Not been sleeping all that well is right. Of course, the ongoing, muted sounds of the press outside aren’t helping any.

John lies wide awake in his bed for what must be at least an hour before the soft creaking of his door tells him he’s no longer alone in his room.

“Are you awake?” Sherlock’s voice in the dark.

“I am now,” John says, striving for irate. He is still mad at Sherlock, after all. He’s sure that Lestrade would have actually likened his tone of voice to that of a disgruntled kitten. The thought makes him frown deeper in the dark.

Sherlock takes this for invitation into John’s room. He doesn’t turn the light on, but the room is just as light as it was during that well remembered dream. John doesn’t have the courage right now to ask if that was actually a dream. Now he’s actually glad that the light hasn’t been turned on.

His bed dips as Sherlock sits right at the end of it, to the left. John scrambles to move his feet out of the way.

And then the two of them sit in uncomfortably charged silence for several moments. From the look of Sherlock’s silhouette, he’s looking at his clasped hands. John scrunches himself up on the other side of the bed, eventually pushing himself up on his pillows until he is sitting.

Looks like neither one of them are about to get the sleep they both need right now.

John sighs.

“Lestrade cracked the recording on your phone,” he offered. Then, grudgingly, not sure if he’s ready to give the forgiveness that the next words would insinuate, “You jumped because it would save my life. Mine, and Mrs. Hudson’s, and Lestrade’s.”

But saying the words aloud has its own effect. Pain is pain and, in the last little while, they’ve both had a lot of it.

“Yes.” Sherlock’s voice is thick. “I was aware that that was the likely end of meeting Moriarty on the roof. I had hoped…” Sherlock’s voice drifts away, then comes back. “But it did not go the way I hoped. Thankfully, I had Molly ready to take care of things when it went that way.”

John blinks. “Molly? What did Molly have to do with it?”

Sherlock pins John with his gaze. “She’s works with the dead, John.”

John’s, “Oh,” is very quiet. Of course. While John’s work was in keeping people with the living. And his reaction had had to begenuine.

When John looks back at Sherlock, he’s in the middle of gazing down at his hands again.

“I don’t expect you to forgive me for all you’ve gone through.” Sherlock’s speech is muffled, as though it’s costing him a lot to say these words. “I’m given to understand that what I put you through was unconscionable…”

“Of course I’m going to forgive you!” John cries out, obviously surprising Sherlock from the way his head darts up again. “I’m just mad at you right now. Right now, Sherlock.” He bites off whatever else he was about to add.

Some of the startlement begins to leak out of Sherlock’s expression. He even cracks a small bit of a smile. “Oh,” he says.

“Oh indeed,” John replies. Mutters, “Seems it’s the night for ‘oh’.”

Sherlock stares at him a while longer, until John begins to grow self conscious.

“Well then… I suppose I should go back to my own bedroom,” says Sherlock.

“I suppose you had,” John returns. But before he can stand, “It’s good to have you back again, Sherlock. I missed you. Actually, missed you doesn’t even begin to cover it.”

A slash of white across from him as Sherlock’s smile widens. “I know,” he says. “I read your blog.”

“Oh… get out of here!” John exclaims, flustered.

*

There’s a timid knock at the door. It wakes John after he’s had not nearly enough sleep. His squints his eyes, arm reaching out of his bed and darting around until it finds a digital clock showing the time 8.14.

8.14am.

He’s had two hours sleep, and his brain’s having trouble separating the real from the dream world his mind’s so often sojourned in lately. He’s so used to remembering appearances from Sherlock as dreams upon waking that disappointment flares in his chest and he silently berates himself for spending so much of those dreams telling Sherlock off. As his mind clears further, John shoots a shocked look through his bedroom wall, in the direction of Sherlock’s bedroom. The realisation that Sherlock really is back is sudden, and just as shocking as it was the first time.

He forgets that it was a knocking at the door that originally woke him up and, as time has passed, there’s a second knock, less timid than the first one. Though getting up out of bed, getting up out of bed and going anywhere but Sherlock’s room to convince himself that his best friend really is back, really is alive, is low on his list of priorities, still, politeness is ingrained in him too deeply for him to ignore the knocking at the door.

Pulling on pants that he wore yesterday from the floor, John blinks many times and tries to stretch his eyelids open before answering the door.

It’s Mrs. Hudson standing on the other side.

“John! Are you alright? I heard a terrible ruckus here last night. I was afraid to come by.” She’s not afraid now. In fact, she’s courageous enough to stride straight into the flat, and in the direction of the kitchen.

