab ride back to Baker Street but Sherlock felt he bore it heroically, considering the circumstances. The cabbie, however, did not seem to agree, practically tossing him out at the kerb.

Sherlock had watched John's recovery carefully. He was very pleased on Sunday that John had felt strong enough to go out, and he'd wasted no time in following him that day, and each one after. He supposed he could have asked to walk with John, but he'd already deduced John would interpret the offer as a form of mollycoddling (which he supposed it was) and refuse anyway. On Monday it was clear that John had much of his strength back, and Monday night had been spent in furious internal debate. But he'd come to a decision in the early hours of the morning.

Lestrade had called for the thirty-eighth time since John had been back from the hospital (Scotland Yard needed him for a hundred things, as usual, but most importantly this time they needed his testimony for the Moran case), but he'd been putting them off until he felt John was recovered enough to leave him. And still he'd stationed Mrs. Hudson in the flat as a precaution.

Sherlock walked into 221B, swinging the door shut behind him, not bothering to remove his coat or shoes.

John was in the kitchen, wearing one of Sherlock's favourite striped jumpers, putting the kettle on. He turned at the sound of the door, eyes lighting when they rested on Sherlock's face. He was momentarily taken aback as he witnessed, in reality, the exact scene he used to play in his mind when he was away from London. He walked directly into the kitchen, drawn to John as though they were magnetised.

"How was it at Scotland Yard?" John asked, hair glowing bright under the light, still damp from a recent shower.

But Sherlock didn't stop walking when he should have. He went farther, crowding into John's space. John's eyes widened, but he didn't step back.

Sherlock had thought about this. He had thought about this all night. He needed John, and ever since that night in the cemetery he'd known he needed more from him than basic companionship. And he was tired of holding back. He wanted everything John could give him and more. And he wanted it now, before either of them died again.

And he knew John wanted it too—a rather elementary deduction now that he could consider all of the evidence clearly. And he realised with some surprise that as much as he wanted to take from John he wanted to give him back doubly in return. He would give John whatever would make him happy. And if John wanted this, then the danger to his mind palace would be a necessary risk.

His eyes swept over his doctor—the familiar curves of his face, the scent of his hair fresh from the shower—the proximity was overwhelming. John stood his ground but Sherlock could hear his breathing quicken. He felt the same lack of oxygen as the air seemed to rush from the room. He'd thought about it all night and concluded he could do this. It wouldn't be the first time he'd chosen John over his work.

"I missed you," Sherlock said, voice low, and he watched John's pupils dilate at the sound.

He meant today, at Scotland Yard, he had missed him. He meant the past few days John had been sleeping. He meant the coma. He meant the past year John had been living with Mary. He meant the two years he'd been away from London. He meant every weekend, every conference, every Christmas, every night since they met that Sherlock had opened the door to 221B and John wasn't there.

Sherlock grabbed a handful of John's jumper and kissed him.

John could not believe what was happening for the first few seconds that it was happening. And then a rush of heat through his veins burned off the paralysis. He reacted. He kissed him back, sliding his hands under Sherlock's open coat to wrap his arms around the detective's lean frame even as he felt Sherlock's hands skimming down his back to grip at his waist.

Kissing Sherlock was like nothing he had ever experienced. How could a person with such hard angles have such soft lips? His coat and hair smelled like the night air, cold and sharp. John let his tongue graze the edge of Sherlock's lips and Sherlock parted them for him, allowing John to slip his tongue inside, meeting Sherlock's and feeling a heady rush at the taste of him. The scent of him, the taste—it was overpowering and he needed more; he had to get closer though there wasn't any space between them. He found himself undoing Sherlock's suit jacket and running his hands up his sides and around to his back.

The strength and energy in the detective's sinewy muscles was provocatively different from the soft curves John was used to. Sherlock's body was firm, powerful, challenging, directly opposed to the supple and pliant form that John had found attractive in women. And yet John discovered that the more he felt the more he wanted the challenge.

He worked Sherlock's mouth, intoxicated by the taste of him, running the tip of his tongue along the length of Sherlock's, stroking, using it to draw Sherlock's tongue into his mouth.

Sherlock dropped slightly down onto the edge of the kitchen table and John stopped with some astonishment. He hadn't been aware that he was walking Sherlock backward, pushing him back toward the table. He stood between Sherlock's legs taking a moment to appreciate the image before him. It was like nothing he had ever seen. Sherlock was beautiful, breathtaking: breathing heavily, lips swollen and pink from kissing, pupils blown wide, eyes never leaving John's face.

"God, Sherlock," John breathed, almost choking on the words.

The sight of him, on the edge of the table, looking at him like that—it triggered something deep within his core: a primal instinct that made him want to grab Sherlock's hair and force him back, kiss him and bite him and claim him in a way John was sure no one had before. There was a certain wiring in his brain that wanted to shove Sherlock down now and have at him until both of their visions blurred.

And Sherlock was looking at him, breathing heavily, eyes questioning, unsure, waiting, and suddenly John wanted to do none of those things. He moved forward and ran his left hand through Sherlock's hair, tangling his fingers in the curls at the back. With his right hand he held the side of Sherlock's face.

Sherlock was watching him as he ran his thumb over his cheekbone—delicate bone structure—wishing there was a way he could tell Sherlock how beautiful he was without having to use anything as clumsy as language.

