John sat in the chair, elbows on knees, head in hands. He raised his head as Sherlock opened the door with such synchronisation that Sherlock would have been fooled into believing John had been waiting for the door to open if it weren't for the expression on John's face.

Sherlock stepped in, his steps sounding loud against the threadbare carpet as John watched him. The shadows hid John's face as he sat back.

He was dressed casually in jeans and a jumper. His feet bare. Every movement was stilted and pained, his breathing careful.

The light was at a bad angle to tell anything that he hadn't seen in his brief glimpse hours ago.

He'd imagined this moment too many times to be considered healthy, too many times to excuse as idle musing. The most likely scenario had been anger. Fury. Lectures of how cruel Sherlock had been to leave them believing that he had committed suicide. The frustration that had John raise his voice and then catch himself as if realising he'd lost control.

Less likely had been tears. But then Sherlock hadn't expected him to cry at his grave, so it had to be a considered option.

But this silence was painful. Unwelcome. Unexpected.

Anything was better than this.

And, out of the depths of his memory, rose another day where this had happened. Where John had reacted stoically and had been unresponsive to Sherlock's attempts at...clarifying what he'd meant at Baskerville.

"I did tell you," he said, pitching his voice to annoy John, "I'm far more stubborn than you are, John,"

Funny doesn't suit you. Stick to ice.

Nothing.

Then John laughed. A horrible, hysterical sound of someone who was close to screaming or crying and didn't know what to do. A shattering of control that made Sherlock more uncomfortable than the tears that had coursed down John's face at the graveyard. It made him pause and freeze, hating the fact that he simply didn't know what to do.

When John buried his face in his hands again, Sherlock felt free again. Free to move away from it and leave John to regain his composure.

In the kitchen, an uncooked omelette sat waiting. There were crumbs, butter, and a jam stained knife on the side. The child then, sorting out a sandwich.

Children were so terribly messy.

He opened the cupboard by the sink, knowing John's method of organisation and feeling oddly relieved that he hadn't lost that much of John in the years that had passed. There was a picture on the fridge, a child's drawing that seemed wrong somehow. Filling the glass he flickered his eyes at the two doors that led off from the main room.

Bathroom, one bedroom.

That was hopeful then, if John was used to sharing a bedroom with the child.

The thought took him by surprise as he handed the glass to John without comment. He didn't want to prod at why.

John emptied the glass quickly, his fingers tightening on the glass afterwards.

Stressed. Tired. Close to collapse.

"I realise it must be a shock..." Sherlock begun then stopped himself from the meaningless platitude. Because it was wrong, completely wrong.

It was a surprise to see him. Certainly John hadn't expected to see him on the doorstep but it hadn't been the disbelieving shock that it should have been.

"What?" John said, sounding so tired that the truth of his statement jolted through Sherlock.

John was barely even ruffled to see Sherlock alive.

"You're not shocked." Sherlock said, noting dimly how easy it was to fall back into the habit of talking his thoughts through at John. "You're not in denial or demanding an explanation. You're not even angry..." He hissed suddenly, the answer screaming at him. "You knew."

"That you were alive?" John sat back, looking ill, "Yes," he confirmed, without any real effort or care.

This wasn't right, this wasn't how it was meant to go. John was meant to have moved on, not just...stopped.

"How?" Sherlock demanded, desperate for a distraction from the concrete evidence of how badly he had miscalculated this.

"Can you not figure it out?" John asked blankly, despite the challenge in his question.

Mycroft had been unsure. He hadn't let it slip to John.

Molly? Doubtful. The pair had no reason to meet up, and John would keep away from the topic to spare Molly and her unrequited crush.

Had John spotted something? Had he experienced a nagging doubt at the back of his mind. He had been the only one to fully witness the event.

And the one who it had been designed to fool.

"There was nothing that would have indicated I was alive." Sherlock said after a few minutes. "The funeral and arrangements were flawless."

Correct me, he urged silently, show me what I missed.

But John turned away, closed his eyes and pulled away.

He hadn't seen a thing-

Moriarty.

It stunned Sherlock how much the idea ripped through him. It was all too easy to picture; Moriarty's crowing glee at the fact that John hadn't known, his usual manipulative skew on the situation.

