They were moving in. Today. How had he ever thought he was looking forward to John returning when he was bringing all this noise with him.

And certain complications.

Like the one that was currently standing on tip-toe, examining his Petri-dish of bacteria that he may have forgotten to get rid of.

"You know my Daddy," she told him as he moved the dish out of her reach.

Sherlock eyed her up. He hadn't realised they made jeans that small, or trainers. It was strange seeing adults' clothes in child size. Clearly John was unsure about hair styles because her hair was in another scruffy ponytail.

"Yes." He settled for saying, throwing a hopeful look at the stairs. John's anger with him had resulted in him being overprotective when it came to Sherlock interacting with the child, which was one of the greatest benefits of the situation.

"We live here now,"

It was embarrassing that he wanted to retreat from his own kitchen, but honestly, it was like talking to Anderson.

Except snapping back would result in John's temper being unleashed.

"Clearly," he said, calculating how far he needed to push his experiments back from the edge so that she couldn't touch anything. Maybe if he ignored her she would go away.

"You live here too."

It was like being tortured. He was agonisingly helpless and unable to fight back. Maybe there was something in the immediate vicinity to distract her. But he was suddenly very aware that he didn't know what was appropriate for small children to play with.

He made some affirmative noise.

"Daddy won't stay mad at you forever, he's happy to see you again."

What?

By the time Sherlock had turned to stare at her she was running out of the kitchen and thudding up the stairs and Sherlock was just left in a room with boxes waiting to be taken upstairs.

It annoyed him that he spent a good five minutes lingering over that last statement. Coming from a child who thought it was necessary to point out that they all lived under the same roof, he was probably giving her over-active imagination far too much credit.

Lestrade's office hadn't changed in the five years since Sherlock had been away. There were precious few officers about as he entered the building. A few gave him a questioning looks as if they knew him from somewhere but couldn't quite place him.

The office itself was still organised in Lestrade's own particular way. Sherlock opened the file with the keys he had liberated yesterday and pulled out the unsolved cold cases. Throwing them carelessly onto the desk he sat in Lestrade's surprisingly comfortable chair and started to separate them into piles

Obvious
Potential
Interesting.

He was looking through the penultimate file when he heard Lestrade's distinctive voice in the bullpen. Sherlock continued on with his work, wondering if the rest of them were in yet.

The door handle turned.

"Fucking..." Lestrade yelled in shock as his coffee smashed to the floor. He sounded as if he were hyperventilating and Sherlock glanced up from the witness statement to briefly check that he wasn't going to collapse.

Lestrade was grey with shock, his eyes wide and gasping for breath.

Well, at least he'd finally managed to shock someone properly. It had been one of the small secret desires he'd had when he decided to come back.

No one had even bothered to ask him how he'd managed it yet. It was dreadfully annoying.

"J...Jesus, what..." Lestrade was scrubbing his hand over his mouth and then his eyes. "You...you wanker!"

"Must we go through this?" Sherlock asked, turning his attention back to the cold case. "You have an embarrassing amount of these," he waved one of the files from the obvious pile at Lestrade.

"You can't..." Lestrade was still breathing heavily, "You..."

Then he stepped back and slammed the door, shutting himself out of the room. Sherlock watched the door carefully over the paper and then twisted the chair slightly so he was angled just so to look through the slanted blinds covering the window to see some of the officers coming forward, looking concerned.

Lestrade remained out of his eye-line. But he could see Donovan, who had changed her hair, and Anderson among those stepping forward.

Excellent.

"Would you just bloody check it for me?" Lestrade exploded outside the door.

It was Donovan who opened the door this time.

"Good morning Sally," Sherlock greeted warmly, looking at the crime scene photographs. "And how are we today?"

There was no reply. In fact, there was dead silence everywhere.

"I take it Mycroft forgot to send you a message," Sherlock sighed, enjoying himself suddenly. How often was it that one got to be brought back to life?

"You're all seeing this, right?" Lestrade asked gruffly. When Sherlock glanced over at him he seemed to be regaining his composure slightly.

"Yes." Donovan was frozen in the doorway looking as if her worst nightmare had just come true.

He half hoped it had.

Lestrade rolled his eyes and stared upwards for a long time.

"Sherlock?"

"Yes, Inspector?"

"Get out of my chair."

"So you're alive?"

"Clearly," Sherlock shifted in the chair opposite Lestrade's that was no-where near as comfortable.

"Christ, I can't get my head round this," Lestrade couldn't stop staring at him. "I went to your funeral."

"I know,"

Lestrade's look of shock changed suddenly, "You were there?" he asked sounding disgusted.

"I was informed." Sherlock shook his head, "Really, would I go to my own funeral if I was trying to convince everyone that I was dead?"

