They showed Sherlock to a row of chairs on the side of the stage. Mary sat beside him with Scott on his lap. A bartender in a blue shirt rushed over to them and shook Sherlock's hand. It was as if a flood gate had been released. All of the workers crowded him thanking him and shaking his hand before rushing off to get ready for the bar's opening. Janet came next, forcing a kiss on his forehead. Phoebe followed suit. Sherlock batted them away, much like a child will bat away an elderly aunt who tries to pinch them.

Janet smiled, as she handed a clipboard to Sherlock. "I would appreciate it if you could write down the problems that you mentioned. I'd like to get them fixed before he changes his mind."

"If he looks like he's wavering, just give me a call," Lestrade said handing her a card. Janet put it in her pocket and nodded. "Would you like to go out front and see the show. Free drinks for all of you. The good stuff, not the watered down versions."

"I think that I'd like that," Lestrade said.

"I'm going to stay here and watch Scott," Mary said.

The loud music started up again and everyone was suddenly very busy. Mary walked down the hall and into a small lunch room. There was a rug, a space heater, and a small television. She turned on a children's show and sat down beside the boy who ran his truck across the rug. Sherlock sat beside her. "Mary, are you relieved or upset to find that John knew the woman that he was kissing?" Sherlock asked.

"I'm relieved. It may have been a bit provocative for John to kiss her like that, but so far I haven't seen him do anything that isn't..."

"That isn't what?"

"That isn't ... John. I was afraid that he might feel that he needed to change himself into something, someone else I was afraid that he was hurt by what we had done. By what we were doing to him."

"What were we doing to him?"

"Making him choose."

"Isn't that what you want? For him to choose you or me?"

"I thought that was what you wanted," Mary said. Sherlock turned away.

"I know why you want him. He helps you with your work. I know that he's important to you. I know that you care about him...in your way, and he loves working with you. He loves you, in fact, and that's important to me. I'm happy for him. Happy that he got you back. That he can work with you again, but you can't erase what you've done in the past. You aren't the man for him. You never were."

"I am. John Watson is the only man that I have ever loved. He is first in my heart, but only second in yours. Doesn't that give me the right to have him?"

"John doesn't belong to either of us."

"You have a ring on your finger that says otherwise."

"You know as well as I that a ring is just a piece of metal. Marriages are broken everyday. Perhaps John plans to break his. Perhaps he plans to reenlist."

"Reenlist? Why do you think that?"

"The way that he drove off to the base with those old army friends. Did John ever talk about the army to you? He almost never did with me. He seemed to hold it as a forbidden dream something that he both feared and desired. But the medical students said that he told them about the war. He's looking back at that time with fondness. I think that he wants to go back. I think that for him that might have been a simpler time. A better time. He hates politics. He hates being in the middle of such things. We are forcing him into an intolerable situation. He's trying to escape. What better way than to go back to a war where we can't follow."

"That's ridiculous. John is too old to enlist."

"He could go back as an advisor or a specialist. He's mentioned it before."

"He has?"

"Yes, when you were gone he was seriously considering it."

"No. He couldn't go back. Even if he tried, Mycroft would stop him."

"How could he stop John from going to Afghanistan?"

Sherlock simply glared at her.

"Ah." Mary said, "The two of you are a formidable pair."

"We are not a pair."

Mary smiled.

"What is it?"

"You. Honestly, you act like a child. He's your brother."

"Siblings are accidents of birth. You are an only child, aren't you?"

"Yes."

"Then you won't understand."

"I suppose not, but I'd like to understand you better."

"Why? To make it easier to win against me?"

"What would you say if I said yes?"

"I'd say that you are an honest woman."

Mary laughed. "My aunt said that she was glad that John was going to 'make an honest woman out of me'. What would she think if I said that Sherlock Holmes agreed with her?"

The boy came over then and smiled at her, "What's funny?" he asked.

Mary bent over and pushed the boy's nose. "You are," she said. "We should see if there is anything in that refrigerator to eat." She rose to her feet and walked away with the boy.

Sherlock pulled out his phone, and checked for pictures, but there were no more leads. No convenient photos of car registration numbers. He frowned. The ache in his chest was growing. It felt itchy. He wanted another shot of morphene, but Mary was right, it had been risky taking it. It felt too familiar, too seductive. He hadn't had enough yet to get physically dependent, but he was already psychologically craving it.

Sherlock rose and walked into the bar. There were already a few people here now: A longshoreman, a fisherman left behind due to a bad leg injury, a couple of underage students here on a dare. He sat at Lestrade's table and turned to see a woman, - blond hair, Veronica was it? - undulating around a pole. She was wearing green tinsel. The bartender placed a drink in front of Sherlock. He looked at it suspiciously, then he downed the entire drink in one go.

"Sherlock. I didn't think you were a drinking man."

"Alcohol is an easily accessible pain killer."

"So, are you going to tell me what you and Mary are on about? You must have done something to drive John away. What was it? Mrs Hudson thinks that you two are having an affair, but I told her that nothing was going on. What is going on, Sherlock? Whenever I walk in on the two of you, the silence grows about a thousand times deeper. And what is this about John kissing Phoebe? First he kisses Molly in that party, and I know that there is absolutely nothing between the two of them. Did you insult him, Sherlock? Imply that he couldn't pull women anymore. Do something that would make him feel like he had to leave, because if this is the consequence, I don't think that I need to be the one to tell you that that was stupid. So talk."

Sherlock rose to his feet. "We're losing time. I need to find John." He strode off backstage. Lestrade finished off his Ginger beer and followed him.