“Uh… uh, Mrs. Hudson…” She’s out of sight before John can speak. He closes the door.

“What was that fuss last night?” Mrs. Hudson asks, once he finally catches up on her. “And now the press are here, keeping me up till all hours of the morning! What are they thinking?”

“Fuss? Oh, I suppose that would be…” The last of Moriarty’s men. Right. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Hudson. Sherlock came back last night.”

“Then it’s true?” Mrs. Hudson’s eyes widen. “Oh, I’m sure that I can forgive a bit of ruckus for Sherlock coming back. He’s never been the quietest of tenants. Just… try to keep him quieter next time.”

This time it’s John’s turn for his eyes to go wide at the implication of what Mrs. Hudson’s thinking. Should he be at all surprised that Sherlock rented here, when his landlady rushed to late night homosexual happenings as the cause of what had clearly been the noises of a fight? At least she had answered the question for him of whether she had been in on the whole conspiracy. It is for that reason that he goes to the extra effort of couching his words for her. “Um, well, that wasn’t exactlybecause of Sherlock…” John starts.

“Of course, I understand.” Mrs. Hudson pulls a very hush-hush expression. “Well, the two of you will want to get acquainted again. I won’t get in the way of that. I trust that you’ll have him let the rest of us know how he escaped that awful business of his death?”

“Just as soon as I know, Mrs. Hudson,” John agrees wearily. He’s missed this headache, he realises. This headache that doesn’t occur without something inevitably Sherlock going on around him.

He smiles a weary smile as he sees Mrs. Hudson out of their flat again. His eyelids are conspiring against him as he heads back in the direction of his bedroom. On his way back, he stops outside of Sherlock’s bedroom, hand lifting experimentally to the doorknob. Then, from inside, there is a groaning sound that seems to be coming from Sherlock. He’s making full use of these noises to express supreme displeasure at being woken up at such an early hour, his way of letting John know he’s awake. It’s only slightly more personal than text messages sent in the past that have basically said the same.

For the first time, John starts to wonder what all of this means? What Sherlock’s return inevitably means? Will they just go back to the way it was before; Chinese for dinner and arguments over who was going to get the milk? Cause John wasn’t actually sure he could ‘just go back’. Not after all of this. Not after everything he had felt.

He hesitates a long time at Sherlock’s door, before walking on past it without knocking.

*

Having made his way through the mass of eager reporters, eager to have Sherlock and John’s story all over again, Lestrade now faces a different firing squad.

It’s the first time he’s seen Sherlock again. It takes just a moment to get past the shock of that.

“It’s really you,” Lestrade says because, of course, it wasn’t far from beyond the realms of possibility for a hacker to have gained control of Sherlock’s online presence. Seeing Sherlock in person is something else.

“Yes. It really is,” Sherlock responds, with a hint of a smile. Well, he can smile at that. Every response to his being back so far has been a better one than the one John gave. John’s kind of banking on Sally to be the one who brings the single worse reaction than John. But she may surprise them all, and show every regret and relief that Sherlock’s back now.

Lestrade clasps Sherlock on the shoulder, and says, “It’s good to have you back.”

With a nod, Sherlock replies, “So I keep hearing. Got new cases that need my assistance, have you?”

At the first sight of John’s face turning white as a sheet, Sherlock ducks his head.

“Another time, perhaps,” he murmurs.

“Indeed,” answers Lestrade.

An awkward moment resides. John doesn’t want to look up, doesn’t want to see the sympathy in Lestrade’s eyes, the… whatever is going to be in Sherlock’s.

Trying to move past the moment, John replies, “Can we get on with it, please?”

Lestrade paces in front of both of them. “I don’t know what I can tell you. If you don’t feed them any information, they’ll eventually get bored and give up.”

“Like they did last time,” Sherlock says, with a roll of his eyes, before looking out the window.

“Well, yes… urm. No.” Lestrade shakes his head. “It won’t be like last time. I won’t let it be. You’ve been cleared of all charges, Sherlock. Moriarty is dead, yes? So you’ve both got nothing to fear.”

“There’s always something to fear,” Sherlock snaps.

Lestrade looks surprised, but he shouldn’t be. John purses his lips, and looks at Sherlock under the cover of his lashes.

“How long?” John asks.

“A week. Maybe two. Not longer.”

“A week or two? How are we supposed to get on with our lives with these… parasites hanging on to our every move for a week or two?”

“I can try to clear them out sooner. Can’t promise it won’t cause more problem, though.” This from Lestrade.

Sherlock just uses one hand to wave away the usefulness of that offer, not even bothering to look at Lestrade as he does so.