"Yes," Lestrade shook his head, "You're bloody well arrogant enough to do it,"

Sherlock glanced away and at the window which gave him a fractured image of what was happening behind him. "John told me." he said eventually.

"You've seen him?" Lestrade asked, sounding a bit softer now.

Sherlock caught himself nodding distractedly and pulled himself back to the reason he was there.

"These cases," he tapped a finger on them, "Do you want my input?"

Lestrade sighed and leant back, "It can't be the way it was before, Sherlock. No blogs, no showing off, no playing games with Moriarty."

"I can assure you there will be no more blogs," Sherlock snapped. "As for Moriarty...I suspect he will target me again sooner or later. But he won't use the same method twice."

Lestrade looked away, "You need to come to me if it happens."

"What possible use would it have done-"

"It would have done something." Lestrade yelled suddenly, then seemed to catch himself, "You forced us all to operate blind when you pulled away to sort things out on your own. You knew what he was going to do and you played us because it fit into your plans."

"It worked-"

"You don't always know best," Lestrade snarled. He smiled wolfishly, "Have them," he pushed the pile towards Sherlock but his hand stayed on the pile when Sherlock reached for them. "I want step-by-step accounts and reasoning. I want evidence that I can use in court and that can never be used against me or against you."

"You're being absurd." Sherlock glared, "And you'll slow me down,"

"Then don't have them," Lestrade pulled the folders back.

Sherlock allowed a smile to ghost across his face, "Do you expect me to believe that you would rather have these remained unsolved? Tut, tut Inspector, I had expected more of you."

Lestrade paled.

Then caught Sherlock's hand and yanked him across the desk.

"It isn't always about you," He snarled, "My squad spent months cleaning up your mess, going over and over the old cases and putting the new ones at risk to protect the reputation of Scotland Yard. And, after all that work, what do we discover? That you were right. In every single one of them. Do you have any idea how much manpower was wasted? How thinly stretched we were? How horrified we were that we'd been taken for fools and lost you because of it?" Lestrade threw his hand away as if it were something filthy. "And you have the audacity to come in here and act as if it was all a big joke and nothing really happened?"

Sherlock settled himself back down into his seat as if trying to get comfortable and ignoring the strange feelings that were twisting inside of him.

"Think it over," Lestrade scooped the files up. "'Cause I won't put my people through that again."

Sherlock drummed his fingers on the side of the chair, stopping when he recognised the beat as the one that Moriarty had drummed out when they'd had tea together.

Lestrade should have been promoted by now. It was hard to tell with the man whether he'd refused an offer or whether one hadn't been made because of the scandal that Sherlock had caused; the man was a consummate professional about such things. And he looked worn and ragged, which probably meant he and his wife had finally given up on the disastrous marriage within the last year.

"Don't do that," Lestrade huffed, taking a deep sip of the coffee someone had gotten to replace the one he'd dropped earlier.

"How detailed do you want these notes to be?" Sherlock asked eventually.

Surprise flickered across Lestrade's face as if he had expected there to be more of a fight. "Enough that I can follow them during the case and then written up for..." Lestrade floundered and then a hint of a grin crossed his face, "Anderson to make sense of."

Sherlock hissed in displeasure.

"You could ask John to help. Half the time I used his blogs when trying to explain to a jury. That was, of course, on the rare occasion he wrote it up in time for the court case." Lestrade added.

"That is unlikely to happen," Sherlock confessed tracing the wood grains in the chairs arm instead of tapping.

"He hasn't forgiven you then?" Lestrade asked.

"He will," Sherlock said simply, because it was the utter truth, "But it will never be what it was."

"Have you met the kid?"

Sherlock nodded, "John has returned to Baker Street."

Despite Sherlock being relatively sure that there hadn't been a catch in his voice or any other indication of quite how difficult that was Lestrade seemed to, for once, make some intuitive leap. "That doesn't mean a thing though does it?" Lestrade asked after a moment.

Sherlock curled his lip in annoyance, not wishing to dignify the comment with an answer.

"So you don't want my help?"

The question was asked so lightly that Sherlock almost felt confused, "What possible use could you be?"

"Good bye Sherlock," Lestrade took another swig of his coffee and sat back with a challenging smile, "Have a few days to think my offer over."

It was the first time he'd ever left the office feeling more confused than when he'd entered.

Unwilling to endure company, he'd found himself wandering around London and somehow ending up, of all places, on the pavement at Barts.

Slowly he craned his neck up to the roof, stepping back and trying to see it as John must have done. The blood, the crowds, the tears, the screams.

Uncomfortable, he stepped back, gripping onto the wall as a wave of nausea threatened to overwhelm him.

He couldn't regret it. He couldn't regret keeping them alive that day or keeping them safe. But he'd never expected that they would react as they had.

