Disclaimer: Not mine. All respects paid to Sir Doyle, the BBC, and writers Steve Moffat and Mark Gatiss.

A/N: Welcome to the third installment in the 'First Impressions' series, where some serious understandings are reached. A note about these companion pieces: if you are familiar with canon (which, if you are reading fan fic for Sherlock, I assume you are), each of these stories is a standalone. If you do not feel particularly moved to read either 'First Impressions' or 'Second Glances', 'Realizations' should still make sense.

This fic takes place entirely between the final scene of 'The Great Game' and the end of 'A Scandal in Belgravia'. As usual, anything you recognize is the dialogue of the series, and this first chapter should be very familiar. Happy reading, and thank you for taking the time to drop in.

Sherlock

Terror.

"Brought you a little getting-to-know-you present. Oh, that's what it's all been for, hasn't it? All your little puzzles; making me dance. All to distract me from this."

Sherlock scanned the pool, turning slowly, arm aloft with the Bruce-Partington missile plans. He wasn't truly worried about a sniper – his delightful antagonist wouldn't kill him that way. Not after the ferocious game they'd been playing.

But now, this was the last pip. Their final countdown. Moriarty would be here…he wouldn't be able to resist—

"Evening."

Sherlock felt his heart stutter in his chest. That voice…no. That small, compact body, bundled against London's nippy night air, stepping casually out of the locker room stalls. Too familiar. Achingly familiar.

"That was…amazing."

Sherlock couldn't control the flash of genuine surprise, his momentary speechlessness, the pleased look that he knew had rearranged his features. The unassuming ex-military doctor's genuine reaction was so different than the norm.

"Do you think so?"

"Of course it was. It was extraordinary, it was quite extraordinary."

"This is a turn up, isn't it, Sherlock?"

For the first time in his life, Sherlock Holmes could not believe the evidence of his own eyes. Or ears. John? Not John…John was…John was his flat mate, his best friend, the man who had introduced him to crap telly and made him vaguely aware that most of the human race ate three meals a day, and…and so incredibly, wonderfully ordinary in so many ways that he was extraordinary.

"John…what the hell—?"

"Bet you never saw this coming."

No…no, he hadn't. Sherlock Holmes had seldom been blindsided in his life, and he couldn't say that he was enjoying the total shock of the experience now.

"I hope you'll be very happy together."

Numbness settled around him, smothering him. Not the usual indifference of his impatience with others, but an almost paralyzing feeling of why bother? If John was the designer of this game…what did that make him? Where did that leave Sherlock? An emptiness he'd never before felt took up residence in his chest, hurting behind his ribs where his heart used to sit. A vast chasm yawned at his feet and the man standing in front of him was on the other side, no longer someone he knew.

None of this was logical. John was still John and he was still Sherlock and …but the equation no longer balanced. Some unknown factor had collided into it and sent the whole world spinning.

The detective made his feet move. John could have the USB with the plans, the British government be damned. And then Sherlock would—

…would…

…his imagination, always so active, now produced only the silence of death. He could not envisage a future without John Watson. He could not summon a next step beyond handing John the flash drive.

In all likelihood, there was no need. He would hand John the plans. And then he would die. Felled by that sniper he had, seconds ago, been so sure would not fire.

As he walked towards the only man he had ever considered a friend, John's face collapsed. It was a small thing, a very slight loosening of the stiffness that had held it to neutrality, but it was paired with the blunt-fingered hands slowly coming out of his pockets, disturbing the aura of casual confidence. John opened his vest just slightly, and revealed what was underneath.

There was no time for relief that John was not a traitor, not the architect of the game but simply one of the pieces, no time for gratitude that fate was not so incredibly unkind. There was no time, not with him covered in Semtex and explosives, an unknown gunman hovering above them, but Sherlock felt it anyway. It was primary amongst the cacophony of emotions that avalanched in on him in his next few steps.

Relief, gratitude…and something entirely unexpected.

Sherlock had heard – and deleted – so many cliché descriptions of falling in love over his lifetime that he would have been hard-pressed to count them even if he hadn't shed them.

