A/N: It's what people do. They endure, they fight, they hope. People live.

Keep safe, keep strong.

By the way, I hope this is any good. -csf


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The instantly recognisable sight of the expectant detective in the long wool coat echoes with the familiarity of home and safety. Dark, disarrayed curls top a long vertical line of tailored coat, a pillar of strength in human terms.

I'm fully appreciative of Sherlock's constancy and friendship, as I leave another 12 hours shift at one of London's hospitals. A bit exhausted, a bit broken, somewhat humbled.

'Hi, Sherlock.'

As always my friend was turned towards the street, where random people and cars hardly pass by to afford him a chance for deductions – an ever present exercise the detective likes to use to fend off boredom, and occasionally the rest of humanity.

'John!' There's unabashed relief as my friend turns, already voicing my given name. As if I had just focused a million scattered thoughts into one achievable object of study.

Sherlock's relief is nothing to be ashamed of. I feel the same every time I leave the hospital to find my friend in his usual vigil, outside the gates.

The great detective once again runs a brief diagnosis analysis on me and, pressing his lips together tightly at the end of the cycle, he briskly starts pacing away, away from the hospital lest an evil virus finds a way to contaminate me on the very street. I follow suit, amused by this new collective distrust of public spaces we now all endure, logical or not.

Sherlock seems healthy too; the analysis works both ways. As he fully focuses his scrutiny on me, I check his breathing, colour, temperature signs, the lot.

I follow suit behind my friend, heading towards Mrs Hudson's car.

By the way, our landlady remains perfectly healthy and will outlive us all, I'm sure.

She's been accounting for her good health on the doctor tenant she keeps, to Mrs Turner, next door. I keep telling Mrs Hudson that's not how it works, and I'm quite sure she knows, but she's still happy to publicise me as her lucky charm.

Sherlock surprises me by overdoing his kindness, as he opens the passenger's car door for me. My friend can be awkward as he navigates this new caring malarkey, but I find his innocence a proof of genuineness.

I bet my work colleagues both think that I've got a boyfriend and he's loaded (as per Mrs H's car). I find I don't really care if they think Sherlock is my sugar daddy. They are welcome to keep their gossiping hobby for the duration of this global pandemic. Anything that helps keep the troops morale...

'Solved a new case while I was gone?' I ask. I just about feel the smugness emanating in waves from the detective.

'Yes', he admits in a voracious tone of voice that Mrs Hudson would correctly identify as "positively indecent". Whatever the case I missed, Sherlock really enjoyed it.

'Cold case, John! As cold as the come. A man was found dead inside a big fireplace, burnt on the inside. No burn marks on his skin or clothes, only the internal organs suffered fatal third degree burns. The man was found propped up on top of a pile of half-charred logs. Not his own dwellings, but an abandoned stately mansion in advanced state of dereliction. About in the room, no matches, no candles, no lasers, no functioning gas or electrics. In fact, upon thorough research, the only extraneous object found in the room was a lost tablespoon, and the police can't tell how long that's even been there.'

'A tablespoon?' I repeat, trying to distract Sherlock into spilling the beans on the whole thing.

Sherlock nods. 'The victim, since you don't really ask me, was, according to the autopsy report, a young adult make, healthy prior to his death. No hits on the fingerprints yet, and he wasn't carrying any form of ID... A man burnt from within, found in a cold, unlit fireplace... How was it done and who did it?'

I blink. How should I know? Yet Sherlock found out. He solved this already. With as many clues as he's giving me... Why can't I solve this?

Because I'm not Sherlock ruddy Holmes.

'You're sure the victim suffered internal injuries only?' I start, as Sherlock peacefully glides the comfortable car through the well known streets.

'Internal injuries only', the detective confirms.

'And the house was empty?'

'All services disconnected for years. One jimmied back door, through where, presumably, the victim entered the house, lured to his death.'

I notice Sherlock gave me a free lead to hurry me along, but I won't complain.

'Anything suspicious about the victim's clothing?' I ask, trying to be clever. Sherlock would have been all over the victim, invading its personal space. Sherlock won't do personal space with dead bodies, much in the least the several feet away normal folks usually do. Sherlock would have been kneeling by the body, crouching over it, prodding it with a finger for tenderness.

He's working remotely now, in detriment of his perfected methods of work.

'The victim was well dressed for your standards, John. Casual. Poorly colour coordinated socks.'

I ignore the personal jibe.

'Any suspicious vehicles around the property, according to any witnesses?'

Witnesses are hard to come by, but are still fair game in post-self-isolation detective work. If anything, people are noisier than ever, missing their own social interactions.

'I had to do my fair bit of hacking at a governmental data base. According to a bus lane traffic camera nearby there was an ice cream van heading towards the property. The footage was too blurry to pick up on passengers or drivers.'

Sherlock looks expectantly at me now.

I should already have all the information I need.

I don't know. And now my head hurts.

Sherlock's smugness breaks as he stops the car to evaluate me at the traffic lights. Somehow I must pass his exam for he impatiently starts detailing the answer to the riddle just as the set of lights turns green.

