Hi!

Thanks to the wonderfully patient proudtobeathreatrekid for editing this chapter. Especially as I took it into my head halfway through to write in a differnt tense and then had to go back and change it all. That's what writing around lesson plans does to you! If there is any of the bad tenses left over then that's all my fault.

Hope you enjoy and warnings for the cusp of slash ahead!

It was unusual to wake up knowing that someone was watching.

Cracking open an eye, Sherlock stared up at the curious face of the child. She was eating some pastry thing that looked utterly foul and was in danger of getting crumbs all over him.

"That isn't where you sleep, is it?" she asked, sounding doubtful.

Sherlock sat up from where he lay on the sofa and looked into the kitchen.

"Daddy's in the shower," she explained, seeing him look around. "He told me to be quiet." she took another bite.

"Are you meant to eat that for breakfast?" He asked, staring at the colourful icing.

She shrugged her shoulders, "It was in the cupboard."

His back ached from the awkward position; he hadn't intended to fall asleep at all but apparently the relief from the previous night's conversation had relaxed him enough for sleep. "Is it a school day?" he asked hopefully.

The child nodded, "We have singing assembly today," she grinned, as if that were a good thing.

And then stared at him expectantly.

Again.

Uncomfortable, he grabbed the remote from the table and thrust it at her. "There," he said, waving a hand at the television as he stood up.

He needed coffee. And if John was in the shower it meant he was going to have to get it himself.

He was halfway to the kettle when an horrendously cheerful voice sung a song about being a nice person.

He changed his direction and went back to bed instead.

He emerged after they had left for the day. He had a vague notion that today was a work day for John,but he wasn't sure.

It was hardly important, as long as John was back doing something that fitted his talents. Either way it was lunch time before John popped back in.

"You don't have to hide in your room every time Ava's here," John said, dumping his boots bag on the table and opening up a pasta salad thing.

Sherlock eyed the food with distaste and continued to examine the growing bacteria.

"I am not hiding," he replied haughtily.

"So when I get back in with her at about quarter to four you'll be out here?" John asked, stabbing a chunk with his fork.

"Two weeks ago you didn't want me anywhere near her," Sherlock muttered, putting down the bacteria in silent acknowledgement that John wasn't going to stop talking long enough for him to study the cultures properly.

"A lot can change in two weeks," John said, flipping open the TV guide.

"You seem...better," Sherlock said, turning to watch him.

"It's amazing how much better you can feel when you have all the facts and don't think your friend is an arrogant, selfish bastard." John said, mildly flashing a smile as he turned a page. "If this is going to work again, Sherlock, you can't ignore Ava."

"I let her put the television on," Sherlock had spent hours deleting the memory of the singing.

John sighed, "Just try."

Sensing an opportunity, Sherlock sat down in the chair opposite.

"Did Lestrade tell you what was discussed yesterday?" Sherlock asked, scrunching his nose up at the salad now that he was even closer.

John paused and looked up at him, "He was telling me how you sat in his chair?" he said, wiping some of the sauce off his lower lip.

"His conditions for allowing me to work on his cases," Sherlock said, steepling his fingers under his chin.

John shook his head and narrowed his eyes when he caught something and then put his fork down.

"What do I have to give you in exchange?" he asked, sounding irritated all over again and folding his arms as he leaned back.

Crossed arms,
leaning back,
pulling away.

"Never mind," Sherlock said, standing. "I'll be back late,"

John didn't say anything as he walked down the stairs and out.

"Fine,"

Lestrade paused in his typing which, Sherlock was relieved to note was somewhat quicker than John's.

"I told you to think about-"

"I need a case," Sherlock snapped, just about resisting the urge to pace, instead allowing his fingers to flicker around each other as he clasped his hands behind his back.

Lestrade studied him in such a way that Sherlock knew he'd say no if he could. But the cold cases were burning a hole in the department's load again. No-one would care if Sherlock saw murders that were years old and no longer of interest to the press.

Slamming a drawer closed in a way that Sherlock assumed was meant to be pointed, Lestrade opened up the filing cabinet using, Sherlock noted, a different key.

That wouldn't be hard to relieve the inspector of.

To his utter irritation, Lestrade handed him a pile of folders. A glance at the top one told Sherlock that he'd been given the pile he'd sorted into the obvious section few days ago.

"These first," Lestrade growled at him. "It should be easy to keep notes with these."

A test.

Fine.

Without another word, Sherlock snatched them from Lestrade's hand and stormed back out the way he came.

They didn't require much leg work. In fact, what they did require was a chair, a laptop and appropriate ranting space.

