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Sherlock Holmes fully expected the aeroplane to crash.
Incredibly unlikely, he knew. Still, part of him wished it would, if only to give him something—anything—to distract his attention from the uneasy tingling sensation that had settled in his lower abdominal cavity during takeoff. Possibly airsickness, but even he could identify that diagnosis as heinously inaccurate. Perhaps one could ask after a doctor’s opinion in this case, though he strongly suspected it was not a medical issue at all. Even so, he would not have the chance to seek professional confirmation of his hypothesis until he arrived in Heathrow. And that was assuming he’d be given the chance.
His fingers drummed anxiously against the plastic armrest. A carefully calculated, aloof expression betrayed none of his churning thoughts. His ceaseless fidgeting and tensed jaw, however, might have done if the right people had looked at the right time. Luckily for Sherlock, none of them were among the passengers of the 9:15 flight from Budapest to Heathrow.
Two hours, hah. He sincerely doubted it.
Feigning fascination in the trivial magazines found in the seat pocket in front of him was no longer realistic. Replacing the tabloid, Sherlock sighed. Heavily.
Though the mediocre reading material hadn’t even remotely captivated his attention, he quickly realized it was far worse to while away the minutes without it. Entirely too much information concerning his fellow passengers bombarded his senses with every passing glance.
Three, no, four children at home, possibly lacking proper—has chronic nosebleeds, rightly worrying about his wife’s faltering fidelity, she won’t—Slovakian, obviously, compulsive gambler going by his right ha—medically trained, though not a doctor, most likely nurse or paramedic, oh, paramedic, definitely, just look at the straining in—STOP
Pressing his mouth shut, closing his eyes, he turned away. Oh. His hands shook slightly. Stupid. Planes were distasteful. As were all forms of public transportation, though thankfully he’s generally managed to avoid it. Mycroft had had a hand in that throughout his many comings and goings, but had been singularly contrary in planning this final trip. Now that he was headed home, apparently he had to endure the purgatory of mass transit.
Another long-suffering sigh.
At least there was one thought to occupy his mind, one puzzle that had been skirting the margins of his thoughts for the past three years. Now it was rapidly expanding, permeating every corner of his mind until he could scarcely think of anything else. John.
Mycroft had pieced it together quickly enough, contacting him exactly two weeks following the event atop St. Bartholomew’s Hospital. He had expected that. He did not expect John to figure it out, and indeed, Sherlock had been proved entirely correct. John had no idea. John, by all accounts, still grieved beside an empty grave. How to explain, then, when he turns up on the good doctor’s doorstep in little less than one hour and twenty minutes. How to explain, indeed.
Sherlock tilted his head and satisfied himself with staring out the window, watching the distance dwindle away, slowly but surely.
~`~
John Watson was a patient man.
Problem was, even patient men had bad days. Today might just turn out to be one of them, John admitted to himself while putting on the kettle that morning. Pursing his lips, he leaned against the counter, doing his utmost not to glance at the clock for the tenth time in two minutes. Three years was a long time to wait; No one could blame him for being a little restless. John sighed.
He’d be the first to admit that it probably could have been worse. Mainly because everyone else insisted it was so goddamn horrible. Like he didn’t already know. He’d been angry, he’d said, and he'd meant it, too. The hole Sherlock Holmes had left behind was easier to fill with angry thoughts than it was to fill with lonely ones. Once the anger wore off, however, John Watson had had other things to deal with.
~`~
Things like the sudden appearance of Richard Brooks’ body, hastily stowed in a bin two blocks from St. Bart’s. The police found it within two weeks of Sherlock’s suicide, and no one had let slip the barest mention of the man who would have found it faster, and with more dramatic flair. Of course, they didn’t dare, not while John was around, not once he’d asked to see the body and was making a brief visit to Scotland Yard, and certainly not once they’d seen the hollowness lingering in the man’s eyes. Not when the loss was still so raw.
“Suicide,” John said, his ears ringing. “Moriarty committed suicide.”
Beside him, D.I. Lestrade had already come to the same conclusion. Really, the entry wound inside his mouth gave it away. Case closed. But so, so strange, a voice in the corner of John’s mind nagged. Suicide, and so blatantly obvious. Not Moriarty’s style. The discordance reverberated in his head for days afterward. Sitting at his laptop with a cup of tea, trying not to notice the odd silence within the flat, he would continually return to it, again. And again. And again.
Finally, he snapped his laptop closed, frowning. He shut his eyes with a stifled sigh. Alright, Watson, think it through. You’re no moron. Sherlock was no fake. John had never doubted Sherlock, not for one minute, not even when the man had done his best to bluff John’s faith into the dust, up there on that rooftop. For some reason, the great detective had not seemed to realize that it was utterly impossible to shake the trust of a man like John Watson.
