Well, this is it, the final chapter. Thank you all for the last four months, it's been an amazing first experience. Thanks to all the readers, followers, people who commented, and people who gave me the great pleasure of putting this story on their favorites.
But most of all, I want to thank the amazing Old Ping Hai, who I've had the great pleasure of working with, and who beta this story wonderfully, and managed to deal with my problematic English and with the time differences. Besides being my proof-reader, she is also a great friend, who I've met during this wonderful experience, and this all story is dedicated to her.

Well, this is it then, I hope you love my story. It means the world to me.
Hope see you all soon on other projects :)

John P.O.V.

I cannot be more frustrated than I am right now; one moment I'm inhaling Sherlock's unique scent deeply, and the next I feel the damn bullet in my damn leg! Haven't I been shot enough times already?!

I clutch at Sherlock's shoulders as I feel the burning pain caused by the bullet and lose my ability to stand.

I slide slowly to the floor, numerous curses running through my head as I look at my leg and see that the bullet might have hit the artery. Dying over blood loss isn't something I wished for myself. Ever.

Sherlock is yelling, but I can't really hear him; the pain is too strong and I'm already beginning to feel a bit lightheaded from all the blood loss.

"Sherlock," I finally manage to hiss, "do you know how to improvise a tourniquet?" Sherlock looks at me as if he's the one going into shock; his eyes are wide and filled with fear, but eventually he nods, takes off his shirt and starts making it into a tourniquet. When he finds a stick with which to apply pressure, I rest my hand on his shaking one, and stop him.
He looks at me with even more fear in his eyes. He starts mumbling apologies and begins to twist the stick that is supposed to make enough pressure to stop the bleeding.

Now I can understand why all the soldiers that I put tourniquets on screamed even louder than they had from the pain that caused the injury.
I'm on the edge of asking Sherlock to just leave me here to die, but I know that I can't ask him that; and in any case, the pain is worth dealing with so that I can have a life with Sherlock when it all ends.

"Is there anything else I can do?" Sherlock asks miserably, after he checks to make sure that the bleeding has indeed stopped. I try my best to smile at him, but I feel too weak to do so, and just tell him to call the ambulance. He nods quietly again and takes his phone out of his pants pocket. The second he starts dialing we hear the 'click' of a gun being loaded above us.

When Sherlock raises his head, the emotionless mask is back on his face, except for glimmers of revenge and anger. "Sebastian Moran, I presume," he says quietly and rises to his feet.

"Sherlock Holmes, what a pleasure. And you must be his degenerate sidekick." Moran is looking at me with disgust in his eyes, and I can't help but return the same deadly look.

"Don't you dare talk to John, you aren't even worth the dirt beneath his feet."
Sherlock takes another step toward Moran and whips out his own gun.

"Or what? He's already dying." Sherlock points the gun at Moran and loads it with a set of bullets.

"He is not dying," he hisses angrily and gives me a quick glance to see that he is right, which of course he is; Sherlock knows enough about the human body to know that it will take longer than a few minutes for me to die, especially with the painful tourniquet.

"Come on, Sherlock, go ahead. Shoot. There's a lot of us out there, you know, people who are willing to die for what our beloved mentor thought us- and you killed him. Do you really think that if the two of you get out of this today, you'll survive tomorrow? With your sweet little child. We'll kill her just the way we killed her mother." As I hear him mention Rachel, and the fact that he killed Mary, I can't even control the impulse and I take out my own gun to shoot the motherfucker.

"Don't, John. He isn't worth it. What do you want? If you wanted to kill us you would have done that by now, it's not that you value human life, so what is it then? And if you don't mind, talk quickly, we're a bit in a hurry," Sherlock says and gives a quick glance on my injured leg.
"Oh, Sherlock, I thought it was obvious. I want you to suffer, just like you made me suffer the loss of the most brilliant man I've ever known.
"So, you know, I shot your dear brother, the important Holmes; and I would have managed to kill him if it weren't for that stupid assistant of his. Less than another minute in the street and he would have died. Too bad. Oh well, but guess how thrilled I was when I heard that precious Mummy Holmes had a heart attack when she heard that her favorite son had almost died. I almost felt sorry for her, but then I remembered that she's your mother, so she isn't worth a second thought. Poor Mycroft, though. Even when almost dying he still carries the burden of being the favorite son. I didn't notice your mother having a heart attack when you almost died."
Moran smiles widely at Sherlock, whose face stiffens, and his entire painful family history and childhood is clearly visible on his face for a mere second. All the things I didn't know about Sherlock's childhood are painfully clear in his hurt expression, but not for long; as Sherlock pulls himself together and lets the cold mask appear on his face again.

His hands tighten on the grip of the gun, and he swallows hard before continuing in an emotionless, cold tone: "So you want to make me suffer by hurting my family? Not very original, really, I was expecting something a bit more sophisticated from one of Moriarty's. Other than that, I'm not very close to my family, and hurting them has no influence on me whatsoever. Next time, do your research properly."

Sebastian's smile fades for a split second, but then gets even wider.
"Oh, but Sherlock, this is just the beginning: your little toy here is next, and afterward his little baby. Well, now it's your little baby, too, since I got rid of the mother for you. You're welcome by the way," he says smugly and I can't help myself but finally speak up when I hear this horrible scenario.

"If you or any of your psychos ever get anywhere near Rachel, I'll make sure that you'll wish you were dead. You'll pay for what you did to my wife, and to Mycroft." Moran narrows his eyes and smiles wickedly. He looks like a cartoon villain, which is honestly creepy.

"There are hundreds of them, Doctor, and they are all after you two- well, three if you consider the baby, but it will be easy to kill her- like a bonus." Before I can even register what he said, Sherlock has already fired his gun, and within a second Moran is on the floor, dead, with a nice hole in the middle his forehead.

