Sherlock paced restlessly. He had been restless since John had been shot, and Mrs Hudson often tutted at him for 'torturing' his violin at all hours of the night. It had been almost a month since that awful day with Mycroft, waiting on a scratchy, static-filled international call and Sherlock hadn't relaxed since, but he was especially restless this morning.

John was back in England.

He had called the night before, to arrange a second try for dinner at Angelo's. He sounded…off. Rough, different. Being shot had changed him, Sherlock could tell. John had willingly bound himself to a man he had never met to stay in the Army.

Now there were two metal plates holding his shoulder together, and not even Mycroft could stop the discharge from going through.

There was something else, too. Sherlock could hear it hiding in his voice, in the tense silences. Something that John hated, that made him hate himself. Something Sherlock couldn't figure out.

Of course, there was so much about John that he couldn't figure out, from the very beginning. He had received the Victoria Cross, the highest military honour possible, but still wanted to stay in a warzone. He was the kind of person who sent pictures of surgeries and bottles of dirt for gifts, just because Sherlock was the kind of person who would like them. How could he know Sherlock so well without having even seen him?

Sherlock threw himself down on the sofa, picking up the file Lestrade had left on the coffee table. He rilfed through it, glancing at the photos he'd already studied. Perhaps a trip to the Bart's lab would be a suitable distraction.

-0-

John sat stiffly, fingers clenched on the edge of the hard mattress. There was nothing wrong with him. The injury was long gone, healed over years ago, before he was married. It was just the manifestation of stress, left over from the last time he'd received discharge orders. There was nothing wrong with his leg, if he just stood and walked it would fucking work, it had to-

His knee buckled under him, and he caught himself on the bedside table. Pain shot through his leg, making him grit his teeth.

"Fuck!"

-0-

"How fresh?"

Sherlock tuned Molly out as she said a number of meaningless phrases that generally boiled down to 'fresh enough.'

"Excellent," he said vaguely. "We'll start with the riding crop."

Sherlock put his most intense focus onto getting the correct variations of force in his strikes. The post-mortem bruising that occurred within a very short time period would make or break Lestrade's latest case.

He was careful not to mess up his suit, though. It was his best, since he was going straight to Angelo's as soon as he was done.

Molly said something painfully chipper when he finished that he didn't bother listening to. "I need to know what bruises form in the next twenty minutes. A man's alibi depends on it." She stumbled awkwardly over something else Sherlock ignored. "Are you wearing lipstick? You weren't wearing lipstick before." His mind was back on dinner with John that night, with what might happen, and he was taking in random details and letting them fall from his mouth again.

"I just, um, refreshed it a bit." Sherlock hummed absently, checking the time. He had about two hours, enough time to analyse the foreign matter samples he'd taken from the scene. If the post-mortem bruising turned up nothing, it would provide a second lead. "Would you like to have coffee?"

Oh. Yes, coffee would help. Caffine, hot and sweet. "Black, two sugars. I'll be upstairs."

-0-

"I really can't stay for long, Mike," John tried again, stumping along behind him.

Mike just laughed. "I know, but you really have to meet this kid." The elevator doors dinged shut and Mike pressed the button for the fifth floor. "He should still be in the lab doing his…whatever it is he does. His thing. He's a riot. It won't take long, I promise."

John checked his watch again and shifted uneasily. He wanted to be at the restaurant before Sherlock, to make up for last time. "Alright," he sighed, raking a hand through his hair. It was going grey quickly. Did he ever tell Sherlock that? Would Sherlock care? He always thought of Sherlock as someone who grew up posh, based on his brother and his public school accent. God, and he was wearing an old jumper!

Distracted by his worrying, John hadn't realized they had reached the lab until Mike ushered him through the door. A handsome young man with wild, curly hair was bent over a microscope. He started to glance up and John quickly tore his eyes away, chanting Sherlock's name in his head.

"Bit different from my day," he muttered vaguely, looking at the unfamiliar machinery instead.