Why would Sherlock even have wanted to? Now there was a question, John thought. Facts, now, the little voice nagged. What did he know? Moriarty was real, and Moriarty had killed himself. Time of death same as Sherlock’s, if Molly’s records were anything to go by. Now, that must mean, must mean. . .
John opened his eyes. Oh. Something close to a smile still made his lips twitch slightly in faint, not quite fond amusement, even as the realization made his heart sink. Of course they had to have their dramatic standoff, a final showdown, he realized. Yet Sherlock had focused all of his attention on that last phone call, on fooling John, on saying goodbye. Replaying it in his head, John ignored the tightness in his throat, the stinging in his eyes. Time for that later, late at night. Now, he needed to figure this out, now that Sherlock could not.
If John knew Sherlock at all, he knew there was no way his friend would turn a blind eye to a living Moriarty. Therefore, Moriarty had already been dead when John had arrived. Already killed himself. So changeable, John remembered. Some turn of events, then. John had left; Sherlock had gone up to the roof, gone to face Moriarty. John winced. Sherlock must have known, then. Known what was coming. But there had to be a turn, some power play that would make Moriarty desperate enough to kill himself, desperate for a result. What result? What--John’s breath hitched—oh. Sherlock’s death: his disgrace. Forced him into it, then. John’s fists clenched against the armrest.
Coming back to himself, John rose from his chair, only to sink back down into it with a shudder, his hand flying up to squeeze the bridge of his nose. Feeling the black heaviness in his chest swelling up, he needed to center himself, somehow. Somehow. And it made little sense to replace his center with anything other than what it always had been. John had followed him from the start and wasn’t about to stop now that Sherlock was dead. Not over, not yet. One last thing for his friend. He could do this.
Lifting his hand away from his face, John breathed deliberately. He needed a walk.
After grabbing his coat, John set out. Walking had always cleared his mind, and he honestly needed to reorder his thoughts if this was going to work.
After an hour or so meandering about the city, with dusk fast approaching, John finally ended up at the graveyard. His limp had flared up, and he was leaning against that black, cold headstone, trying to rest his leg, paging through happier memories, the times they had before those final days. Sherlock had known his end, seen it coming, but had kept it from John.
Sherlock had known this was coming.
A deafening rushing noise crescendoed in his head, louder and louder, until it overwhelmed all else. John’s breath caught, vision narrowing pinpointing the gold embossed letters of SHERLOCK HOLMES, until one thought eclipsed everything else.
Idiot.
John could practically hear the frustrated bark in that familiar voice, imagining his friend’s agitated pacing. Of course, Sherlock had seen this coming, of course he would have some sort of plan, some contingency. Ridiculous that he didn’t see it before. (Honestly, John.) He’d be loath to allow Moriarty to take him down completely, to let someone else win the game, to go down without a fight. Sherlock could find a way. He could.
No. John scowled. No, he had seen the body, plummeting off the roof, felt his wrist, without a pulse, there was no way. Not possible. Absolutely. Not.
Well. Not impossible, he conceded as a sliver of doubt niggled at his rational conclusion. His automatic conclusion. Now that it occurred to him, John could hardly let the irrational go; he’d certainly seen enough fantastic, impossible things in his lifetime. Sure, it was improbable, but not impossible. A brother in high places had owed Sherlock an immense favor, and he’d had a conveniently-placed, enamored colleague working in the morgue of the largest hospital in London, and well, that would help it all along, wouldn’t it? Wouldn’t it?
John pursed his lips. Time to harass Mycroft.
As if on cue, a sleek black sedan pulled up to the curb at the cemetery’s gate. John scanned the area suspiciously, shoulders tensing instinctively. God, did he hate being watched, especially when he hadn’t a clue it was happening. Grimacing, he muttered something along the lines of “overbearing sod” and stomped over to the car, paused to glare at the sky for a moment or two, then got in the vehicle.
“Hello,” he said, glancing over at the jaw-dropping brunette seated opposite him.
She gave him a cursory smile, barely looking up from her smartphone. “Hello.”
Shifting in his seat, John left it at that. At this point, he knew better than to make an attempt at any sort of small talk with Mycroft’s employees, male or female. The car rounded the corner, and they were off.
Any certainty he’d had less than a minute ago was now deflating, albeit slowly. Maybe this was some form of denial, a symptom of his refusal to accept that it was over, latent stubbornness rearing up to replace his anger and frustration. It sounded like something his therapist would say, and he was well aware of the Holmes brothers’ opinion of her. As London dissolved around him, skyscrapers shrinking as they headed out into the country, John continued to wrestle with his conclusions. Surely you couldn’t self-diagnose denial, could you? You wouldn’t be aware of your own denial if you were in it?