"It makes everything in life beautiful" "Like being bathed in never-ending sunlight" "It's bliss, desire, lust, wonder" "A crazy, heart-stopping roller-coaster ride" "Like finding a missing piece of yourself"

But even had he kept such trivia on that valuable space in his hard drive, none of the insipid phrases used would have helped him.

When Sherlock Holmes realized he was in love, that he, too, had finally succumbed to something completely ordinary, it was not wonderful, thrilling or ecstatic.

It was terrifying. He was instantly reduced to a knee-collapsing fear of a kind he had not experienced since his nightmares as a very young child.

Of course, the fact that the object of this sudden, violent understanding was standing in front of him rigged to bring down a municipal building may have been contributing to the panic.

I love you.

Five minutes ago – thirty seconds ago – it had all been so much…fun.

"I am on fire!"

"So just tell me: what are we dealing with?" "Something new."

"You're enjoying this aren't you? Joining the…dots."

"I can't be the only one who gets bored."

Even John's earlier disappointment, while unpleasant in a way he hadn't cared to contemplate, had been only slightly difficult to shrug off in his pursuit of his quarry.

Until right now.

"There are lives at stake, Sherlock! Actual, human lives. Just…just so I know, do you care about that at all?"

Yes. In a vague way. He was aware that his desire to solve crimes instead of perpetrate them put him on the side of the 'good guys', made him 'a bit good', made it possible for men like John Watson to say 'brilliant!' instead of 'psychopath!'.

Only now, here, it wasn't the indistinct, murky feeling that had always hovered at the edges of his perception, a recognition that the number of human lives saved really should mean more to him than a way of keeping score. Now the life standing in front of him, dead at a moment's notice, at a madman's whim, was the whole of his world.

Yes. When the life was John Watson's, he cared immensely. Cared so much his knees nearly buckled with the pain of it searing his veins. "Caring is not an advantage."

"Don't make people into heroes, John. Heroes don't exist, and if they did, I wouldn't be one of them."

Now he would have to be. He wasn't losing John.

"Nice touch, this. The pool where little Carl died." John was speaking again, those awful, foreign words that John Watson, Captain and MD, would never say. "I stopped him. I can stop…John Watson, too. Stop his heart."

Sherlock felt his own heart jump in response, beating a little harder, making breathing a little more difficult. He was looking past John, seeking the source, but he was almost level with his flat mate now, close enough to see the constriction of John's throat as he swallowed in the wake of his forced suicide threat.

"Who are you?"

"I gave you my number. I thought you might call." A new voice, mocking, as its owner emerged. Sherlock stared. While not nearly as distressing, the revelation of Moriarty's true face was nearly as surprising as John's emergence had been.

Jim. Molly's boyfriend. As soon as he and John got out of this, the detective was going to have a serious chat to her about who she chose to fall for in his stead.

His hand found the Browning before he'd really had time to think about it. Moriarty didn't seem to be worried. If anything, amusement sparkled in the dark eyes. "Is that a British Army Browning L9A1 in your pocket, or are you just pleased to see me?"

The gun was up and steady as Sherlock replied. "Both." At least, with Moriarty in the open, John wouldn't be—

In time with his thought, the red dot of a sniper laser flickered over John's chest. Sherlock shot it a questioning look. "Don't be silly," Moriarty said amicably as he ambled towards them. "Someone else is holding the rifle. I don't like getting my hands dirty."

Now it was time for a bit of back-and-forth. Sherlock knew that Moriarty was a consulting criminal – what kind of consulting detective would he be if he hadn't already gotten that far? – but he also knew this type. He had told John on their very first case, "They want an audience." Moriarty wanted to brag, wanted the acknowledgements of his cleverness that Sherlock had been spouting over the past days, wanted the chance to explain exactly how accomplished he was. Sherlock was happy to oblige his vanity. Listening to Moriarty and speaking in all the right pauses, feeding him the correct lines, might be boring, but the red dot was still hovering between John's heart and forehead, and as long as Moriarty was delightedly talking to Sherlock, he wasn't giving the order to kill his friend.

"You all right?" he asked John quietly. John wouldn't look at him, and the unfamiliar sensation of his stomach falling in dread threatened to distract him.

