Legionnaire

Part 4

Day -4

"Welcome home, John."

"Thanks, Sherlock. It's good to be...you want me to make tea, don't you?"

"Tea would be lovely, yes."

Day -2

"You shouldn't have been so hard on him."

"Lestrade, John's lungs still sound like someone is making bacon inside them. He would only slow us down if we end up having to chase Mr Bradley across the Chiswick."

"Mr Bradley?"

"Well it sure as hell wasn't his neighbor. Did you see the man's tie rack?"

"You're taking this even harder than John, aren't you?"

"Just keep your meager intelligence focused on getting us to the Bradley's without crashing into a road sign."

Present Day

The silence permeating the flat is a rare one, broken by neither unfortunate miniature explosion nor the sound of police sirens in the distance. Sherlock finds himself oddly content with the silence, because it means one very important thing:

John is no longer coughing.

"Let's play Clue-do."

"Not on your life." John's tone suggests he is smirking. "However, I would be willing to accompany you to the morgue."

Sherlock shakes his head and wiggles his hand in dismissal, "I've nothing on at the moment."

"Well a little birdie told me that you were waiting," the doctor's tone is intriguing enough that Sherlock sits up like a hound on the hunt, "for an opportunity to test your theory about the formation of postmortem bruises developing over marks of lividity."

"Would that little birdie be named Molly by any chance?"

"Stamford, actually. Mentioned it at my last check up." John places his newspaper to the side and grins jovially. "However, I did manage to convince Molly to help out."

The detective smiles broadly and claps his hands together in almost girlish glee. "John, you got me a cadaver?"

"Actually, I got you 3." John laughs as Sherlock hops up from his seat on the sofa and bounces around the flat like a giddy schoolboy. "I even scrounged up a bullwhip in addition to your riding crop." At the look he gains at this confession, John gifts his flatmate with a mysterious expression and refuses to comment further.

Sherlock's grin never falters, "You do realize that it is November and therefore neither the holidays nor my birthday."

"Consider it a thank you." When all this gains John is a curious tilt of the detective's head, the doctor explains, "Mike also told me that it was you who really figured out that I had caught Legionnaire's disease. You saved my life Sherlock." John's smile is bright as the sun.

For all of four seconds Sherlock pauses and stares at his friend with a blank expression on his stoic face. It breaks into a lopsided grin, "Ironic isn't it?"

"What? That you saved my life when you're the one who usually puts it in jeopardy?"

"No, that you, a soldier, were almost killed by a disease with the name 'Legionnaire'."

John's laugh is just as bright as his smile.

fin