The still of their suspected first meeting burned in Sherlock's head. The defeated air that had been horrifically easy to read.

Moriarty had told John, and John was about burned out trying to cope, sorting out the fact from the fiction. Stretched to breaking point and was so achingly close to that edge that Sherlock wanted to...

He had no idea what he wanted to do.

He wanted to know.

The bruise that wrapped around John's throat was clearer now that the moon was back from behind the clouds. When John offered no reaction, Sherlock reached out, a solitary finger pulling back the collar to study the shoulder that always gave John so much trouble, briefly skating against warm flesh and tender swelling.

It sickened him.

John's eyes opened when he didn't move away and there was, mercifully, a faint smudge of Sherlock, what the hell do you think you're doing?in his eyes.

"Mycroft said you'd had a tussle," He said, seeing the scratches now, the scrapes and the less obvious afflictions, despite the poor light.

John snorted, "I'd hate to see what he calls a real fight,"

There.

John.

His John.

Somehow Sherlock managed to turn the sigh of relief into a normal exhale. The glimmer of normality spurned him on, no longer worried that John might suddenly snap when he looked for the clues he could take.

A fight. A proper one, unlike what John had encountered in the entire time that Sherlock had known him. His attacker had been taller, taken him by surprise, likely from behind, and had been trying to asphyxiate him, as shown from the multiple lines of bruises around his throat and shoulders. The attacker had kept going for it and John had escaped somehow.

Not just escaped. The hand was the only thing he'd tended to, the bandage crisp, as if he'd taken pride. John had won the fight then, probably through the injury, and had been proud enough in that fact that he had been comfortable with that injury.

"Going to give me a blow by blow description?" John asked bitterly, a challenge finally in his voice.

The sharp twang of anger and hurt colouring his words for the first time.

It was like watching someone slowly come back to life and it was intoxicating. It had been far too long since he'd seen emotions dance across John's face, since he'd had cause to attempt to control the expressions John could give for the simple fascination of watching the honest intricacy that he so seldom saw on others.

"Why bother? You were there." He wanted annoyance, disappointment. Instead he received bitter amusement.

Sherlock despised not knowing every single iota of John Watson. There had been a time where he could have predicted where the man would stand in an empty room just from a glance, and how likely it was that he would allow Sherlock to use his phone from the way he climbed the stairs.

It was hateful, being blind-sided.

"So was your brother," John muttered, "Now the two of you can discuss it in all its glorious detail."

Mycroft.

There?

"The day we saw an associate of Moran's attack John Watson. It took us less than three hours to see what had been happening."

It had probably taken less than three seconds. Sherlock pulled away, not wanting John to see the surprise on his face or the threatening sneer. Mycroft had led Moriarty who had told John who had probably sneered it at Mycroft, believing that Mycroft was already aware.

What a neat circle of events.

"Indeed," He replied, able to keep his voice even, "You did not go to the hospital."

From John's reaction, Mycroft had clearly suggested it.

Mycroft had conducted a conversation with John and then waited until Sherlock had sent the text days later. He had left John in this mess for what reason? A punishment? A lesson? Sheer damned boredom?

John could barely keep his head up as he shook it. Couldn't see the way Sherlock closed his eyes and clicked his jaw to prevent the words from spewing up and out.

Now was not the time.

He reached for the uninjured hand, noting still the bruises on the knuckles. John had fought ferociously, and the fact that he'd done it while Sherlock had been sitting in some hotel room, bored, almost had his hands tighten around the so utterly capable one he was holding.

"Get up." he said, "You'll do yourself no favours if you fall asleep in the chair."

John practically collapsed against him when he stood. It was as if he was drunk or high. No matter how Sherlock tried, he couldn't get the image of John's usual soldier stance out of his head. The straight back, shoulders back, and head level frame seemed to dance in front of his eyes, taunting him.

Inside the bedroom was the child, asleep on a little bed. John's was next to it, the space so small it stopped Sherlock at the threshold. It was plain, without anything but a wardrobe.

Where were the pictures? The strange keepsakes? The medical books? Unless they were in the bathroom, it seemed John had dumped them, even the ones he kept for purely sentimental value.