Jim finished waltzing up, got next to John's ear. Sherlock's jaw locked at the faux pose of intimacy. He didn't want Moriarty that close to John, John was his, not the criminal's. "You can talk, Johnny-boy. Go ahead."

John glanced at him, jerked his head in the affirmative, and dropped his gaze again. That was enough. Sherlock thrust out his hand, USB in it. "Take it," he bit at Moriarty.

"Oh…that. The missile plan." He took it, kissed it, and Sherlock was already planning how he could shoulder past Moriarty to John and get them both the hell out of there when Moriarty announced, "Booorring! I could have got them anywhere." A careless flick of his wrist and the USB with Mycroft's precious plans was in the pool.

That was when John saw his moment. Sherlock saw his body tense, saw the readiness string the smaller man's frame, no John!, it was too late to say anything, too late to move, his feet rooted to the ground as the doctor threw himself on Moriarty's back, bombs pressed between their bodies as he gripped the criminal around the neck.

"Sherlock, run!"

Jim laughed. Sherlock hated that sound. It was the laugh of an adult at a precocious child who can't really do any harm – one of pleased surprise. "Good! Very good."

"If your sniper," John was the one in Moriarty's ear now, and his voice was deadly in its commitment, "pulls that trigger, Mr. Moriarty, then we both go up."

Moriarty was completely unconcerned. "Isn't he sweet? I can see why you like having him around. But then, people do get so sentimental about their pets."

There was a firm resignation in John's eyes as Moriarty spoke. A flicker of honesty as he jerked Moriarty closer to him and the explosives. A pet. Was that really what John thought Sherlock regarded him to be? Shame, sudden and unwelcome, flooded the detective. How could John have possibly thought he was anything else—

"Did you like it?"

"Ummm…no."

—when he, Sherlock, rarely acknowledged John's value aloud, but had been so eager to praise Moriarty's villainous brilliance?

The detective still had the Browning up, but he couldn't have fired – moved – breathed – if he'd wanted to. Killing Moriarty this way would bring no satisfaction, no tranquility. Not with John right there, offering his life as ransom for Sherlock's own. What had he done to deserve this from the army doctor who was, without a doubt, the best man he'd ever known?

"They're so touchingly loyal. But oops! You've rather shown your hand there, Doctor Watson."

The sniper. The red dot had vanished, which was hardly surprising. It wasn't good for business to shoot the boss. His gaze swept the echoing room. The shooter would come up somewhere…

He saw the truth in John's defeated gaze first. The red dot had transferred to his own forehead. Sherlock met John's blue eyes for a moment, shook his head. John sighed, released Moriarty, and stepped back.

"Gotcha," Moriarty crooned. He lightly brushed off his suit, straightening it as if John were no more than a rambunctious toddler who had ruffled his sleeves. "Do you know what happens if you don't leave me alone, Sherlock? To you?"

Sherlock was tiring of this. They needed a way out and his fear for John was overwhelming, overriding the logic and swift precision his brain had always delivered, short circuiting his thought processes. "Will caring about them help me save them?" No. No, it didn't. And it was this life that above all he could not afford to lose.

He used boredom to cover his anxiety. "Oh, let me guess. I get killed."

"Kill you?" Moriarty winced. "Mm, no, don't be obvious. I mean, I'm gonna kill you anyway, someday. I don't want to rush it, though. I'm saving it up for something special. No, no, nonononono. If you don't stop prying…I will burn you."

His eyes roved over Sherlock as if seeing beneath his skin, as if burrowing to the heart of him. The laughing jester had vanished abruptly. In his place was the madman at the heart of who Moriarty truly was. "I will burn the heart out of you."

Threats were easy to deal with. The Browning was completely steady, his voice totally cold. "I have been reliably informed that I don't have one."

Moriarty smiled. A calculating smile. "But we both know that's not quite true." He didn't look at John, standing just a few paces behind him. Neither did Sherlock. But the doctor's presence, and what it meant to each, hung in the air between them. Sherlock's greatest weakness. Moriarty's ultimate playing card.

Sherlock knew, with a sudden, violent clarity, what it meant to want to kill another human being. To end the life in front of him, to wipe the cold smirk off that face, to be willing to pay for ending Moriarty with his own blood.