The flat was out of bounds for obvious reasons. His self-imposed banishment to make it seem as if a five year old was not kicking him out of his own living space was somewhat problematic.

Still, he managed to get some work done between being thrown out of several libraries and one or two particularly snotty cafes.

"You're being an idiot."

The day had been long enough and frustrating enough that Sherlock actually had to bite back the retort that sounded a little bit too childish even in his own head.

"Are you honestly going to avoid coming home now because I've noticed that you're scared of a little girl?" John continued.

Deciding not to dignify John's question with an answer, Sherlock just walked past him, scooped up the laptop and made to move back past him again.

Only John decided to place his foot on the coffee table.

"Sherlock?" John takes a very long, very deep breath as if about to do something unbearable. "What were you going to ask?"

"I'm busy," Sherlock snapped, glancing at the other side of the table, which was leg free, and trying to decide how much he would lose standing in John's eyes if he just admitted defeat and walked around the other way.

"Doing?" John asked, unwilling to let it go.

"My job," Sherlock huffed, "You're getting mud on Mrs Hudson's clean table."

"Says the man who got brain matter ingrained in her sink," John huffed, but dropped his feet all the same, freeing Sherlock.

"That was for the greater good," Sherlock muttered, glancing between John and his own bedroom door.

John frowned, catching his glance, and turned as if expecting to see something. When he looked back there was a shadow of hurt on his face.

"I...I'll get out of your way," John muttered, standing stiffly. "Good night."

There was a momentary flutter where Sherlock considered calling him back. But what would be the point? He'd gotten the living room back to himself, as he'd wanted. Calling John back would surely be counter-productive.

Wouldn't it?

It was only when he'd gotten down to the bottom of the pile that he encountered something interesting.

And not the good kind of interesting.

It was strange. Before John, there had been no need to define what kind of interesting a case was. It had started out as simply a way to avoid that look. The look that most of the detectives gave him when he started to solve a case or the look that he'd been used to receiving when he'd deduced a person. It had been distasteful to have John look at him in the same way, so he had tested ways to avoid it. Then there had been the need to work out which ones he could expect John to smile over and not react with a fuming glare when Sherlock started to enjoy himself. At some point he had started to assimilate the attitude the further and further Moriarty had pushed.

Mrs Anna Stewart had been killed via an impossible shot from an open window just over five years ago. She'd lived about seven minutes away.

Mr Ronald Adair had been shot in the same method on the 1st November this year on Park Lane.

Sherlock had spent enough time in Moriarty's world to recognise Moran's handy-work when he saw it. And the date couldn't be a coincidence.

The day he'd sat outside John's apartment and waited for the stubborn man to open the door.

The second file was thicker than Mrs Anna Stewart's. It would appear that Stewart was probably a target that Moran had taken care of while he'd been hanging around in London just waiting for a reason to be aimed at John had there been the faintest breath of a word that Sherlock was alive. Adair seemed an unlikely target; though he had been a gambler. Moran liked a flutter too; likely it was more realistic that Adair had pissed Moran off and Moran had taken the opportunity to use him to send a very clear message.

Sherlock flicked through the pictures with his magnifying lens.

Spray painted on the wall opposite the window of the crime scene was a message that forensics hadn't intended to pick up.

The Game's change. Rules gone. Round four. xoxo

It would have been impossible to keep John inside forever. Besides, Moran was an excellent shot and John would eventually walk past a window.

Which, unfortunately, left Sherlock with only one deeply distasteful option.

Mycroft.

"You do not think that informing John about the issue would work better?" Mycroft asked silkily as they watched the trained pair scurry about the empty flat.

"It either will happen or it won't." Sherlock fought to keep his tone nonchalant. "Why worry him?"

But Mycroft didn't seem fooled. The only mercy was that he didn't probe any further either. Across the road, Sherlock could see John in the window of 221b with the child in his arms, rocking her as he stared thoughtfully out the window and at the street below as the sky turned the moody blue-grey of dusk.

They were startlingly clear at this angle and so very vulnerable.

"You trust these people?" he heard himself ask dimly.

"Do credit me with some intelligence," Mycroft snapped as he parted to the side, allowing an ordinary looking man to walk through with even more surveillance equipment.

It was irritatingly hard to keep his fingers from tugging out his phone from his coat pocket and texting John to order him back from the window.

Distracting.

"Moriarty won't strike unless he has your attention." Mycroft said as the couple continued to set things up. "A simple shot from nowhere is unlikely to happen."

Unlikely, yes. Astoundingly unlikely. But not impossible. And the idea of walking back into the flat one day to find John dead on the floor would be highly...

