A/N: Me again. Seems that I cannot stay away from this fandom, try as I might. This story takes place in the alternative universe I'd established in my other story, "The Games We Play" (after its fourth chapter, to be more exact), so you might want to check that one out before you read this. In case you don't, just note that for the purpose of this story John is married to Mary when "The Reichenbach Fall" events take place, and Sherlock has a… difficult relationship with Irene, to put it mildly.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy it—especially you, Osage!... Feedback is love.

(PS. The characters in this story belong to somebody else, I'm just playing with them. And the title belongs to Sting, of course.)

"Where would you go?" Molly asks, and looks at him hopefully. Stay with me. Come to my place.

"Somewhere nobody would look for me." Your place would be too obvious. You would be too obvious. But you helped me, and I'm grateful.

They don't say much else, but they understand each other very well in this moment of bright clarity.

I'm not dead. Looking for a place to live.

He stays in an empty warehouse, a squat found by one of his most trustworthy 'homeless agents'. He sits by the wall, wrapped in his coat, and keeps himself going by means of nicotine, the drugs Molly provided him with, and Indian takeaway. His agent is quite resourceful indeed.

It takes her four days to come and get him, and by that time he hardly resembles the old Sherlock Holmes, the drugs having worn out and left him shaking, babbling and disoriented. She shakes her head and puts her arm around his shoulders, half-dragging him into the back of a rented car. "You look awful."

"I've seen you look much worse." And he has, that night in Pakistan—which she knows, so she lets the remark slide. "Where are you taking me?"

"To a safe place. Sleep."

So he does.

It's a basement apartment with a separate entrance, quite handy if somebody asks him (which they don't). Irene makes him step out of his shoes as soon as the door closes behind them, and hands him a laundry net and a towel. "Bathroom's through there," she waves her hand towards the door on the right. "Take your time."

He stands in the shower until the water turns cold, rubbing, scraping, brushing, soaping and rinsing himself, trying desperately to forget, to draw the remnants of drug-induced numbness from his limbs. His reflection in the mirror shows a drawn, ashen face, empty eyes, lips pressed into a thin line. He puts on a tee and sweatpants she'd laid out for him, and walks towards the sounds of water boiling and cutlery clattering, his feet bare against the cold floor.

Every sensation seems to be intensified tenfold.

Irene is sitting on the kitchen table, the light from the window enveloping her, obscuring her features. She gestures towards a mug placed on the counter separating the kitchenette from the rest of the room, and sips on her own beverage.

He looks into the mug and frowns. "I'm not a child."

"You're not exactly a sane person, either, so you're off caffeine for the time being. Now drink your milk and off to bed with you."

Grudgingly he takes a sip and looks around: simple, modern interior, only the strictly necessary furniture, no pictures, photographs or other adornments; all in all, a cold, somewhat menacing living space. "Who lives here?"

"You do, now. But if you're asking who does it belong to, the answer is—a friend of mine."

"Someone who'd told you what they liked, and you provided admirable service to them?"

She glares, but doesn't respond to his taunting, and although it should mean that he's got an upper hand in the exchange, he feels something dangerously close to disappointment at her passiveness.

She jumps off the table, like a little girl, and gestures towards the back of the apartment. "I've made the bed. Sleep it off, you still look like a corpse warmed over."

"I'm supposed to be dead."

"So do I. Now, go."

There's a little more of the old Irene in the way she utters that order, and it makes him feel better. He puts the mug down, stifles a yawn. "What about you?" he asks, uncharacteristically caring. She just shrugs.

"Can't sleep. Jetlag."

He nods and turns away, entering the small windowless room behind a light partition, where only a bed fits: a claustrophobic, dark space making his heart contract (the feeling he pointedly tells himself to ignore). He sits on the edge of the bed (freshly washed linen, firm mattress) and listens to Irene pacing, shuffling papers and turning the lights down.

When he finally lies down and pulls a blanket over his head, it feels as if he is dying, dying at last, connecting heavily with the brutally cold pavement.

The smell of gunpowder and the touch of wind on his face. The thick, dark blood flowing out of Moriarty's head. The voices—John, Mrs. Hudson, Lestrade, Mycroft—calling him from the distance, as if separated from him by a thick plate of glass.

The rush of the air as he tumbles down, down, down…

The coldness, the numbness, the darkness. The pain, pain everywhere, in every part of his body. In his mind. Perhaps even in his soul.

The arm sliding across his chest, pulling him back, away from the abyss, away from death.

"Stop it," her lips graze his ear, her forehead resting against the back of his head. "It's only a dream, Sherlock. Stop. This isn't true."

He's shaking, panting, furious at his body for betraying him like that. Her hand rests over his racing heart, unmoving, a weight that connects him to his world, an anchor pulling him down from the chaos, the windmill of thoughts, memories, mental associations and feelings that he loathes. He reaches up, covers the hand with his clammy fingers. "I thought—"

"I know. I've been hearing gunshots or feeling the machete on my neck for weeks. Maybe months. But it's not true. You're neither dead nor dying. Try to remember that." Her voice is cold and impassive, like it has been the whole time since she came to the squat, but her hand is warm and her body is real, and he cannot, will not, let go.

He knows she's right, and he's being unreasonable and oh so stupid, but the world is still spinning like a crazy whirligig, and perhaps it's just the last batch of the drugs leaving his system and making him delirious…

"Hush now."

He remembers seeing her through the haze of a different delirium, and smiles into the pillow. "I'm not usually like that."

"I suppose you don't usually commit suicides, do you? Go back to sleep, Sherlock."

He half expects her to pull her hand away and leave him to wrestle with another wave of nightmares that's bound to start as soon as he closes his eyes—but she stays, breathing onto his neck, still and quiet like a living statue: and he sleeps, really sleeps, calm and peaceful and resting, for the first time since he fell.

When he wakes up, he's alone.

TBC?...