Mrs Hudson's tears.

Lestrade's fury.

John's agony.

"You should not be here," Mycroft said from the alleyway. "It is best if people forget."

"What raised your suspicion?" Sherlock asked, ignoring the advice.

Mycroft walked out of the alleyway and joined Sherlock, "You would never had made him watch if you didn't have to."

"He's seen worse," Sherlock said tightly, and it was true. How often had John woken up in the night from some half lurking memory of his time as a soldier.

"Worse?" Mycroft enquired politely, "I saw the statement," For a horrific moment Sherlock dreaded that Mycroft would actually present him with it but his brother simply shifted where he stood as if to get a better angle. "You were very thorough,"

Sherlock raised his eyes once again to the roof top. He hadn't felt thorough when he'd stood on the edge with Moriarty bleeding behind him.

"Go home, Sherlock." Mycroft said into their silence.

John was sitting in his chair when Sherlock got back, an untouched beer in his hand as he stared into space.

"Productive day?" John asked, taking what had to be his first sip.

Not now.

Sherlock ignored him and started to unwind his scarf.

"I saw Greg today."

Greg? Oh, Lestrade.

Sherlock slipped his coat off, folded it, and placed it over his scarf on the back of the chair.

"You're a bastard for doing that to him," John said taking another sip and turning. "He didn't deserve that, Sherlock."

Sherlock gripped the chair through his coat and closed his eyes, trying to steady himself.

"None of us deserved it," John added, turning away again.

"Three assassins, three names, two call off codes."

Out of the corner of his eye he saw John stiffen and turn again, properly turning this time to stare at him.

"What?" John asked as he put the beer down. "What does that mean?"

"There were three assassins, with three names. Moriarty could call them off with a verbal code."

"What do you mean three-" John cut himself off and looked like he'd been punched, "Oh god."

"You, Mrs Hudson and Lestrade." Sherlock stared at his hands as they gripped his coat and noted how pale they suddenly seemed. He'd been spending more time than usual just sitting indoors.

He needed a case.

John's breathing was erupting in staccato jabs that sounded viciously painful in the quiet of the flat.

"You said two call off codes," John said standing slowly, "What was the other one?"

Sherlock lifted his eyes to the table, noting the thin plastic school bag that was sat among his notes.

"Sherlock-" John choked out as if pleading for Sherlock to deny the obvious.

"Yes," he said, confirming it. "Fall," he said despising the sound of it on his own lips. "When I tried to get his code, he faked a suicide and was unconscious."

He turned not quite daring to look at John yet, "The sniper, the first one that would start it all off was trained on you. He was watching you through his scope. The call was recorded. Any indication that I hadn't fallen would have resulted in your immediate execution."

John was leaning against the back of the chair, gripping onto it as if it were the only thing in the world keeping him upright.

"They know you're alive," John said after a while, his throat sounding utterly raw.

"But we're playing a new game now," Sherlock spat, "Different rules." He hesitated, hating that he did, "I can't see any way of keeping you out of this," he confessed, noting the fraying handle and ink stain on the school bag.

He stood and took his coat and scarf to dump them in his room, suddenly wanting space. It was at least half an hour before he ventured out again. John hadn't gone upstairs so clearly he still felt there was more to be said on the matter.

Warily, Sherlock sat in his chair. John was almost all the way through the bottle now, and was twisting the neck in between two fingers as he held it. Tired blue eyes followed his every movement without comment.

"It's a pity Anderson was there," John said eventually, "You could have scared the shit out of him when you turned up at a crime scene."

"It wasn't to be," Sherlock said, selecting the response that was least likely annoy John. In turn, John narrowed his eyes and studied him silently.

"Do you know what Lestrade said to me, on our first case?"

Sherlock shook his head.

"He said that you were a great man." John took a sip. "And that someday, if we were lucky, you might even be a good one."

"I'm sure he'd retract that statement now," Sherlock muttered, wishing he'd thought to get a drink before returning to this conversation.

"Funny, I was just thinking that this might be the first time in years that he'd actually believe it again."

Traitorous hope bloomed in his chest and it took everything Sherlock had to squash it back down, swallow it, so the emotion didn't show on his face.

He had no idea what to say to that.

"I have a question," John said, stirring himself suddenly and placing the beer on the side. "Just one."

It panicked Sherlock that he couldn't guess what John was going to ask. Too many emotions, too many possibilities, too many things left unsaid between them.

He nodded tightly, still not trusting his own voice.

John leaned forward, scrubbing his hands together, elbows on his knees, linking his fingers, and meeting Sherlock's gaze, stare for stare.

"Are you ever going to buy any sodding milk?"

He couldn't help the laugh that flew out of him. The sheer relief that the question gave.

John smiled and stood, taking his beer, "Good night, Sherlock."