Sherlock shook the thought away as useless. Speculating about possible reactions would be foolish and a waste of time. It would change nothing and solve nothing.

John had gone to bed by the time Sherlock got back in. He had an early start at the practice tomorrow and was taking the child in early.

Their schedule was so easy to remember, so routine and predictable. Once upon a time Sherlock had John running over half of London and subbing for doctors at surgeries all over the place. Once it would have actually taken some small effort to predict where John would be at any given day.

He finished off typing out the notes and sent them off to Lestrade, minus Moran's cases.

And then Sherlock was bored again.

At half four he made his way upstairs and opened their door.

He hadn't checked the room since they'd moved in. It had seemed like forbidden territory guarded by John's niece which warded him off the way a locked door couldn't. The girl was currently twisted in her bedclothes into a tiny ball, only partly visible and defying gravity given how far off the bed she was.

John, on the other hand, looked as if he'd fallen asleep where he'd hit the bed.

Glancing between the two,Sherlock considered moving the child back onto the bed properly. After all, if she fell out of the bed then John was likely to be woken up by it.

But she could wake up when he tried to move her.

It would be best to leave her to it.

Satisfied that the window was closed, the curtain was drawn and they were both at the wrong angle to be in danger, he went back downstairs.

They'd had a big meal for dinner. Spaghetti Bolognese, if the stains around the child's mouth were anything to go by. And for the first time in a long while, John had been happy at work and stood straighter.

He even greeted Sherlock with an exasperated comment that, from his waiting smile, was meant to be a joke.

"Thank you," John said as the child, after finally wiping the dinner off her face, went up to do whatever it was children did before they needed to get ready for bed.

"For?"

"Greg told me. That you'd sent him the notes for the cases you were solving," John gestured at the laptop. "He was checking whether I'd given you a hand."

Interfering idiot.

"I am more than capable of writing up facts." Sherlock replied, staring up at the cracks in the ceiling that he'd counted far too many times before. "Especially as I don't indulge in gossip and fantasy the way you do."

John sniffed, "Greg said it was the dullest thing he'd ever read." John took a deep sip of his tea, watching Sherlock steadily over the top of the mug. "He needs it translated for juries."

"They're dull cases." It annoyed Sherlock that he sounded as if he were protesting. "It still doesn't explain why you felt the need to thank me," he added, determined to steer them off the subject.

"For not asking me to do it." John flipped through the channels, wincing at the choices before settling on some documentary. "The other day, you were going to ask me, weren't you?"

"You did have previous experience in it," Sherlock replied, finally flicking his eyes towards John, rather than watch him in the reflection on the glass. "Then I remembered that you tend to feel the need to show everyone my "human side and my flaws", so I reconsidered."

Why was it so gratifying that he could still make John chuckle?"Have you remembered the solar system yet?" he asked, sitting back, finally at ease.

"Why would I bother, you clearly think yourself an expert."

"Well...I have more knowledge than the great Sherlock Holmes. It's the definition of expert, isn't it?"

A smile tugged at Sherlock's lips, "Useless knowledge,"

"I'll remember that the next time you need to know about the stars, gossip and the army."

"And buying the shopping." Sherlock added, "Have you improved with chip and pin machines?"

"Sod off."

It was the first evening that he didn't feel as if he wanted to scream and shake something. The first evening that he felt confident enough to whine at the television and therefore at John's choice in regards to what was on the television. The first time he could demand a cup of tea without John's back going rigid.

And the weight he'd been feeling over the past few weeks eased, even though he hadn't realised he was carrying it.

"Daddy?"

The child. It didn't usually take long for John to get her off to sleep. He watched as she demanded a story and had to remind her not to pull the shower curtain when she brushed her teeth.

John shot him an amused and surprised look at that and seemed reluctant to get up and leave their television argument.

Good.

"Can you tell me more stories about the world's greatest detective?"

Sherlock twisted to stare at the child. There was no guile in her eyes, though she seemed pleased with the attention that had been suddenly aimed at her.

A glance at a pale John confirmed that Sherlock had indeed been the subject of these stories. It wasn't surprising really, given John's blog.

But it was John's reaction that was interesting. A good, fascinating interesting. John's mind seemed to suddenly be racing and his earlier reluctance was replaced with sudden movement, his hands a thrilling study of panic in a man who could shoot under pressure with his hand deathly still.

"Why don't we do your teeth together." John asked louder than was necessary, clearly eager to remove the child from Sherlock's sight.

Or hearing range.