No matter how he tried, the little curl of hope in the bottom of his chest peeked up its head.
Could Sherlock have survived?
“Anthea” lifted her head, a sterile smile on her lips. “We’re here,” she said as the car rolled to a stop.
He nodded. Setting his jaw, he got out and the door clicked shut behind him, the car’s engine thrumming as it drove away. John watched it go for a few seconds, then made his way up the slate stairs of the Holmes ancestral home.
Mycroft was in the sitting room, a perfect picture of repose, an umbrella nested in the crook of his elbow. A trace of tension could be seen around the corners of his eyes, but that was all.
John entered the room, the door swinging shut with a muted click in his wake. Mycroft did not react in the slightest. Indeed, the two remained in complete and utter silence for a long time.
Mycroft eventually turned, meeting John’s defiant stare with a wearied tilt of his head.
On his way home, once again borne away in a dark sedan, John understood.
Sherlock lived.
And to keep him alive, John had to play dumb, and stay well away.
~`~
Well, here he was. After years of doing as he was told, perhaps now he’d have license to be all the more reckless. Now Sherlock was coming home. His mouth twisted into something of a rueful smile and he deliberately relaxed his fists, letting his fingers spread-eagle. Three years, and now less than an hour to go until he’d catch a cab to Heathrow, and then it would all be finally, blessedly over with.
The kettle whistled insistently, breaking John’s daze. Glancing up at the clock, he smiled to himself. Only a matter of minutes, now. He padded across the kitchen and poured himself a cup of tea, watching it steep, the tendrils of brown diffusing out into the steaming water, allowing himself a few more moments to think.
He’d asked Mycroft to keep Sherlock in the dark, that night when the whole story came out. The older man had held up on his promise. Though sometimes, on quiet, lonely evenings, John would wish he’d decided otherwise, he’d had his reasons. For one thing, John had wanted to spare his friend the temptation, to be sure that Sherlock, in a hopelessly rash move, wouldn’t return before it was all over, thus destroying all of his efforts to take down Moriarty’s web. For another, he’d quickly realized that this was quite possibly the only chance he’d ever get to surprise the unflappable Sherlock Holmes.
~`~
Sherlock stared fixedly at the fasten seatbelt sign, narrowing his eyes. It glowed dully above him, taunting him, grating on his nerves. If only the airline staff would switch off that condemnable signal, he would be free, and he wouldn’t find himself mapping out the more gruesome ways he could bring about their untimely deaths in the privacy of his own mind. This was entirely their fault.
Sherlock was never nervous.
Drumming the pads of his fingers against the sticky chrome of the seatbelt buckle, he gritted his teeth. Unable to be patient. The pressure built behind his eyes, at his temples, and he was obviously going to have to do something drastic, now, before this horrid feeling bubbling in his stomach completely boiled his brain.
Fortunately for his fellow passengers, a high, muted tone pinged throughout the cabin, and the fasten seatbelt sign went dim. Sherlock deftly unbuckled himself. The muffled conversations around him crescendoed as the passengers stood, reaching up to recover their bags, chattering blithely away about their mundane plans. The child in the seat behind him squirmed and shrieked in his mother’s arms. Uninspired easy listening began to play over the speakers, the gently twanging guitar only marginally less grating than the singer’s crooning voice.
Mycroft was going to pay for this.
“Where’re we going to go after your mother’s brunch, Derek, honestly, half the time I—”
“Mum. Mum. Stop it, I can do it, really, just let me—”
“Have you seen my purse? I swear, it was just here; I just saw it on—”
“Are you calling him, now? Good, I was worried we’d not be able—”
Dull. All incredibly insipid. Why he even bothered listening in was beyond him. In any case, he thought, rising from his seat, he really didn’t see what his brother was trying to prove with this little exercise of his. That he could tolerate the masses for a reasonable period of time? Hardly a revolutionary discovery, he huffed, shouldering his bag. While he could easily mimic civility, he was not at all inclined to make the effort. What was the point?
Out of habit, his thought process purposefully ignored the one anomaly in his experience, the one outlier. His lips tightened. The line of exiting passengers crawled forward.
A stewardess—chronically single, nearly fluent in Russian, definitely asthmatic, a former violinist, no, violist, clearly, evidenced by the width and breadth of the rough skin on her neck—smiled at him as he exited.
“Thank you for flying with us,” she said. Automatic, instinctive. Interesting verbal tic, Sherlock thought. Must look into that.
He flashed her a forced, stretched grin and got off the plane. Sherlock felt a little light-headed. Strange. Inhaling deeply, he shoved his (shaking) hands in his pockets and continued on.
That was the last time he was ever flying commercially.
