Three years.
The thought caused him to wake up with a start. He never counted the days and he had never been very good with remembering dates. Molly never complained as long as he remembered her birthday and the one of their child. And, as she liked to add to tease him, Christmas.
Three years.
He saw it again in his mind's eye. He always thought funerals should take place in the pouring rain. Why was the sky allowed to be bright and full of warmth and sunlight when the hearts of those down there were full of grief, and their eyes filled with tears of loss?
Sherlock Holmes was carried to his grave in broad sunlight. It was even warm, and yet Lestrade remembered this one thought very clear: He found it unfair. He wanted rain and a grey sky. He wanted a sea of black umbrellas like a roof that covered their sadness. He wanted rain to hide his tears in the downpour.
Instead they were forced to shrug off their jackets and look at each other's slack faces.
Those close to Sherlock wore red eyes and tired expressions.
Time passed and although the thoughts lessened over time, he often thought back about him. Lestrade bore everything that came after the Reichenbach incident with a certain phlegm. Reduction in rank which meant back to the legwork, the looks from colleagues - especially Anderson and Donovan - the financial imbalance.
They once made him doubt Sherlock, but he never stopped believing in him. He always trusted him, as unnerving and impertinent as he was.
Sometimes when he read through case notes and reports, he automatically thought about sending Sherlock a text, only to delete the half-finished message and put the mobile phone back in his pocket.
He never deleted the number. But he never sent a text either.
He was afraid of the silence that would answer. The definite and last evidence that he was truly and utterly gone.
Molly and Lestrade never talked about their friend very often. Just some short impressions of Sherlock being annoying or clever; often both were involved, and they could laugh… even two days after he was... gone. The years flew by and the memories became blurry, but Lestrade never forgot Sherlock. And he was sure neither did Molly. He saw it in her eyes sometimes, when he came home late from work. A case, they both thought, that Sherlock would have been able to solve much faster.
Only once did they visit the grave. Molly brought some things that reminded her of Sherlock. Stuff from the lab that wasn't dangerous or poisonous and – very her and Lestrade thought that he couldn't love her even more than in this very moment when she put them down – two lumps of sugar. He couldn't help it and thought that the Consulting Detective would have rolled his eyes and made a comment that involved either "dull" or "predictable" and there would be this faint smile when he thought no one was watching him.
Lestrade brought nothing but his memories and they weighed heavier than any other kind of gift.
Molly talked to the headstone but he didn't listen, he was busy with trying not to cry, and with his own inner dialogue with Sherlock.
"I wish... you were still here. And I wish the memory I have of you would stop looking at me like that because I said so. It doesn't mean that I want you to come back, as I said in this – you would probably say – silly eulogy. I could need your help sometimes. And let it be some rude things you say to Anderson just to piss him off. Is it a betrayal to say I want you to stay where you are? Although I'm sure you found peace I can't help it and tell myself that there is more and that there is something I missed. Would you want to come back? To London and all those people you had to get along with? Who weren't able to stay away from you? All of those you had to deal with. Return back to John, Mrs Hudson... Molly and I. Anderson and Donovan. To Mycroft. Even if you had this chance... would you really do it? Would you be able to go on and live your life like before? Like before you had to jump from this bloody rooftop? Would you, Sherlock? Did you change after all... would you have changed after all? Life has gone on while you have been away. The little one isn't that little anymore. She talks now, but she can't say Sherlock. Your name is still a bit too complicated for her. I bet you would adore her. She adores you, like her parents did...do...always will do."
He turned away. From Molly and the headstone. Away from memories and thoughts. He wanted to forget because it hurt; it wasn't fair and Sherlock hadn't been a fraud. Oblivion. Just for now, just for this moment and yet he couldn't.
While Molly needed some more time, he wandered away from the grave, this layer of soil with a coffin underneath its surface. Empty of all what was Sherlock. He couldn't know how right he was about it; it was just a feeling.
Three years.
Lestrade grabbed his phone and his fingers lingered over the keys for a while. Finally he typed a text and sent it to Sherlock's number.
He was still afraid of the silence but three years were long enough to prepare for it. Long enough to brace himself for the answer that would never come.
"Will you come? GL"