The walls were chipped, the bed clean but faded. Old, probably third or fourth hand.
Sherlock had done this. One look, one glance at John in five years would have put a stop to all this before it even started.

I overestimated you, Mycroft's voice taunted as he aimed John towards the bed.

And, as always, he'd underestimated John, who, despite appearing to be struggling to hold himself upright, pulled away with surprising strength and went for the child instead.

Clearly very attached then. It was unlikely he'd ever entertain any notion of sending the child away.

Sherlock eyed the sleeping girl carefully. Children tended to sleep and go to school, which would spare him from having to put up with it too much. Mrs Hudson might even decide to help; she had indicated that she would have been willing to help John.

"You have a child," he said, unsure how to start the topic. It wasn't as if he'd ever navigated a similar one with John.

"Obviously," John replied in a tone that made Sherlock entertain the idea of smiling. But the way that John was looking at the girl sent nervous shivers through him.

The girl could end them. It was painfully obvious that John's entire world was now currently fast asleep in the bed opposite. But Sherlock had fooled an entire crime syndicate. Coping with a small child would be easy in comparison. He just needed to be careful.

"I know who the mother is," he said, wanting to get that out of the way and determined to phrase it in such a way that John would struggle to find something to react against.

"Then you know there is nothing more to be said on the matter," John replied in the doctor voice that was his version of a roaring declaration of fact.

Sherlock could accept that. After all, Mrs Hudson had told him all that was really needed on the subject. If John wished to close the subject then he could.

Strangely, the conversation had seemed to wake John up. He was alert, eerily reminiscent of a dog that had caught a whiff of a threat to it's household. The shoulders were starting to tense with anger and his mouth was becoming firmer. Even the hand stroking the girl's hair was becoming stiffer, the movements nowhere near as fluid as they had been.

"You're still angry." It was hardly a surprise. More shocking was the way John had resisted it for so long.

"Five years Sherlock. Five whole years." The bite was back.

Thank god. This was familiar. This straining tone that meant John wanted to yell but had too much control to do so.

He wanted more of it.

"I'm aware of that," he replied, addicted to the sound of John's emotions. John snapped his gaze to him, unflinchingly accurate without the light.

"Is it done with then? The cat and mouse game you play with each other?"

Better; now there was frustration, anger, hope, pleading, curiosity, desperation.

"No,"

And every single one of those emotions that he'd just started to soak up vanished, as if John had just flicked a switch at the sound of the word.

"Then why are you here?"

Sherlock couldn't even bring himself to reply to a question that had such a ridiculously obvious answer.

"You should go to sleep John." he said finally, suddenly not wanting to continue the conversation. It was far too...he wasn't sure what it was. Complicated wasn't quite right because he loved complicated.

Draining was better, but still not accurate.

John stared at him for a long moment, so that Sherlock was sure that he was seeing something. But then John ruined that idea.

"You're on my bed."

Of course.

Standing, Sherlock took a step out of John's line, unsure and hating it. And when John buckled,

Sherlock caught him, closing his eyes against his mind's eye that detailed the many injustices that John had suffered.

Painful. Painful was a better word.

And when John collapsed into the bed, still dressed and mostly on the covers, Sherlock couldn't shut the details away any more.

Hurt, tired, humiliated, struggling, aching, too full of pride to ask for help, but so close to begging.

Desperate, lost, shattered.

"I'm sorry."

The words escaped without him intending them to, and the second he heard them he ran from them.

"He was the one who told you," Sherlock snapped as soon as Mycroft answered the phone.

"Do you have any idea of how late it is," Mycroft began.

"As if you sleep," Sherlock sneered, "You knew John was aware that the suicide was a fake."

"He indicated to me that you were alive and seemed to think it was common knowledge," Mycroft sounded annoyed, "Which by that point it was."

"You should have told me-"

"Why?" Mycroft cut across him. "Because you're the only one that is allowed to keep secrets now?"

"I had a right to know the facts-"

"I did not think it wise to ensure that the first thing you demanded from John Watson was information about James Moriarty." Mycroft snapped, "As it was, I was amazed you managed to keep his name out of the first three minutes."