John angled his head and when their lips met he paced the kiss deliberate and slow. He kissed Sherlock like he watched him at crime scenes, doing his best to communicate all of his admiration and amazement. He kissed Sherlock like he deserved to be kissed: tenderly, honestly, thoroughly, with all the adoration a person can single-mindedly focus on the body in front of him, on the dazzling mind behind those spectacular eyes. He kissed Sherlock like he was not an outsider, ostracised by all who knew him; he kissed him like he belonged—like there was nowhere he belonged more completely than right here at the centre of John's world. He kissed Sherlock like he was precious, exquisite and rare, extraordinary, like he was worth protecting, like he was worth everything.

John tipped Sherlock's head back and kissed him like he loved him.

He kissed John and when John kissed him back it was like being plunged underwater: there was a roar like rushing water in his ears and then silence. Complete silence. John was kissing him, running his hands over his body and Sherlock could hear nothing but the beating of his own heart, all external sounds deafened by the crush of silence pressing in around him. He could hardly breathe. His sensory awareness was narrowed to the scent of John, the taste of him, the heat of his mouth, the scrape of his teeth against his lips, the sturdy strength of John's body under his hands.

He couldn't hear. He couldn't see. His eyes had fallen shut and were not interested in opening again. John was pushing back against him, walking him backward, and Sherlock let him, trusting in a way he could never trust anyone else.

When he found himself half-sitting on the edge of the kitchen table John pulled back and Sherlock's eyes fluttered open. John was looking at him with an expression that made Sherlock's breath hitch. It was predatory. He could feel the intensity of John's want electrifying the air between them.

"God, Sherlock." John's voice was deep, desire scraping it course. Sherlock's eyes fell shut for a moment at the sound of it. He knew without a doubt that whatever John would do to him now, he would let him. Because he wanted it just as much. He could feel the nerves in his skin crying out to be touched the same way his veins used to beg for heroin. But this was an entirely new experience. In the past he'd found kissing thoroughly unpleasant. It was nothing like this. He had never wanted anybody like this. The chemicals in his brain were giving him a rush he hadn't thought possible without synthetic supplements. But he felt a touch of anxiety weave through his desire—he'd never been here before and, for once, he needed John to guide him.

Suddenly something shifted in John's expression. If he had worried that John might abruptly start tearing off his clothes, he realised, as John ran his hand back through Sherlock's hair almost caressingly, that he needn't have been. John tightened his grip on his hair and pulled back gently, causing a highly pleasurable sensation that shot directly to Sherlock's groin. Sherlock's eyes locked onto John's as John cupped his face, and when he kissed him again it was completely different.

John was kissing him slowly, deeply, intensely, and Sherlock felt warmth spreading from his core out through the rest of his body. He held the back of John's head. His hair was cold and damp from the shower: a pleasing contrast to the heat of his skin. He wrapped his arm around John's back, feeling the energy in the tension of his muscles, smooth in their movement beneath his hand.

With some amazement Sherlock realised John was kissing him like he looked at him: protectively, admiringly, devotedly, and defiantly at the same time. Those looks gripped his heart. This kiss threatened to burn him from the inside out.

The strength of the emotion in the kiss—the one they both hadn't known they needed for so many years, yet had wanted all the time in dreaming and in glances and long looks and light touches—it was all-consuming.

The silence that had engulfed Sherlock broke. There was roaring in his ears as cascades of Feelings crashed through his mind. He let them sweep him away. He let go and let the hormones carry him. Because the truth was, as tightly controlled as he kept his mind, he liked to let go. He liked to relinquish control and allow himself to be swept along by a current stronger than himself. In the past he had needed drugs for that. Now he needed only John.

John's tongue was hot against his, clever strokes like a promise of more. Sherlock saw his mind palace, as if from a distance. He watched towering waves crashing over it, ripping through it, tearing the walls apart, and suddenly he felt a grip of horror seize him. His mind palace: years and years of meticulously collected information, his life's work. It was being destroyed.

NO, something at the back of his mind shouted and Sherlock reacted like a switch had been flipped. He grabbed John's arms and pushed him back, propelling himself off the table.

John looked at him, dazed and confused, hair mussed from where Sherlock had run his hands through, pupils large and black under the kitchen light. Sherlock looked helplessly, desperately at the only person he'd ever wanted.

I'm sorry, John, he thought, the words like pain in his mind. I can't do it.

John kissed Sherlock on the kitchen table and Sherlock responded wonderfully, melting into the kiss and wrapping his arms around him and holding him like he needed him.

He pulled back on Sherlock's hair and Sherlock groaned just slightly against his lips. The sound sent a wave of pleasure through him that pooled in his lower abdomen. He drew back just enough to breathe—to steady himself—he needed control if he didn't want to wind up shoving Sherlock backward onto the table. John kissed his lips, kissed the corner of his mouth, the edge of his jaw, the hot pulse point on his neck, the beautiful, porcelain skin of his cheek, tenderly, making the message clear with every kiss: I love you.

Sherlock's eyes were still closed when John went back to reclaim his mouth. Sherlock parted his lips immediately and John was more than happy to indulge the request, keeping his tongue slow, controlled, while Sherlock explored it carefully with his own. John deepened the kiss, losing himself in it, pouring everything into it that he needed Sherlock to know.

He was completely caught off guard when Sherlock shoved him back.

He stared at Sherlock blankly through the haze the kiss left over him, and Sherlock looked back at him for a moment before he strode out the door, slamming it shut behind him.

Author's Note: Ok, now *lifts hands and backs slowly away from murderous mob* um, let's just remember that this mind palace thing was an unresolved issue that did need to be addressed… Um, there are still two chapters left… please still read them?