"You always look punchable."

And just like that, everything is as it should be again. The world falls back into place. John attempts to go for an expression that's on the dry side, but he ends up with a wide smile. Sherlock is back. He has more time, before going back home to ... Well. Misery, honestly. Thinking Sherlock is dead, for a couple of years.

But there's no point in thinking about that now. He looks at Ellie, and purses his lips.

"I don't know ... As long as he doesn't make any messes."

There's a flicker in Ellie's eyes and John can't help but grimace, even if she's smiling as she closes the door. Okay, so maybe there is still a reason to be concerned. To still feel a bit of doubt.

He takes a deep breath, steels himself just in case, and turns back to Sherlock.

"So ..."

For a moment he just watches him, but then he closes the distance between them and wraps his arms around Sherlock's shoulders, pulling him down for a (quick) hug.

And apparently that ... really surprised Sherlock. Maybe John should hug him more often, just for that, until it stops being surprising.

He's not really going to, but for now he's going to relish in the fact that there are still things he can do to surprise Sherlock. They seem to be getting less and less. Not that that doesn't make sense, but it's always fun, and his lips twitch up into an amused smile at the rather uncharacteristic behaviour it brought out of Sherlock.

"Hullo. Holding up all right?"

"Good." With all that over with, there's one important thing to make sure. "Now what do you last remember? What were you doing before you showed up here?"

It could possibly answer a lot, whether or not Sherlock's willing to directly provide those answers himself. Which you can never be sure he will.

John would beg to differ and say it is absolutely not irrelevant. It's all very, very relevant. And he's not overly happy about Sherlock not answering and bringing up something else entirely, but at the same time he suddenly feels ... self-conscious, and his hands fly to his hair.

Grey hair. That's his first thought.

"Not that much. Only you would notice," he says with a pointed huff.

A month. That’s unusually long. So it’s probably ...

Again.

He takes a deep breath. “Don’t ask me. But apparently it is.” That confirms it, though. “So you don’t remember, then.” He throws a look at the door. “Did you let Ellie in on that fact, by any chance?”

The frown on John’s face should make it more than obvious he does not like that. Go figure that Sherlock wouldn’t tell her. Go figure. He probably has some smartass reasoning behind it too. One that John isn’t going to give a bloody damn about, in the end, but still …

Still, he asks. Folds his arms and tilts his chin down, lips pressed together for a moment. He swears--

“Why not?”

His eyebrows shoot up in disbelief, and for a few seconds he stands there gaping, clearly trying to find the words to express how completely unbelievable that is. Or perhaps not quite so unbelievable, and he supposes that it also shows a sort of attention and weird compassion. Sherlock paying attention to someone's expressions and responding accordingly. Wonder if he would have cared to, before.

John is still frustrated and angry about it, though. Because it's a pretense Sherlock wouldn't be able to keep up for long and, as such, it's utterly pointless and can't end in anything but pain for her. She wouldn't have liked it if Sherlock had actually let her in on the truth from the start, because people forgetting just isn't ... But now she's going to find out, and also know that Sherlock chose to lie. Ellie who has had such difficulty trusting people, trusted this man, and then he goes and lies to her.

John closes his mouth, presses it together and draws in an audible breath through his nose. He straightens, preparing to stand his ground, and his chin rises instead.

"You're going to tell her," he says, and it's not a request, it's not a question.

It's an order.

Oh, good. He has Sherlock's attention.

"Because she's going to work it out eventually, all right? She's already beginning to notice. She's clever. So it's better that you just get it over with and tell her, so that instead of her having to realise you're a right cock because you haven't told her for weeks, you might as well soften the blow and shorten it to a day or two."

It's not like Ellie doesn't know Sherlock can be an asshole. A little damage would probably turn out fine in the end. John refuses to let it get worse than it has to.

Oh. That's what he meant. Well ...

If John had a kid, he'd like the kid to be somewhat like Ellie. He can't quite go as far as to say that she sort of feels like one, because she has Joel. It's not something he's thought a lot about either, and so he finds himself floundering for a moment, mouth open as he searches for words.

"Important," he says, and drops his head for a moment. "We invited her over for Christmas dinner."

"You found her first," he says, just to help along (meaning make things possibly more confusing). "You clicked somehow. You brought her to me to have a look at a zombie bite on her arm that hadn't infected her like it would have everyone else. And it went from there."

Now it seems she's pretty much family.

Honestly, John has no idea how that happened either.