Leaning back on the counter, he tucked into his own dinner, briefly enjoying the hint of paprika and the thick creamy sauce. It was a good meal, but tantalizing his taste-buds was never really the point of eating. All he wanted to do was silence his demanding stomach.

A comfortable silence settled over the kitchen, both he and Elliot too busy eating to speak, and before long their bowls were empty. 'That was brilliant,' Elliot said with a grin, as earnestly as if London had just solved a complicated triple murder right before his eyes. 'Can't believe you've been holding out on me.'

'It didn't seem relevant,' London explained. 'We get free food everywhere we go, and we don't have to wash up afterwards. ' He threw a look of disdain at the dirty pans before turning his back, focusing instead on the paper bag that Elliot had brought home from the hospital. Opening it up, he took in the contents: packets of pills and shrink-wrapped dressings for treating Elliot's wound.

'Take these,' he instructed, shaking out a painkiller and an antibiotic. 'How often are you meant to change the bandage?'

'At least once in the morning and once at night,' Elliot replied, glancing down at his hand and picking at the cloth wrapped around it. 'Normally I'd leave it a bit longer, but punctures are difficult. It's easy to drag infection down into the wound.'

With a faint sigh, Elliot accepted the glass of water London got for him and downed the tablets. London took the bowl away from him and turned back to the kitchen table. It was still relatively clean and free from experiments, as he had not had the chance to get any under-way since his recovery. It would be fine to use as a work surface while treating Elliot's hand, at least for a while.

Carefully, he laid out everything they would need before moving to the sink, scrubbing his hands as thoroughly as he could without deepening the cuts on his fingertips. At last he decided they were clean enough and turned back, reaching for Elliot's injured arm. 'Tell me what to do?' he asked, pinching carefully at the bandage and spooling it free.

Inch by inch, Elliot's skin was revealed, dark blues and blacks mottling their way across tendons and knuckles. London winced in sympathy, feeling a fresh, bright fury at both Edwards and Monroe before he eased away the dressing. The wound itself was almost minor in comparison to the marks around it: a ragged, deep hole amidst tempestuous hues.

'Antiseptic,' Elliot said, holding out the sealed wipe for London to undo. 'Then dry it and bandage it again. Easy enough.'

'But difficult to do by yourself,' London added, manipulating each finger of Elliot's hand with the lightest of touches and watching the tendons shift. He dabbed at the puncture wound with the antiseptic wipe, keeping his grip secure and comforting as Elliot hissed in pain. 'Sorry.'

'No, it's got to be done,' Elliot replied, the words ground out through his clenched teeth as London soaked away the excess fluid and opened a clean dressing and bandage. 'Start at my wrist to anchor it in place, and then move up my hand.'

The Consulting Criminal did as Elliot instructed, watching the angry colors of the injury steadily vanish beneath the clean white swathe of the bandage. He pressed a touch to the bare edge of Elliot's palm, unconsciously moving in tiny, soothing spirals before he finished up and threw away the soiled dressing.

'Thanks,' Elliot said with a smile. 'Not just for this, but for dinner and –' He gestured towards the bedroom in mute indication of their nest and the comfort it offered. 'I, uh, I needed all this.'

'You know it won't be like this after every case?' London pointed out, watching Elliot's face carefully for any signs of disappointment. 'Don't you?'

'I know. To be honest, I wasn't expecting this much. I thought you'd be off reading the case file or looking for the next puzzle to solve, and that's fine.' Elliot tightened his grip as if he could instill London's faith with mere physical contact. 'I don't know what I can do to make you believe me, but I mean it when I say I don't want you to change. I want what you want, whether that's rooftop chases, violin at three in the morning, experiments...'

Elliot was right, it was hard to believe that anyone could be content to take the precious little that the Consulting Criminal had to offer. Yet Elliot had always been different, breathing “amazing” where other people spat “freak”, and believing when others called him a "liar".

A quick glance at the clock made London frown, and he exchanged a glance with Elliot as Mrs Hanson twittered a welcome.

He would recognize Cruz's footsteps anywhere, and he raised an eyebrow in Elliot's direction. 

