Sherlock was released a day later, against his doctor's orders. John had the feeling Mycroft was not about to refuse his younger brother anything at this point.

When they got back to the flat, the first thing Sherlock did was sit down on the couch (his usual spot, of course) and begin unwinding his bandages.

"What are you doing?"

"I have to see, John."

"You can't take those off. It needs to heal."

"It will. I only want to look."

"Looking won't change anything."

Sherlock glanced up, his eyes connecting with John's for the briefest of moments before returning to the task of loosening the gauze wrap. "I know."

John gave up. "I want to bandage that up again immediately you've seen."

"Of course."

He went to sit beside Sherlock on the couch, winding the loose end of the gauze back up into a roll as fast as the other man unwound it from his hand. Yet again, he thought with the barest hint of amusement, his combat medical training was coming in handy for dealing with Sherlock Holmes.

The last of the gauze bandaging came off, revealing the taped dressings below. "Gently," John warned, knowing that removing the medical tape would be painful; he had seen the abrasions on his friend's skin, not to mention the carefully-controlled expression on his face during dressing changes at the hospital.

He received only a scornful look in return for the word of caution, but he had expected nothing more. Sherlock loosened the tape, piece by piece, then let the dressing fall away.

A jagged, dark line stared back at them, a misplaced mouth of threaded teeth, and Sherlock's pale (remaining) fingers curled like claws beside it.

John drew a shaky breath. The stark, black stitches were standard procedure, neatly done, and from a medical standpoint, the healing was progressing very well indeed.

But this was Sherlock, and it all seemed like some twisted joke.

He was glad to see, at least, that the thumb and two (remaining) fingers responded, albeit stiffly, to Sherlock's tentative flexing.

"Right, enough," he declared firmly, "give me your hand."

Sherlock didn't move for a beat, long enough that John's eyes flickered up to the detective's face in concern. He was impassive as ever, though, and after another fraction of a second, brought his hand up and laid it in John's outstretched one.

"Hardly a hand at this point, John."

John didn't meet his gaze again as he bent over the task of re-dressing and re-wrapping Sherlock's injury. "You'll have good use of your thumb and fingers," he said, a prediction based on doctors' reports and his own practised observations. "It won't be the same as before, but it won't be a radical loss of function."

"No, it won't be the same as before," Sherlock agreed. "Because I've only got half of a hand left. How nice of you to have noticed."

"Sherlock, I – "

"Oh, stop worrying. I don't need your sympathy."

John finished wrapping and taped off the end of the bandage. "Look, I know this isn't – "

"It doesn't matter," Sherlock cut him off, waving his good hand in irritation. "Just transport, remember?"

He reached over to his right in a gesture born of long habit, then froze.

John pretended not to notice as Sherlock sat, immobile, for a moment, then rose from the couch and began to pace.

"Send a text," he snapped abruptly, and John dug resignedly in his jeans pocket for his mobile. At least Sherlock's texting wouldn't be impaired, since he already got John to do all of it for him anyway.

He raised his eyebrows at the detective, waiting for further instructions.

"To Lestrade," Sherlock huffed in annoyance. "Surely Scotland Yard haven't suddenly become competent because I've been away for a few days."

Frankly, John thought, they had probably welcomed the reprieve, but he also knew that Lestrade had checked in repeatedly with John about Sherlock's condition and it would likely be a great weight off the Detective Inspector's shoulders to know that Sherlock was back to being a case-demanding nuisance again.

Text sent, John sat back on the couch, turned on the television, and continued to pretend not to notice that Sherlock's pacing was a poor substitute for what they both knew was missing.

He had been very lucky that Sherlock hadn't looked for his violin since his return from the hospital. The detective still reached for it on occasion, fingers closing around the empty spot it had once occupied on the arm of the couch, but he was doing so less often now, and withdrawing his hand more quickly.

John, without having said anything to his friend, had put it in his bedroom. He'd thought it might make things easier for Sherlock not to have it as a constant reminder.

He sat on the edge of his bed now, looking at the violin case just inside the open closet doors. It would have to go back to Sherlock at some point, but he still remembered the swiftly-hidden look on the younger man's face in the hospital (stupid, John, stupid) and he was loath to be the cause of that look again.

He rested his fingers on the silver catches of the case, then shook his head and turned away. He ought to update his blog, he reminded himself instead. It had been several days, and now that he knew people were reading it, he hated to leave it alone for too long.

For once, Sherlock hadn't commandeered his computer. The injury had barely slowed down Sherlock's touch-typing at all, but he used his own laptop more often now, perhaps because he was more accustomed to the size of the keyboard and the layout of the functions.