"Mike, can I borrow your phone?" the young man said, not looking away from the eyepiece of the scope. "Mine's in the morgue and I'm in a hurry."

John stopped dead, nearly dropping his cane. That voice…he knew that voice. It was the baritone rumble he'd heard once a month, late at night while the base was asleep. It was the sharp public school accent he remembered blunted by poor connections and international static. His left hand clenched unconsciously, his thumb running over the familiar gold band.

Sherlock?

"What's wrong with the landline?" Mike asked.

The man shook his head. "I prefer to text. Really, Mike, in a hurry."

Mike laughed and handed over his mobile. "Got a date?"

Do you have a date, Sherlock? With me?

The young man's lip quirked, though his eyes remained on the message he was busily typing into the phone. "Of a sort."

John snorted. The man's (he wanted, he so wanted, this glorious young thing to be Sherlock) eyes flicked to him. His nose wrinkled up in a curious little frown, and John thought it was adorable.

"Oh!" Mike chuckled. "Sorry. This is an old mate of mine, John Watson."

The man's eyes went wide, and there was no way he couldn't be Sherlock, not with a reaction like that.

"Holmes," John croaked, barely able to breathe. "It's John Holmes, actually." Mike's mouth dropped open.

"John?" Sherlock asked, barely more than a breath. He raised a hand and stepped forward, then paused uncertainly.

"Sherlock," John returned, smiling. He reached out to take Sherlock's hand, closing the distance between them.

Sherlock made a noise that was almost a sob and hugged John tightly. John wrapped his arms around Sherlock's thin waist, not even annoyed that Sherlock could rest his chin on John's head. He could feel Sherlock press his nose into John's hair, where he seemed to be smelling him. "You're so odd," John chuckled, suddenly aware of the lump growing in his throat.

"Odd or not, you're stuck with me," Sherlock rumbled. He leaned back and studied John carefully. John knew he saw everything, just like Mycroft, but his gaze held more heat and fascination than Mycroft's cold, impersonal scan.

"Not to interrupt what looks like a very special moment," Mike interrupted, "but does anyone mind explaining?"

"Go away, Mike," Sherlock said, still staring at John with those extraordinarily pale eyes.

John slid a hand up his arm to his neck, finding the chain there. He tugged it out from under Sherlock's shirt. His old tags clinked gently against the gold ring strung there. "These are my Watson tags," he breathed. He spun the ring, stroking the smooth reflective surface. Not like his, scratched and worn dull from Afghan grit. "You don't wear it?"

Sherlock shrugged. "It didn't seem real. Your tags did." He unhooked the chain and slid the ring off, holding it pinched between thumb and forefinger. "Here." He put the ring in John's hand, surrendering his own left hand. "We might as well do one thing the normal way."

"Normal is boring," John grinned, quoting one of Sherlock's letters, and pushed the ring onto his finger.

They both jumped at the sound of shattering ceramic and a sharp gasp. A mousy-looking young woman in a lab coat stood by the door, hands over her mouth. A shattered mug lay in a puddle of coffee at her feet. "Oh my god!" she squeaked. "I'm sorry, I didn't know! I was just- I didn't- What's-"

"Molly, do stop rambling," Sherlock said carelessly. He turned and gathered up his coat, still speaking. "John, I'm finished here. We have a reservation at Angelo's."

John stuck out a hand, taking pity on the shocked girl. "John Holmes."

"Molly Hooper," she replied, taking it gingerly. "I work in the morgue. Sorry, are you…?"

"Dr Holmes and I have been married for three years," Sherlock rattled off, then looked at John with a thoughtful expression. "That's right, isn't it? I was twenty-one."

"And I was twenty-five, that's right," John agreed. "You know, I should probably figure out what day is our anniversary."

Sherlock heaved a sigh, leading the way through the door. "Anniversary, dull. It's June first."

"Yes, so dull you've remembered it for three years," John shot back, grinning. He heard Mike burst into laughter as the door swung shut.