Five minutes later, he found himself shuffling forward, sandwiched between several other British citizens as they filtered through customs. Sherlock considered himself too rational to plead with a higher power but briefly debated whether or not it would help in this situation. Had they not undergone sufficient security checks before getting on the aeroplane? He hated redundancy. He hated lines. He hated waiting. One of the officers switched the flip in his booth, the “Closed” sign coming up above him. Out to lunch.
For the love of God.
Biting his tongue hard so he wouldn’t groan out loud in abject frustration, he bounced slightly on the balls of his feet. The line inched forward. His head was going to explode. People jostled about him, and he silently swore he’d see personally to his brother’s comeuppance. Soon.
He avoided thinking about John.
Less than thirty minutes, now.
~`~
“Welcome home,” said the customs officer instinctively upon seeing the red cover, complete with its British coat of arms.
He stamped the tall man’s sorely abused passport with a satisfying ka-chunk, offering up a terse nod as he handed it back to its oddly named owner. With a funny wince and a grave expression, the man accepted it without comment, swept his sharp grey eyes over the officer’s cubicle, wrapped his coat around him, and strode through the turnstile, struggling slightly as he did so.
Watching him go, the officer decided that, while not exactly suspicious, there was certainly something off about Sergei Holt.
~`~
Damn turnstiles, Sherlock huffed, only a little red-faced, as he emerged on the other side of the gate. Though not usually one for swearing, the buzzing in his head was irritating and impeded his thought process. Less than twenty minutes now. Beginning to head for the luggage carousel, he proceeded to damn everything, damn the buzzing, damn his fumbling hands, damn his inexplicable nerves, and while he was at it, damn the world for being so incredibly, incredibly stu—
His eyes caught for a moment on a familiar profile, a well-remembered shade of wheat blond hair, cropped short, but then the image blurred amid the throng of families and significant others crowded around the international arrivals gate. Sherlock froze, heart thudding, but was soon scolding himself. This had happened altogether too many times over the past couple years, thinking he’d seen something, someone in the midst of a crowd, only to turn and really look, only to find out it had been a trick of the light, a resemblance and nothing more.
Taking a deep breath, Sherlock turned and really looked.
And there he was. Jumper and all. John.
For a second, his vision blurred, and the spring coiled tight inside his chest released. The buzzing stopped altogether. Oh.
In the next moment, however, he could scarcely breathe, panic flooding over him.
Quickly stooping, Sherlock did his best to conceal himself in the nearly vacant airport lobby. The unfortunate lack of cover made his attempt quite ridiculous as he bobbed and weaved among his fellow passengers, making observations rapid-fire and extrapolating.
He’s clearly just arrived, hair ruffled, face still slightly red from the outdoor wind, craning his neck to look at the gate, shuffling on his feet; a little anxious, then, waiting for somebody to arrive, who, who could it be. Sister, girlfriend, old army mate, any one of those quite plausible, must check recent arrivals to be sure. Hasn’t seen me (yet), since he’s still unperturbed, would certainly be disturbed at seeing a ghost, people generally are, but I wouldn’t want to distress, really must stay out of his sightlines. Favoring his right leg, but no tremor in his hand, must mean he’s under stress, probably nervous, must be meeting girlfriend or old friend, then, and is nervous or excited, about whomever it is coming through, coming home, who—
John turned, scanned the crowd, and met Sherlock’s scrutinizing gaze.
Sherlock went very still. He waited, breath bated, for the shock, the disbelief, the anger, the betrayal.
John’s eyes roved over Sherlock’s stricken face. Then, relaxing, he grinned.
If Sherlock had been able to see his own expression at that moment, he would have vehemently denied ever making it. The detective closed his gaping mouth with a snap. His eyebrows twitched slightly, almost in a confused frown, as he cocked his head at his one-time friend.
John simply shook his head, his grin softening as he shrugged. Raising his eyebrows quizzically at his friend, they formed comforting, familiar creases in his expressive face. Letting out a short, blink-and-you’d-miss-it chuckle, Sherlock’s rare genuine smile grew, his puzzlement still written all over his expression.
As he started towards Sherlock, John faltered somewhat, hovering in what appeared to be some moment of apprehension. Seeing this, the more rational half of the pair rolled his eyes. Within a few long strides, Sherlock had closed the distance between them, wrapping his arms stubbornly around John. Tensing slightly at first, John soon had Sherlock trapped in a crushing hug of his own, the heavy weight of the past three years, of the long separation lifting from both of their shoulders.
They stood there for a long while.
Once they had pulled out of the embrace and were facing one another, Sherlock began shifting nervously from foot to foot, watching John with careful eyes. John’s eyes fixed on the tiled floor of the airport for a moment or so.
Then, John nodded once, grinned, and looked up, firmly meeting his friend’s gaze.
“Welcome home, Sherlock.”