A mystery, then. His interest peaked; Sherlock watched the pair, studying the girl as she stared up at John looking confused. She could tell that something wasn't right, but she wasn't sure what. Her look of concern was almost identical to John's look.

In fact, in the half light of the lamp and the television, as the shadows played with their faces and the girl used John's expression, they were incredibly similar.
There was something...good about that.

The girl glanced between them and then back up at John, looking as if she were trying to be helpful. "I want to know if he ever finds out that his side kick lov_"

"Upstairs," John's voice cut over hers with sudden desperation, as if just by speaking louder he could erase her words.

And it wasn't her question, so much as John's reaction that made Sherlock stare.

Loves.

Don't jump to conclusions. Not enough data.

But there was. John wouldn't even look at him after the girl ran upstairs. His breathing was stuttered and shaken. His head was bowed.

Love.

John wouldn't have this reaction to a confession of platonic love. Would he?

The answer wasn't clear. Still not enough data.

"Delete that."

No.

"Impossible," Sherlock replied.

It was far too interesting.

John went up to put the child to bed, which gave Sherlock a chance to think.

But no matter what he did, he found he couldn't press past that question.

What exactly had been meant by love?

All other questions and deductions were useless until he had that answer. All thoughts and reactions were unnecessary until he had that answer.

So he had to wait.

It wasn't a surprise that John ventured back downstairs. John was many things, but never a coward. Instead, he walked into the room where Sherlock was staring out of the window, and waited.

"What did she mean?" he asked eventually.

"I told her stories about you," John had disappeared into professional mode which was always exceedingly irritating to deal with. "She doesn't know they're about you, though."

"You and me," Sherlock corrected. "The stories are about you and me."

"Yes."

Turning away from the window, Sherlock studied Johns silhouette.

The man was getting ready to lie.

"And your love for me," the words sounded so loud and brave in their quiet.

"There are many types of love in the world." John replied. It was somewhat strange to see John using the techniques that Sherlock himself had taught John years ago.

Tell as much of the truth that you can, believe the story when you lie,and evade whatever is in between.

He needed to hear it. He needed to push at it and work out exactly what it was that John felt.

He needed to know.

"Which did she mean?" Sherlock approached John steadily and didn't stop until he was closer to John that he'd been in years.

John wouldn't step back, despite the fact that Sherlock was so clearly invading his space. A muscle in his jaw flickered as Sherlock took yet another step closer and bent his head slightly.

Keeping an eye on his pupils, Sherlock reached down to brush his fingers against John's wrist. But this wasn't Irene Adler; John had seen him do this before, had scolded him about it before. Somehow he managed to yank his wrist away without backing up.

"Don't do this," he said quietly.

"Then which did she mean?" Sherlock asked, just as quietly.

"You know the answer," John swallowed tightly, locking his jaw. "Stop."

But he didn't. He could see part of it, but the emotion was complicated. So very, very complicated and so hard to pin down to properly examine. So Sherlock bent even closer, watching the way that John's eyes darted over his face and then looked past his shoulder, as if trying to ignore just how close Sherlock was. Sherlock tilted his head slightly to avoid their noses bumping. They were now sharing breath they were so close.

John's fists were balled and white with tension and his breathing hitched.

He was tempted, then. Sherlock ignored any reaction he might have had to that realisation and just kept pushing.

He needed as much data as possible for when he dissected this revelation later. It was unlikely that John would stay in the room much longer.

"When?"

When had been the last time that John had dated before the roof top? When had been the day that John had worked out his feelings and had started to hide them?

When should have been the point that Sherlock realised?

John tried to smile it away but his mouth couldn't quite manage it. Their lips almost brushed from the failed expression. "Does that matter?"

Yes. But he could put it aside for now. John's eyes kept flashing to him and he was almost shaking with effort. He wouldn't last much longer.

"Stop it," John whispered.

Sherlock shook his head. The movement had him catching John's lips in a touch that almost wasn't there and a fierce tremor shook through John.

"Why?" he asked, making their lips brush again.

"I'm not here to alleviate your boredom," John tried to snarl but was limited in the movements he could make.

"No, you're not." Sherlock tilted his head further, scraping his nose against John's cheek. He could feel the sudden intake of breath against his neck as John's breathing started to stagger.

"You're not doing this for any reason other than to satisfy your own curiosity," John forced the words out, the harshness hitting Sherlock's skin.

Sherlock pulled away fractionally, unwilling to admit that, at this moment, John might have a point. But the small movement was enough to break the spell that had been placed over John and suddenly he was gone, storming through the door with such forceful silence that Sherlock just stayed where he was.