Sherlock hung up the call in a fit of peevishness.

It seemed like a wise idea to wait until the child was at school.

John answered the door without greeting him this time, and just turned away to the tiny kitchen to continue making the tea.

With purposefully only one cup.

"You still haven't gone to a doctor-"

"I don't need to go to a doctor." John said, clinking his spoon around the cup in a way he knew irritated Sherlock. "It looks worse than it is."

In the harsh light of day it looked even more startling than it had last night. But John was right; there was nothing broken and nothing that wouldn't heal from time.

"You aren't going to ask how I did it then?" Sherlock asked, blocking the tiny doorway.

John smiled bitterly, "No." He tossed the spoon in the sink. "Are you going to ask about my meetings with Moriarty?"

"No," Sherlock replied easily. Even with this harrowing distance between them, it had been obvious that John would ask that question at some point.

"No?" John asked, taking a sip and leaning his hip against the counter. He kept his right hip from touching it, which indicated yet another injury.

Sherlock shook his head sharply once as he tore his eyes away from the counter and the hip.

"Why are you here?" John asked with a sigh.

"You can't not know the answer to that," Sherlock hissed.

John shook his head, amused, "I'm not buying it Sherlock. We've been apart longer than we knew each other. I doubt I stood out that much."

"Don't be self-deprecating, it doesn't suit you," Sherlock snapped, shifting suddenly.

John's eyes narrowed and then he stared fixedly at a spot above Sherlock's head, "He came to the bar I was working at and-"

"I don't want to know."

He did. He desperately did.

"-threatened my daughter, implied that he'd had something to do with Harry's death and then made me make him a coffee." John's mouth twisted as his eyes snapped and burned with the humiliation.

"With a biscuit," he added, fingers turning white on the cup. "Then he came here-"

"Enough." Sherlock snapped, closing his eyes, "I...I didn't come here for that."

"No," Only one side of John's mouth twisted upwards. "I imagine Mycroft has the fucking transcripts."

Sherlock wrinkled his nose at that, "Give him a little more time John, he's only been looking for a week."

As intended, the shock put a momentary pause on John's anger.

"I'm sorry?" John put the cup down slowly and precisely on the side.

"You told Mycroft," Sherlock made some useless gesture with his hands. "He'd convinced himself I was dead."

"No..."John seemed to struggle for a moment, "I...Moriarty..." Then he laughed, as if realising the futility of using Moriarty as a basis for any truth, "Moriarty seemed convinced that Mycroft knew."

"He was," Part of Sherlock bristled at the idea that no-one seemed to think him capable without Mycroft peering over his shoulder. "He was also wrong." It annoyed him how doubtful John seemed at that; there had been a time when John would have looked like that about him.

Squeezing his eyes shut John shook his head, "I...I don't...I can't do this." He opened his eyes but continued to shake. "I have a child, I have responsibilities. I cannot...Just...I'm done," He started to nod slowly, "I'm sorry, Sherlock, but I'm done with it."

"Moriarty will not-"

"He's done with me," John snapped, "I was the draw to get you to come back. And now you're here, back in his playground again, and you can start trying to kill each other or impress each other all over again. But so help me, Sherlock, I won't watch it. Not again. I will not..." His voice had become scratched and painful and he just shook his head, "I will not stand at your grave again." he said quickly, as if wanting to get rid of the words before he thought about them. "I won't do it."

"I have no intention-"

"You never do." John picked up the tea, clearly wanting something in his hands. "Still happens though."

"You want this to be it then?" Sherlock demanded, backing up threateningly towards the door. "The last time we ever talk, the last time we see each other?"

It backfired.

"Well, Sherlock, the good thing about getting to be your note was that I've already come to terms with that," John remained motionless. He wasn't even tensing to prepare a sudden movement to halt Sherlock. "I'm thinking the second attempt will be a lot easier."

"If that's what you choose to believe." Sherlock said, opening the door.

"Goodbye," John replied firmly with only the slightest quiver in his voice.

Outside the building, Sherlock had to finally succumb to something he had sworn to never again do since the day Mycroft had marched him to the police station when he was twenty two years old and dumped him at the front desk with the bag of cocaine he hadn't gotten to the night before.

