Waking You Up

Wake You Up XIX

"Other people talked to me, too?" Sherlock asks, even though he thinks he knows the answer.

"Yeah," John replies. "I made it a rule, anyone who visited either of us had to talk to you. I didn't know what would help. I was this close to forcing Mycroft to come here for longer than a few minutes at a time and just talk at you, so you'd have to wake up to avoid listening to him."

Sherlock makes a face. "I wouldn't have come back for anyone but you," he says absently. He thinks he can sort it out, now, which parts were complete fiction and which were bits of what people'd said to him.

Then he frowns. "There's something I still don't understand. You could most likely have incapacitated Henrickson without using the knife. You had before. Why did you risk it?"

John looks at him. "He put you in a coma, Sherlock. I thought he might've done worse. I wasn't thinking about incapacitating him."

"You killed him for me," Sherlock says, a bit wonderingly. 

"Yes. You needn't sound so surprised, we both know it's far from the first time, and it won't be the last," John says. 

"But I almost got you killed," Sherlock says. 

"You almost got yourself killed, too. Guess which one I've been more upset about?" John asks. 

Sherlock frowns. He still doesn't quite understand, but he's close. "Why?"

"Same reason I put up with people yelling at me for impeding my healing process so I could sit here and talk at you for the past two weeks," John replies. 

Hmm. "After you mentioned ice skating, you said there was something important you needed to tell me, but you couldn't do it until I woke up," Sherlock says. 

John looks away. 

Ah. There it is. Sherlock's – 96% sure. 

"You still don't have to tell me. I think I've figured it out," Sherlock tells him.

"Have you then?" John asks, his tone forced casual. 

"One question first," Sherlock says. "You said if I didn't beat this, you'd follow me. Did you mean that?"

John jerks, then winces. "You weren't meant to hear that." 

"Did you mean it?" Sherlock asks. 

John says, very quietly, "I think so."

Sherlock smiles and reaches out to twine his fingers with John's. "I'll follow you, too," he says, in the same tone other people say 'I love you too.' 

John stares at their hands. "Sherlock – I don't understand."

"The only time anything made sense was with you. So I was going to follow you; sleep forever. I'm glad I didn't have to, of course, but I would have," Sherlock tells him.

John blinks at him. "I'm still working on becoming fluent in Sherlock, so cut me some slack if I misinterpreted that, all right?" He leans forward to place a gentle, warm kiss on Sherlock's lips, then pulls back a little bit to look at Sherlock. 

Sherlock's not sure what to say. He can't begin to describe what he's feeling. The world makes sense again, everything has clicked into place. Perhaps it can be summed up in: John's alive, and he's looking at Sherlock the way Sherlock's thought of, wished for, and only ever dreamed of once. 

He settles for, "You interpreted correctly," and kisses John again. 

He tries to pull John closer, but John stops him with a hiss of pain.

"Sorry," John says. "Just – not quite healed up. Gently, yeah?"

Sherlock scoots over, and they manage to manoeuvre John onto the bed so he's lying partially on his back and partially on his good side, turned slightly towards Sherlock.

"Probably shouldn't be lying down," John says. 

"Why not?" Sherlock asks.

"I'm exhausted," John replies. "If I stay lying down, I'll probably fall asleep. And I should be calling everyone. They'll want to know you're awake." 

"Mmm," Sherlock says, burying his nose in John's hair and breathing in. "Just ten minutes."