Actions Speak Louder Than Words

As Sherlock dragged John's bound and lifeless form from the burning embers of the bonfire and patted out the flames - which still continued to creep up the length of his trouser leg like a fiery caterpillar and eat away at the singed bottom edges of his jacket - he couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief as his friend gave a sudden, shaky, intake of breath and opened his eyes.

Sherlock didn't even notice the pain in his own hands at first – the raw, slightly throbbing sensation of new skin upon salty and slightly perspiring flesh – as he patted John's face gently in an attempt to rouse him. He'd felt the heat of the fire upon his face, and the raw and slightly gritty sensation of the smoke within his lungs – evidently coaxed along by some sort of accelerant judging by the smell of the fumes – as he'd breathed in its toxic breath.

His lungs ached slightly from the exertion, but the effort didn't much matter now that he knew that John was safe, and as his friend sufficiently recovered enough to sit up, before being helped to his feet by Mary, Sherlock had managed to escape to the relative safety of the throngs of the crowd.

The adrenaline, which had driven his desperate race through the streets of London to get to John in time, was now beginning to wear off, and with it the pain of his own souvenirs of that horrible evening was beginning to set in.

How many times was this going to happen? He wondered. How much more was this exhausted body going to have to endure before the fates decided that he had finally suffered enough? Mycroft had sat back and watched whilst his little brother had been beaten to a near bloody pulp before he'd made any attempt to intervene, and he was still nursing the numerous aches and pains he'd acquired as a result of his ill treatment at the hands of his captors. Since his return to London he'd sustained a bang to the head, a burst lip, and had very nearly received a broken nose at John's own deceptively gentle and healing hands.

He looked down at his own hands now – the black leather gloves he'd been wearing had done little to protect them from the searing lick of the flames – and there was a large burn on the palm of his left hand which had penetrated right through to the bare flesh beneath. He couldn't prevent the tears which began to well and sting his bloodshot eyes as he gently stroked his one uninjured hand over the other, and the biting sting caught him a little by surprise. He hadn't been expecting it to hurt quite so much as it actually had.

He wanted to get the glove off to take a better look at the wound, but could see no foreseeable way of doing it without causing himself even more pain, and so he stood there starring helplessly down at the seeping welt, squeezing his wrist with the thumb and forefinger of his other hand to try and intercept some of the pain receptors to his brain – the rest would simply be down to mind over matter he told himself.

This time however his 'transport' had failed him, mind over matter simply wasn't going to be enough when the pain was growing in momentum with each passing second and all he could think about was John. He managed to stifle a strangled whimper – where exactly had that noise come from he wondered, surely it couldn't have come from him – as Mary came up behind him and gently stroked the small of his back with one reassuring hand. Sherlock stiffened slightly at her touch, but not as much as he might once have done.

"John's going to be fine." She explained with a smile. "It looks like we got here just in time. A few minor cuts and bruises, and some slight smoke inhalation, but he says that he doesn't need to go to hospital."

"And you're quite sure of that?" The consulting detective asked, failing to disguise the concern in his own voice – nor the very slight shake as the act of speaking diverted much of his attention away from trying to gain some sort of a psychological advantage over his failing body, allowing the pain to once again creep in.

"Well, he's the doctor." Mary nodded.

"Hmmmmm." Sherlock responded with a laboured breath. He wished that he could better articulate the joy and the relief he felt in equal measure at the knowledge that his best friend was going to be alright, but it was the only response he could muster under the circumstances – holding his injured appendage out in front of him, and starring down at the small crater in his one gloved hand with wide eyed wonder.

"Sherlock, are you alright?" She frowned.

"Just… thinking…" He lied – hoping that it would be enough – as he forced the words from between tightly pursed lips. His body began to tremble slightly with the effort of trying to remain as still as possible – movement at this stage would simply use up vital energy, resources which were better channelled into keeping his façade going for as long as possible – but he hadn't counted on having met his match in Mary. He'd determined the measure of the woman immediately upon their very first meeting. She was bright – exceptionally so. He had every confidence that a woman of her intellectual prowess could have done anything she'd wanted – but she had an even kinder heart, which was what had led her into a career in nursing.

"Oh God," She exclaimed as she followed Sherlock's gaze, looking down and observing his outstretched hand for the first time. She took note of the jagged hole in his glove, and the angry, slightly seeping flesh beneath. "Sherlock you're hurt! Why didn't you say something?" She asked. "Here, let me take a look."

She held out her hands to take a better look at the injury, but Sherlock instinctively recoiled from her touch, drawing the hand closer towards his body protectively. She could tell that he hadn't had much cause to place himself in the care of another before, and therefore wasn't used to having to entrust his fate to the good intentions of others.

"No it's alright, I'm fine." He lied.

"I'm a nurse, let me be the judge of that." She insisted, holding his gaze for a moment, and doing her best to appear reassuring but resolute at the same time. She would not be swayed from her cause, she was determined to take a closer look at the man's injuries – Sherlock's hand needed immediate medical attention, she could see that much from a distance, and without closer examination of the wound – and he regarded her with a somewhat confused frown. She could tell that Sherlock Holmes was also not a man used to being challenged.