"I need your help," He ground out as Mycroft answered the phone.

A day later, John texted him.

Congratulations, you win.

Ordinary people might have felt guilty but Sherlock just felt relief.

The sound of Mrs Hudson making a fuss had Sherlock leaping from the sofa where he'd been debating about the upcoming meeting with Lestrade and his team.

There was no way of denying it would be awkward. Whether it would be beneficial to minimise or capitalise on that was another story.

"Oh Sherlock, look who it is," Mrs Hudson beamed at him as he descended the stairs. "He's just as bad as you at keeping out of trouble."

The bruises had faded, leaving only the faintest traces of existence. And the soldier stance was returning.

And the attitude.

"A word," John inclined his head at the ceiling with icy precision before turning back to Mrs Hudson with a warmth that was startling in comparison. "Will you be in later?"

"I'm popping out to see a friend later,"

"I won't be long," John was practically ignoring Sherlock now, "Just need to hammer out a few details and then I'll be back down."

"Oh," Mrs Hudson smiled, "I have missed our chats. Especially with him back," she looked over at Sherlock with fond exasperation, "And the experiments." she added.

John shot Sherlock a frosty look, "Twenty minutes," he promised Mrs Hudson.

Sherlock took it as a challenge.

John was impressive in the way he hid his reaction to returning to the flat. He almost covered up the change of pace in his walk as he entered their sitting room and the way his eyes darted to their chairs and the table. He determinedly didn't look at the bullet holes from one of Sherlock's bored days or at the window where Sherlock had often stood.

He did, however, stop dead at the sight of the kitchen.

"It's big," he said eventually.

"It's empty," Sherlock corrected, sitting in John's chair. "It's not grown,"

"You can never tell with that kitchen," John muttered under his breath as if nothing had changed.

Then he shook himself and turned.

And stared in annoyance at Sherlock's choice of seat.

"I was under the impression you wanted to act as if we were room-mates and nothing more," Sherlock leaned back, "What does it matter what chair I'm sitting in."

"Because I happen to know what you were covered in on the various occasions that you sat in that chair," John jabbed a finger at the still empty one opposite Sherlock.

"As you pointed out John, it has been five years." Sherlock smiled, "Have a seat while we "hammer out the details,""

"No experiments," John said, refusing to sit and jumping straight to it.

"No," Sherlock steepled his fingers, "I said I would compromise, not roll over,"

"No, of course not. That's my job in all this, isn't it?" John took a deep breath and then flung his hands up in defeat, "Do what you want." he said turning away, "I don't even know why I'm bothering to_"

"No toxic substances." Sherlock cut through John. "No explosives. The body parts will be kept in a box or coloured bag so they aren't immediately apparent."

John watched him as if Sherlock were about to admit to insanity any second now. "And that will last for how long?"

"Until the child grows out of the age where she puts things she shouldn't in her mouth and screeches as the sight of human flesh." Surely the child would become acclimatised to his expectations within a year or two.

John shook his head, staring at the corner, "I don't believe you," he said, tautly frank.

"I wouldn't waste the breath saying it if I didn't mean it," Sherlock snapped.

John smiled in a rather assaulting manner. "You can't play the violin at all hours. Children who get woken up in the middle of the night are holy hell the next day."

Sherlock shifted, "I don't have the violin,"

His fingers itched for it, though. A glance at the flicker of guilt that crossed John's eyes told him that he still possessed the instrument, in spite of everything.

Why was the stubborn man fighting him on this?

"You can't just have clients wandering in here at all hours of the day-"

"During school hours?" Sherlock countered twisting his head to John.

John nodded, "Fine," he looked around.

"Any other concerns?" Sherlock asked, as if it were of no consequence to him what John answered.

"One," John narrowed in on Sherlock, "Moriarty isn't to come here again." his voice threw down the clear ultimatum and probably the one condition he had come to demand.

Sherlock fixed him with a long look. A thousand and one replies crossed through his mind in a fraction of a second.

"He wouldn't survive the attempt," Sherlock replied quietly.

John snorted doubtfully, "Just keep the tea parties with the psychopathic consultant criminal to a minimum," he suggested sarcastically.