John found himself staring at a blank "new entry" page on his website, unsure of what to write. Sherlock's been hurt, he thought, that was just stupid. Sherlock's had an injury, right, that made it sound like a paper cut. Sherlock… but then he remembered that Sherlock read his blog, too, and he suddenly couldn't set any of the events of the past few days to words.

Instead, his eyes roved across the screen, bookmarked pages lined up along the toolbar, none of them particularly appealing at the moment. Fine. There were other things he could be doing.

He had already reached up to close the laptop when his eyes locked onto the search toolbar at the far right of his browser.

Sherlock's footsteps, pacing from carpet to hardwood, hardwood to carpet, carpet to hardwood, drifted in through the half-open door.

John started typing.

He waited until Lestrade called Sherlock in on another case. In the weeks since the explosion, the Detective Inspector's reluctance to ask for assistance at crime scenes had begun to fade a little, and both John and Sherlock were glad of it – John because it kept his friend from driving himself to distraction pacing around their flat, and Sherlock because it proved that nothing had changed.

Today, John made excuses not to accompany the consulting detective to his latest job. Something about household chores; he wasn't even quite sure anymore what he had said, but he did know it had made Sherlock grimace in distaste, huff an impatient sigh and leave on his own – which was exactly what John had been trying to achieve.

Now, alone in the flat, he retrieved the long box he had hastily stuffed into his closet a few mornings ago when it had arrived at the door. Sherlock hadn't asked any questions then, having been preoccupied with trying to guide a 33-gauge needle into a tissue sample on the table in front of him (protected by a thick layer of his own notes and diagrams, thank God, because John had eaten breakfast in the same spot just that morning). He'd had to wait for an opportunity to unpack the box, though.

Slicing the packing tape surrounding the cardboard with the blade of his old army Leatherman, he folded the flaps outward and reached in to fish out the sheet of paper that lay on top. His eyes flicked down the printed list: bass bar, soundpost, bridge, chinrest, strings… he didn't know what most of the words meant, but he'd read about them online and it sounded about right. He put the paper aside.

Carefully, he lifted out the case taking up most of the room in the box and laid it face-up on the bed. He'd considered for a long time before sending away Sherlock's own instrument, but he had finally decided that it would be better, somehow, than a new one. This violin would mean something. This violin, like Lestrade's crime scenes, would mean that not everything had changed.

He set it out on the arm of the couch, where it had always lived until a few weeks ago, and waited.

Sherlock returned hours later in a whirlwind of long coat and dark hair and the flushed joy of having found a really interesting case. Or perhaps just the flushed joy of having dealt Anderson a particularly clever insult; those two ranked almost equally highly in Sherlock's esteem. He headed straight for the couch, calling out, "Tea, John" even as he flopped down on the middle cushion.

"Kettle's on," John replied mildly.

"And do we have – " Sherlock's question broke off midway through.

John looked over. Sherlock was staring at the violin, but John was too far away to make out his friend's expression. He stepped closer.

"Sherlock?"

"Did you have this?"

"For a little while."

Sherlock picked up the bow, turning it over and over in his hands. The movement reminded John of Mycroft, who had done the same thing the day after Sherlock's injury.

Better not to tell Sherlock that Mycroft had touched his beloved instrument as well.

"Go on," he said. "Pick it up."

Bitterness flashed across Sherlock's face, not quite the same as in the hospital, but no better, either.

"What good would it do?" he asked, twisting the bow harder. John worried he might break it.

"Sherlock, have you looked… really… looked at it?"

In answer, the detective turned away from John and back to the violin on the couch. John closed his eyes, and Sherlock was silent for so long he almost couldn't stand it.

"Ah."

He opened his eyes.

Sherlock slipped a hand under the violin, lifting it as if to test its balance. He raised it and settled it against his shoulder, chin against the newly-positioned rest, fingers of his right hand closing on the strings. The bow shook in his left hand – he would need to devise a way of controlling it properly, later – but steadied when he laid it against the strings, not playing, just holding.

Then a single, wavering note, the same rich sound as the one John had played on the day Mycroft had come. It didn't sound much better than John's efforts, either, but John had had ten fingers and hadn't been holding the violin backwards.

There was something John wanted to do. He was almost at the foot of the stairs to his bedroom when he heard Sherlock's voice, softly, from behind him.

"John."

"Mmm."

"Thank you."

John opened his laptop, called up a new blog entry, and settled his fingers onto the keyboard.

"Sherlock," he typed, "is learning to play a left-handed violin."