Finally he relented.

He still appeared somewhat uncertain, but handed her the reluctantly proffered limb – flinching, and his whole body stiffening in pain as her fingers brushed gently over the exposed layers of new skin.

"Shhhh, shhhh, it's alright. I'm sorry." She soothed. "I know this hurts."

Sherlock gritted his teeth in an attempt to help himself withstand the pain and stifle any further whimpers or vocalisation of his discomfort which might betray a sign of weakness. His body shivered as she carefully uncurled his fingers and gently began to pick some of the burnt fibres away from the angry outer edges of the wound. She tried to prise the glove away from his hand to get a better look at the state of the damaged tissue underneath, but this only appeared to cause him even more pain and so she finally gave up.

"I've called a taxi to take John and me back to the flat." She explained. "Why don't you leave the bike here for tonight and come back with us. That hand's going to need tending too."

"Really Mary, I'm fine." Sherlock insisted, and fixed her with a determined glare, but the gaze Mary fixed him with was even more steadfast and resolute. "Plus John and I are not exactly on the best of terms at the moment." He explained. "To share a cab with him might be running the risk of coming off with another bloody nose. I don't think my pride nor my face is up to withstanding another battering like the last one at the moment."

Mary smiled.

"Oh Sherlock," She sighed, "you really don't understand anything about human nature do you?"

He looked at her – slightly perplexed. He thought they'd already established on the evening of their first meeting that he did not.

"Come on," She sighed, taking his injured hand gently within her own as she rubbed his elbow affectionately, before wrapping a guiding arm around his waist. She might have been smaller than the consulting detective but was surprisingly strong for a woman of her statue and Sherlock found himself being swept along with her in the direction of the awaiting taxi, where John was already seated in the back of the cab he observed. He tried not to grimace as he accidently caught his hand on the car door upon getting in, and he soon found himself seated between a very frosty John, and Mary.

"I'll try and enlighten you on the way." She smiled.

SHERLOCKHOLMESSHERLOCKHOLMES

"No cases then?" John asked as he sat himself down in his old armchair opposite his best friend the following morning. There was a small cut to his temple, but apart from that there were no further outward signs of his ordeal from the night before. Sherlock still appeared slightly tense following the visit from his parents but as the doctor looked over at the detective he sank further into the back of his chair, content that his friend was at least now speaking to him.

"Yes," Sherlock responded, "plenty, but Mary said that I should be resting, so I'm taking the day off." He tried to make his tone as deadpan as John's but didn't quite achieve the same effect.

"You never take the day off." John pointed out matter-of-factly.

Sherlock's pale eyes bore into John's dark blue, and in them the doctor recognised a pain which he'd been too pre-occupied with hating his friend to recognise before. His hand must still have been very sore he observed, he noticed Sherlock grimacing slightly on a couple of occasions despite the fact that he was trying very hard to hide it, and he would never have normally taken a day off unless he felt incapable of working – but this was different, this pain went much deeper. It was almost as though Sherlock Holmes felt lost – even slightly afraid maybe. He kept his emotions well hidden, and his face as stony as possible in order to maintain the illusion of indifference and to protect himself from getting hurt. There was a sense of torment upon his face which had not been there before he'd left two years ago, and John automatically wanted to ask him about it – but then he remembered what Sherlock had put him through, and the anger returned, bubbling away slightly just below the surface, and he thought better of it.

"What are you doing here?" The consulting detective asked. John was a little affronted by his best friend's abrupt tone – 'best friend?' He wondered, 'could he even call Sherlock that anymore?' They hadn't seen each other in two years, a lot might have changed in that time.

John still wasn't even sure that there was a place for Sherlock in his life anymore – despite the events of the evening before he still couldn't bring himself to forgive Sherlock for the years of hell he'd put him through, and he didn't see how the two of them could possibly ever move forward from this point. So much had changed, he'd changed – and yet there was still a small part of him, the part which had longed for this day to come every day for the past few terrifying months, which was now overjoyed to finally have Sherlock back where he belonged.

He felt so conflicted, so confused by his own emotions – and Doctor John Watson didn't like it.

"If you must know I wanted to make sure that you were alright," He explained, "and to say thank you."

"You hated me yesterday." Sherlock frowned, "what's changed?"

"Mary actually." The doctor sighed. "She really likes you you know, God knows why, but I was already on my way to see you when they kidnapped me."

Sherlock's frown grew, puckering his forehead into one long jagged crease of confusion and his head tilted to one side subtly in a manner John had so often observed when they'd been interviewing a client in the past – it made his breath hitch in his chest and his stomach do summersaults into his throat as he observed those eyes, set deep into a face that he never thought he'd see again, holding him in such an intense gaze.

Sherlock Holmes was reading him, and John Watson was an open book.

"You risked your life to save me last night Sherlock." He shrugged. "Actions speak louder than words."

John still wasn't smiling, but 'At least,' Sherlock thought, 'it was a start.'