In that moment, he nearly pulled the trigger. Only the sniper stopped him – the knowledge that John's life was still forfeit.

And then Moriarty submerged the madman, uttered a few platitudes and dismissed himself as if he was leaving a business meeting in a board room, with no more concern for Sherlock and his firearm than he would have for a secretary holding a pen.

"Ciao."

"Catch…you…later," Sherlock replied slowly, gun still on Moriarty's retreating figure as he inched closer to John.

"No you won't," the mocking sing-song bounced off the tiled locker room walls. The door slammed. Sherlock waited, completely still for one…two…three…beats, then his head jerked to John, the Browning hit the pool deck, and he was on his knees in front of the other man, jerking at the ties binding the doctor to destruction.

"All right?" No answer, and panic wrought havoc with his voice as he asked again, sharply, "Are you all right?"

"Yeah." Now John was breathless with relief and delayed terror as Sherlock yanked loose the last bonds and stood, shoving the coat and vest violently off the doctor's shoulders, wrenching it from his arms. "Yeah, I'm fine. I'm fine. Sherlock…"

He couldn't stop his frantic pulling, the coat was the center of his gut-wrenching fear, and if he could just get it far away enough from John, from both of them, everything would be all right—

"Sherlock!"

And he was throwing it, bombs and all, heaving it across the floor, away from them, where at least if it went up, it wouldn't be blowing John's heart out along with it, even if it brought the building down on top of them. The doctor was gasping now, drawing deep breaths as if he hadn't been inhaling through the entire conversation.

Sherlock grabbed the gun from the deck, went to check that Moriarty was actually gone, not just waiting to see what happened next. "Are you okay?" John wheezed from where he'd folded against one of the stall columns.

"Me? Yeah, fine. I'm fine." He was pacing frantically, less worried about Moriarty now than he was about himself. He couldn't tell John, not now, couldn't begin to think the words to describe his tumult, couldn't even look at his friend, knowing that what he felt was written all over his face, so plain that even John Watson couldn't miss it.

I love you.

"Fine. That uh…that thing you did, that you—" the words wouldn't come, how did you say 'thank you' and 'you scared me to death, you idiot!' and 'please never leave me' in the same sentence? "—that you offered to do, that was, um…good."

"I'm glad no one saw that." John's quiet sentence didn't register. No one saw what? "You…ripping my clothes off in a darkened swimming pool. People might talk."

Ah. Yes. "I'm not gay." "It's all…fine." " 'This is my friend, John Watson.' 'Colleague.'" "I'm trying to get off with Sarah!" "'Opposites attract, I suppose.' 'No, we're not—'"

I love you.

John could never know. Sherlock would never tell him.

"People do little else," he managed, and then summoned a grin, because it was expected, because John needed him to be Sherlock, unshakable in his cold disdain for the emotions and gossip that littered the small minds of the world.

And with that, John let out his final long breath, cracked a strained smile in return, and started to rise.

Only to see the red lasers centered on both of them.

"Sorry boys!" Moriarty was behind them.

"You can't be allowed to continue." Now each had a cluster of red dots. "You just can't."

Sherlock glanced down at John. John's dark blue eyes flickered briefly to the pool, then met his. The same grim resolve that had led him to leap on Moriarty's back, that had doubtless characterized his existence in Afghanistan, was in his gaze.

It was amazing, really, how quickly he had jumped to the same conclusion. Was even now preparing himself to launch them both into the water when the vest exploded. The blue eyes had conveyed the only message required:

I trust you.

Sherlock hoped he had earned it.

"I would try to convince you, but, everything I have to say has already crossed your mind," Moriarty finished jovially.

Sherlock shot a last look down at his flat mate, his best friend, the only person he'd ever loved. Their eyes held for a long moment, and John tilted his head in the tiniest of nods, granting him permission.

The water was a long shot, even with John's army reflexes. But perhaps Sherlock would have time to tell him before the ceiling came down on them both.

"Probably my answer has crossed yours."

He turned, and deliberately lowered the gun to the explosive-laden vest.

888

A/N: A big thank you to my reviewers for the first two stories in this series – I truly appreciate your feedback and encouragement.