"Sherlock!" I yell at him, "what have you done?!" Sherlock sits on the floor next to me and pulls me close to him in a tight hug. Still shocked, I can't even put my own arms around him and he pushes back and takes his phone out of his pocket.
"Molly, hey," he says with a fake sweet smile, " how's the little one? Still asleep? Good, good... Listen, I need to take John to the hospital and I'll be there to pick her up in an hour, okay? Keep a close eye on her. Yes, yes he's..." Sherlock clears is throat and looks at me helplessly, "he's fine, I'll tell you everything when I see you." He hangs up the phone. We both sigh in relief to hear that our sweet daughter is still safe and sound. After another minute he calls the ambulance and sits next to me on the floor as we wait for the paramedics. He lets me lean my head on his shoulder in comfort as we stare at the dead body in front of us.

"Is this going to become a habit of yours? To shot people in the head?" He puts an arm around my shoulder and pulls me closer to him.
"If I have to. Is this going to become a habit of yours? Getting shot? Because I must admit, it will kill me someday." I giggle and look at him fondly.
"If I have to. Now my limp isn't going to be psychosomatic, is it?"
"There will be no limp, I assure you. You'll be just as good as new in a day or two." Sherlock leans his head on mine, and we just sit there quietly until the paramedics finally arrive- it's about time, school is about to start and we don't want children to see a dead man and a badly injured man if they can easily avoid it.

They call the police. It is only to be expected, but Sherlock insists that they at least send me to the hospital, which they are only willing to do if Sherlock stays with them. Without any other choice, Sherlock and I split up as they put me in the ambulance and send me to Bart's at Sherlock's request.

Three hours later my minor surgery is already over (no permanent damage to my leg- thank god) and there's still no sign of Sherlock.
I have almost fallen asleep when Greg enters the room smiling smugly and sits next to my bed.
"I'm glad to see that you're okay," he says after a long minute of awkward silence.
"Yes, I'm fine. Sherlock called you, I presume." He shrugs and nods. "Thank you, John, for finding that guy and... hmm..." he looks uncomfortable and gives a quick glance at the door, as if he were afraid someone might overhear us. "Anyway, you have nothing to worry about, I managed to take it off both of you. It never happened." I nod and want to smile at him, but I have too much on my mind to even seriously try.
There's another awkward silence for a couple of seconds, until a tall, dark-haired figure storms into the room with a little baby girl in his arms.

I smile before I realize it, and feel all the emotions stirring wonderfully in the pit of my stomach. My two favorite people in the world have just appeared, and really, who needs more than that?
"How do you feel?" Sherlock asks and kisses my temple lightly. Greg clears his throat uncomfortably, and Sherlock just gives him one of his deadliest stares. I giggle and Sherlock's stare becomes an amused one.

"Feel good, probably because of the morphine though. We should consider getting a supply for when I get out of here. How is she? And oh, how's Mycroft?" I turn to ask Greg, embarrassed that I haven't thought about Mycroft sooner.
"He's fine, just like you actually; happy to have morphine pouring into his blood." I start laughing at the image of Mycroft high; both Sherlock and Greg seem to know what I am thinking about and they start to laugh along.

We pass the next hour talking about what happened with Moran, and what we'll do after getting out of here, but mainly, we talk about Moran's threat that there are a lot of other psychos after us. Greg reassures us of his maximum assistance in order to stop any of them who might try to harm us. In the middle of the conversation I come to the conclusion that all of this actually feels like we are all one very weird family: Sherlock, Mycroft, Greg, Rachel and me. Sherlock looks at me and seems (as usual) to know exactly what I think. I'm expecting an impatient eye-rolling or something as rude or annoyed as that, but instead he just gives me a warm smile and a shrug- it's better than anything else I could have wanted.

"Well then," Greg says and gets up to his feet, "I'm going to check on Mycroft and get some coffee. Want some?" We both nod and smile politely at the offer. As Greg is about to leave the room, Sherlock stops him. "Les- Greg," he clears his throat and seems satisfied to see that he finally guessed the right name. "I just want you to know that... hmm... you're not that bad, and I'm happy for you and Mycroft." He says quickly, both Greg and I exchange surprised look, not really sure that we heard right, but before Sherlock gets a chance to feel sorry, and in order to make him feel more comfortable, Greg just smiles playfully and asks :×´you despise me, don't you?" Sherlock smiles back and seems thankful for how Greg reacted to his surprising emotional utterance.
"If I gave you any thought I probably would." Greg nods and leaves the room, still smiling to himself.

"What now?" I ask Sherlock after a while of just talking about every subject that pops into our heads.
Sherlock shrugs and smiles wryly.
"I don't know, I guess we'll just... live our lives, go on cases, raise Rachel; isn't that enough?"
"That sounds perfect. So no developing the new habit of shooting people in the head?" I ask him and we both giggle; we're probably the only two people who can understand one another.
"Only if it's absolutely necessary," he says eventually and rests his hand on my healthy leg.

"You love me," I say to him after a few minutes of comfortable, peaceful silence. It's probably the morphine talking though.
"Wait, what?" Sherlock asks and arches his eyebrows. He starts laughing and shakes his head at this unusual statement.
"Admit it, Sherlock Holmes, you, love me." I say smugly and fold my arms on my chest.
"Of course I love you, you idiot." He shakes his head again, and seems taken aback for a second, as I give him an insulted look. "Oh don't look at me like that, you know what I mean," he says in response to my offended stare.
I sigh dramatically and smile at him, with all the love and emotions I have for this unbelievable man.
"I do, and I love you, too. Idiot."

Fin.