Two Years Ago...

Two Years Ago...
Two years after Reichenbach
Sherlock

Sherlock was on a tall building. He realized it was St. Bart's. He also realized he was already falling. As he did, his lips were moving, forming words.
John. Mycroft. Lestrade. Mrs. Hudson...I'm so sorry.
There was a rushing sound in his ears as the ground came up to meet him.

He woke with a yell, sitting bolt upright. A cursory glance around told him he was still in his brother's flat, still in the guest room. His elbows rested on his knees, and he could still see the scars on his left arm.

"Jesus," he hissed, burying his head in his hands. His heart was going about a hundred miles per hour. He took slow deep breaths, feeling how ragged they were.

Count to ten. Again. Count to ten. Again.

Finally, when he thought that if he stood his legs wouldn't give out under him, he flung back the covers. Stood up. Cast a glance at the clock. Four in the morning. That was usually when he woke up.

So why did today feel so strange, so different?

He slipped downstairs in his dressing robe. Picked up the cup of coffee on the table. Mycroft knew when the nightmares usually occurred. There was always a cup of coffee waiting for Sherlock.

He sniffed it. Took a sip. Black. Two sugars. He felt a surge of appreciation and affection for his brother. Another strange thing. For some reason, he actually felt grateful to his brother for everything--providing him with a place to stay, making him coffee every morning, letting him make sure John was okay with the surveillance...

He winced. No. He couldn't be happy about that. Watching John suffer was painful. But still he tortured himself that way.

He sat in front of the monitors, knees up to his chin, coffee clasped in both hands in front of his knees. John probably wasn't awake yet. The room was empty. Pathetically so, really.

He took a drink of coffee, but didn't feel that low buzz of energy that usually accompanied it. That strange feeling was preventing the energy rush. It took him only five minutes of staring at the screen to realize he couldn't do this anymore. He rose and dressed in his scarf and trenchcoat as usual. He couldn't stay here watching Baker Street. He had to get out.


Four A.M. The early morning fog shrouded London in a grey blanket. The tall thin man in the dark coat strode openly across the street. Even in London, four in the morning was too early for most Londoners to wander around. He was completely safe.

Sherlock found himself standing in front of the black cast iron gate of the cemetery. He placed a hand on the iron. Felt a chill zing up his fingers and arm.

This was a place for the dead. Not for the living.

He swung the gate open.

Good thing I'm dead, then.

The place was serene, silent. It was so filled with beauty...every tombstone with such artistic care, such attention to detail. Some had delicate roses, one had finely done honeysuckle vines winding up one side of the fine stone. He decided to think of it as the graceyard from now on. A dead man gets to call his burial place whatever he'd like, right?

You're starting to sound demented with all your 'dead man' talk. Stop it.

He walked across the wet grass, ignoring burial sites because the dead couldn't do anything about another dead man walking on their graves(Sherlock!) until he stood in front of the gravestone. He stared down at the letters inscribed on the tomb.

SHERLOCK HOLMES

After a minute, he lay down on the dewy grass in front of the gravestone. He closed his eyes. To an observer--though there were none--they would've seen a dark angel, his black coat spread behind him like wings; his pale white angular face, handsome and still, peaceful; his dark hair already beaded with dew; for all intents and purposes, a peaceful ghost.

Is this how the dead feel after they're laid to rest? In their coffins underground? So...at peace?

Footsteps crunched across the dewy grass.

Sherlock was up like a shot, darting away to the tree, where he hid in the shadows and watched as John Watson came across the quiet graveyard.

His old friend's face was creased with new lines(Surely he hadn't looked that tired when we met?), his gingery hair streaked with silver. He looked beaten down, worn out, like the weight of the entire world had been pressing down on his shoulders until he had been forced into submission. But his eyes still held a small light of defiance, a refusal to be cowed, to give up--so much so that it made pride swell up in Sherlock's chest.

That's the John I know.

He was carrying something, a small parcel under his jacket. He approached the grave and knelt in front of it, placed the flowers he'd been carrying onto the grass before the tombstone. Flowers, something he brought whenever he had a chance to visit. But these were different--finer, trimmer, more assorted. Usually it was one kind only, whatever he could find along the way(poor John--so wrapped up in grief that he always forgot to buy his friend flowers). This was store-bought, assorted. Different flowers. John started speaking. The voice burned into Sherlock's mind, the voice he'd become so used to, the tones he now craved, to fill the hours when Mycroft was at work and all Sherlock had was the surveillance on Baker Street.

"I got you different kinds, Sherlock. Since no one else could come with me, I brought their flowers for them. These are forget-me-nots, from Molly. And these...these are sweet rockets, so Mrs. Hudson tells me. They're purple and kind of homely, just like her. And Lestrade...well, he doesn't really know anything about flowers, so I picked up some cattails for him. And Mycroft picked out a white rose for you. I don't really know how it might symbolize him, but he said 'Give them to Sherlock for me.' He called you 'Sherlock.' Not Sherly. And me...well, I wasn't really sure what to get you. But then I found a bush of dark violets on my way here. So I got some for you. Because, y'know, you were so...dark. And I once heard dark violets described as having a 'very dark mossy fragrance, with a certain dosage of vivacity and velocity and full of floral sophistication.' I thought that fit you pretty perfectly. Well...except for the fragrance. And you're definitely not floral. But...you get it."
"And...I also wanted to tell you we all still believe in you. Lestrade still does. Mrs. Hudson still does. Molly still does. Mycroft believes you. And I sure as hell-" he faltered as he said 'hell,' realizing maybe he shouldn't have said that in a graveyard, but then he pressed on a little awkwardly "-sure as heck believe in you."

His phone buzzed and John rose. Sherlock's heart swelled slightly as he realized his friend's ringtone was the tune of 'I'm a Believer.' Sort of funny, with the actual tune, but the gesture was sweet enough.

John looked at the text. It was from Mycroft.

Go ahead and say 'hell.' He wouldn't mind. The spirits wouldn't mind. And Sherlock was pretty much an angel from hell anyways. MH.

John hesitated.

"I sure as hell believe in you," he said boldly, and felt all the better for it, a little stronger, more complete.

"Anyways...well." He stood in silence for a moment. Then said in a breaking whisper that Sherlock could barely hear, "Happy Birthday, Sherlock."

With that, John turned and walked away. Sherlock watched his retreating back until he heard the gate shut. Then he stepped out and looked at the flowers, their crisp petals already dotted with dew.

His birthday.

He'd been dead two years.

That strange feeling was probably from that. He leaned over and scooped up one of each flower, bringing them up to his face and inhaling their array of fragrances and thinking of his friends. Then he placed them in the lapel of his coat.

His hand had been in his coat pocket the entire time, and now he pulled out the new phone Mycroft had bought him, glanced at the screen, and realized that he'd written a text message. His finger itched as it hovered over the Send button as he longed to send this particular text message. The same message he had found himself unconsciously scrawling on napkins, papers, important legal documents(that Mycroft was always at pains to erase the words from).

But he knew he couldn't. Not now. Not yet.

He looked at the message again.

John. I'm home.
SH

He sighed and deleted the message.