London pulled the front door open before the knock came, watching Cruz sway on the threshold in surprise. He looked like a man whose night had gone from bad to worse. Yet there was a hint of a smile on his lips as he took in the sight of London and Elliot. 'I hate to interrupt,' he said with a flicker of a grin, 'but I need to talk to you.'

'You can't honestly have come over here at ten at night for my statement?' Elliot asked in disbelief.

London watched Cruz shake his head and lean against the door-frame, running his hand through his hair. 'No, no. Edwards confessed to everything,' he told them. 'All of it: Winters, Hunter, Monroe.... the lot. I'll still need to get your side of things, but it can wait.'

'Is he getting a psychiatric evaluation?' London asked, waiting for Cruz to nod his head. 'Do you think it will do him any good?'

'Not in a traditional sense. He's lucid and logical, with no obvious tells of serious mental issues. Maybe if they can find some evidence of something that makes him more easy to manipulate than others, it might reduce his sentence by a year or two, but that's a big maybe.'

The Inspector shook his head as if he were trying to pitch away the buzz of his thoughts, rubbing a hand across his brow. 'Actually, the reason I came over is that I could use your help. We had a murder about five days ago, gruesome, but nothing we couldn't handle.' He shrugged, the lines around his eyes deepening as he winced. 'We thought we'd caught the guy, but we've just had two more corpses turn up the same way. Dissected and packaged up in containers.'

'A serial killer.' London replied.

'An escalating one,' Cruz confirmed. 'And we've got the wrong man. Think you're up to it?'

London almost agreed without thinking, his mind already off and racing, but the thought of Elliot pulled him up short. He would never hold London back – never insist he stay at home when the Work was calling – but if he went tonight then Elliot would accompany him.

A quick glance showed him that Elliot was already looking towards the bedroom, probably thinking of clothes and a gun and London's cold night air. He was already prepared to follow wherever the Consulting Criminal led despite a concussion and worse.

Yet he did not want to drag Elliot out into the harsh edges of the city again, not so soon after a narrow escape – mere hours after returning from the hospital bloodied and pained. The Work demanded his attention, but it was Elliot who needed it.

A compromise, then.

'I'm not in a fit state for crawling all over a crime-scene,' he stated flatly, thinking fast. It was only a partial lie. If it weren't for Elliot he would ignore his ribs, but the two of them were hardly at their best. 'Bring over the case-files tomorrow. All of them. I'll take a look and see if I can catch your killer. Anderson's not on forensics, he's on holiday with his wife, so there's a chance the photographs will be intelligible for a change.'

He expected an argument from Cruz, a desperate plea in the name of justice or something trite. What he was not prepared for was the fleeting but blatant approval that crossed the Inspector's face, as if he could read every thought in London's skull and was pleased with what he saw.

'You sure?' he asked, and there was a hint of something clever in that tired voice: another little unspoken test. 'We've not had one like this for a while.'

London pursed his lips, his mind dancing from blood, particulates, puzzles, murder to Elliot, safe, warm, home, but in the end his choice was obvious. There would always be more crime, more hate and killing. Perhaps not like this one, but there would always be a mystery to solve.

Elliot was less of a certainty.

He could leave any day. 

Whereas the Work would never be complete.

'I'm sure,' he said firmly. 'Get some sleep, Cruz, if you can. I'll look at the case first thing tomorrow.'

The Inspector nodded, his shoulders straightening as he eased his weight upright. 'Okay, Holmes. Thanks. I'll be here in the morning. Sleep well, you two.' With a crooked grin, he turned and trotted back down the stairs with a heavy tread.

London heard his farewell to Mrs Hanson and, a minute later, the rev of the car engine as Cruz pulled away, off to try and make sense of the latest brutality. He expected to feel frustrated, restrained somehow by his own refusal, but to his surprise there was not even the faintest hint of guilt.

He had made the right decision.

'I thought you said your ribs didn't hurt.'

'They don't. Not enough to put me off a crime scene, anyway. It just seemed like the best excuse. Whatever's out there can wait until tomorrow.'

There would always be the Work, not the challenger to their strength but the glue that held them together, but now there was more to life than the next crime.

What he and Elliot were to one another – what they had come to share – was the greatest mystery, and the Consulting Criminal was thrilled at the thought of spending the rest of his days trying to solve it.