'A few young adults peer pressure each other to break isolation and "party on like it's 2020". That's a direct quote, by the way, I chased them down in the end. They had a private online chat room I infiltrated, it was aptly named "Losers Keep Out". So these hyped up idiots knew of a parked ice cream van that they nicked in a fit of antisocial behaviour. A parked and out of commission van, it was unsettling to find it still contained ice cream doe stored inside. I was told it was full of ice cream, well, not very iced ice cream. The most idiot of the lot consuming the sugary creamy doe remembered his father had a batch of dry ice stored in the family business premises. They decided to mix some dry ice in the ice cream to chill it, but didn't account for the solid carbon dioxide, or dry ice, to instantly freeze their digestive tract upon contact, causing severe burns. As you well know, John, it's not just fire that burns you. Ice burns too. The idiot friends – undeserving of the title – bolted a the disaster became apparent for the first trier. An ice cream licked tablespoon was all that was left behind... I believe it's a modern dark medical take on gluttony and boredom, John.'

'Oh, that was brilliant. Ice cream vans and dry ice. Yeah, brilliant.' For once my praise comes out a but fake. What's wrong with me?

Deep down it nags me; a feeling of isolation – and not the social kind, but triggered by the circumstances of that type.

I've been left out of Sherlock's colourful world. My own, a bit dark grey and shadowy right now. Of course I don't resent Sherlock, he's doing his best work, benefitting the world in his own peculiar and unique way. Yet, unfair to Sherlock as it may be, I'm resenting being left out.

I go to my hospital work instead, and I'm good at what I do – what I do is sometimes referred to as Saving Lives, not that I'd brag about it – but Sherlock's work; I miss being a part of that.

The world I love carries on without me.

I miss being an integral part of Sherlock's work, a consideration at the forefront of my friend's mind, where I was sure to be included in the cases Sherlock worked on. Be it in a conversation over the facts at the breakfast table before leaving for my work at the hospital, or a number of missed texts at the end of my shift with a recorded trail of monologue deductions... I think my friend has been wisely adjusting to my absences. I think he's gone and took it up with the skull again.

Without Sherlock's steadying influence from a brazen world of fantastical mysteries and superb sleuthing, I feel trapped at the deep end of my medical work, and that can be grim at a time of global pandemic, understandably so.

'John...?'

'Oh.' I snap back to the moment. 'You were brilliant, Sherlock.'

He blinks. 'For driving us home through the nearly deserted streets of London?' my friend deadpans sarcastically.

He's right. Rush hour seems hone, although there are still plenty of private and hire vehicles about. It's still London. Sherlock even managed to park at Baker Street. I look on up to our flat across the street. It looks relentlessly the same, unaffected by time or circumstances, and it comforts me.

'Just drop it, John. As much as I love to hear a praise like any other human, I draw the line at genuine praise.'

'I'll get myself a thesaurus for variety, if it helps.'

'John, something is troubling you, and you seem a bit apathetic. Are you upset?' the with me is pronounced silently.

My heart clenches at that. To see the cocky detective suddenly reduced to insecurity after a brilliant display of his mind's work is just wrong. I've screwed up royally.

I make no effort to leave the car. This journey isn't over yet. 'Do you have any other cases? Any I can help with?' My voice betrays me, pleading.

His green eyes round on my face, the lines surrounding his mouth soften. Something fleetingly crosses his expression. As if he's planned a course of action. But it's not a trap he lures me into, but the plain truth.

'You think you didn't participate in my success, John. You are very mistaken. Upon your absence, I sat on my armchair with the tea you left for me. I spoke to the Union Jack cushion on your chair (and I should protest it was most uncooperative, John, you do a far better job yourself). I used your laptop to infiltrate a governmental database (child's play!) and extract the needed files. Success followed suit, much as I expected, but then something else. Something kept nagging me even as I went for a shower. Something wrong. I was very much in a state of undress when I realised what was wrong. You, John, you would have insisted I'd tell the police my findings at once. I was forced to call Lestrade.'

'Oh, right, Lestrade. How's he doing?'

'Full of key work to do, just like you. He sends you his generic greetings. Asks me never to call him naked again.'

I blink. 'You video conferenced from our bathroom? You, the man who prefers to text, just conference called Greg Lestrade from the shower?'

The detective rolls his eyes, but I can tell he's amused too. 'He never reads my texts now. Says he's too busy, likely excuse...'

I shake my head. 'Was Donovan there?'

'Yes. She had her mouth open but I couldn't get a word out of her.'

Oh, Sherlock will have kept to minimal decency standards throughout the call by angling his phone waist up; that may have annoyed Donovan the more. I shake my head knowingly, and finally open the passenger's door.

'You did it on purpose', I throw over my shoulder.

He shrugs and bangs the driver's door shut. 'I was bored and you weren't around to advise me, John! I'll have you know you work too much. Lestrade will soon get in touch with you to tell you the same. He said that.'

I chuckle all the way across the street. We're nearing the famed 221 Baker Street door when my phone chimes. I glance at Sherlock who fishes his key out of a pocket so I can read the email.

'Lestrade just sent us a link to a bunch of cold cases.' It's the mother load; the cold cases database of the New Scotland Yard, London.

'I notice he sent it to you, John.'

'What do you mean?' I ask, heading inside as Sherlock politely gestures me in first. He'll do that now. As if I'm a precious thing to take extreme care of. I make sure of retribution in kind; but just in case it won't last I also make sure to appreciate it.

'I trust you haven't forgotten you're my social handler, John.'

'What, did you conference call Lestrade from the shower just to make me pay more attention to you, tell you off for it? What are you? A five year old on a sugar high?'

There's that same old smugness emanating from Sherlock Holmes, like a vibrating purring from a well fed, satiated feline.

'And to get access to the cold cases database where I can find you some participation around the clock, John!' he adds, brilliant.

I fake a groan, while we finally close the front door to the world and Sherlock yells Mrs Hudson that we're home.

Because we are very much home.

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