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There are days, terrible days, when you find yourself wandering why you bothered to get up that morning. Days when everything just seems to go wrong, and all that you had wished to accomplish that day remains un-done. Days when all you want to do is crawl back into your bed, fall asleep, and wake up the next day like the last never happened, like you can get on with your life now; even if you can't.
It was on one of these days, one of these dreadful days, that Sherlock Holmes walked confidently into Scotland Yard, and the day no longer seemed quite so bad, but infinitely more complicated. Yes, that day did seem better, so much better than so many of the days previous, the days without Sherlock Holmes, and so much better than anyone had anticipated that day to be when they had awoke that morning. And yes, that day had suddenly become so much more complicated, more complicated than any of the days previously, more complicated than the days of The Great Game, or the days of The Hound of the Baskerville or even the day, one year previously, when the greatest man many people had ever met, took that fateful fall of St. Bart's hospital roof. Yes, this day was so much more complicated, because it was the day Sherlock Holmes returned to the world.
It was a terrifying thing to see a man, confirmed dead, standing in front of you wearing the exact same clothes he always did, with the exact same arrogant expression he always wore, and a steaming cup of take-away coffee in his hand. The sudden smash of a glass hitting the ground confirmed this, Sally Donavon was terrified, surely she wasn't seeing ghosts, and she had dropped the glass of water she had been bringing to DI Lestrade in her shock.
The fact that Sherlock was holding a cup of coffee, if you think about it, was probably more of a shock than him being alive. Sherlock Holmes didn't drink coffee, his drank tea, and it was just not plausible for him to be holding coffee, especially the cheap branded coffee he held: McDonalds. When it came to Sherlock Holmes, as complicated a man as he is, it was more likely that he would come back from the dead, as it seemed he had, than that he would buy and, apparently drink, McDonalds coffee. So if you really think about it, it made a hell of allot more sense for him to be alive and well after falling to his death, than for him to be holding coffee. That wasn't how Sgt. Donovan saw it, or DI Lestrade as he came to investigate the smash, and definitely not John Watson, who had been visiting. No, that was not how they saw it at all.
Sherlock looked at them cautiously as they stared at him in shock, Johns mouth wide open as he stared at him owlishly, a cup of tea held loosely in his shaking hands, tiny splashes of the liquid escaping from the sides.
"What the hell are you doing here?" he choked out, finally placing the tea on a nearby desk- Andersons.
"Looking for you, obviously; honestly John, why else would I be here?" he said in his usual 'how could you not know this?' tone of voice. It really was quite obvious why he was there, did he really think that, when essentially coming back from the dead, he wouldn't go and see one of his only and best friend first?
"But-but, you're dead, Sherlock," John stuttered, forcing the words out through a clenched jaw, "You're dead, Sherlock, I watched you fall. I watched you jump."
"No you didn't, you think you did, but you didn't. No one could survive that drop."
John was still in shock, of course he was, he stared owlishly at Sherlock, his mouth wide open as he stuttered responses to Sherlock's 'ever patronising comments. "But-but- you're here… alive." He managed to get out; Sherlock thought he had explained that with his previous words.
"Yes, John, I'm alive. Keep up," he shot at him, "Don't be dead, that's what you said; well this is me, not being dead." John just gaped at him. It was Lestrade, who John had forgotten was even there (Sherlock, of course, had not) who asked the inevitable question: "But how Sherlock?" Sherlock smiled.
"Oh but don't you see, John?" he ignored the fact that it had been Lestrade who had asked the question, "It's so obvious! People would like it to be a complicated answer; I'd like it to be complicated. Really John, don't you see? I told you John, I even told you."
"What?" John spluttered, "When? How on earth did you manage to tell me that without me noticing?" John had the urge to ask Sherlock if he had been talking to himself again and only though that he had been there, but he didn't. How could he ask Sherlock that when he himself had been doing the exact same thing for the past year only for different reasons? Telling the empty flat that they were out of milk and that he was going out to get some and then leaving without a reply because he didn't expect an answer, because Sherlock never answered, but not it was for an entirely different reason.
"But I told you John!" he repeated, "In my phone call, my note, I told you!" Sherlock was getting excited now, John knew he was, he didn't think it was an appropriate time; it never was. "I said it!" he looked at him expectantly, John replied with a blank, considerably overwhelmed look. Sherlock sighed in that familiar exasperated way. "I'm a fake" he repeated his words from the phone-note, "That's what I said, I'm a fake. Why would I say that unless I as a person was fake? It doesn't make sense John, when I said I was a fake I didn't mean my life- why would I?- I meant my body. It was a fake John! Don't you get it?" John really didn't, but he nodded nonetheless in that was that he always did when Sherlock was ranting about something or another, something that was most likely insanely clever, that John just didn't get.
Sherlock rolled his eyes, he knew John didn't understand. 'My body, John, the man that fell from the roof- it wasn't me. It was just a body from the morgue, it looked like me of course- we'll get to that later- but it wasn't me."
"Hold on," Lestrade said calmly, Donovan wandered why everyone wasn't more shocked that Sherlock, Sherlock the dead man, was standing in front" of them. When she thought about it though, she wasn't that shocked either. He was a freak after all. "How did you get a body from the morgue?" And Sherlock grinned, a genuine, happy grin. You didn't see those often.
"Molly," he exclaimed, "good old trustworthy Molly. I texted her when I was on the roof, my phone was in my hand, had you been there you would have seen my phone in my hand as he talked to Moriarty. Why would my phone be in my hand?" He looked around at the blank stared expectantly, "My phone was in my hand and I texted Molly and she was already waiting, ready to help. She saved my life; Molly Hooper, lifesaver."
"So you're…" John trailed off,
"Yes John, I'm not dead. You asked me, don't be dead, you asked me. Who am I to deny such a request? This is me, not being dead." And Sherlock raised his arms high in the air, as if gesturing to himself. He laughed, and John laughed with him because this was Sherlock being his usual, arrogant, unflappable self. This was Sherlock, not being dead.