It's too late to go back to Baker Street – too late to get a cab back from out here, at least. And the memories would only come thick and fast. No respite possible, unless I look for heroin. (And who could stop me tonight, if I could get back to London?) However, there is no point in conjecturing what ifs or maybes. They won't get me to London.
They won't get me away from here, from this overly-bright and overly-loud and overly-happy crowd of people. (I'm happy for them too, of course I am, though it is buried deep beneath the phantom ache that manifests whenever I allow myself to think of them together. Whenever I remember that it is largely my own fault that I'm in this mess. Must be a closet masochist, helping them plan all of this and inflicting so much pain on myself in the process. But I couldn't pull myself away, needed his presence like air, especially after two long years without it.)
This whole day has been exhausting, putting on a happy face for the crowd, or at least hiding how much agony I've been in all along. Solving a murder at a wedding before it even happens is meant to be exciting, to keep the boredom and dark mood at bay. Not today, not this wedding. The one day that I was supposed to take off, and of course it didn't happen like that. Couldn't even do that for him.
(Mycroft was right, I realise at last. I am far too invested in this, too deeply involved when I said that I never would be.)
I wonder if they've missed me yet. Likely not, too absorbed in their happiness and who could blame them? It's their wedding day. I've been told that these things are joyous occasions. (I'm not feeling it. But I wouldn't.) And of course, there's the extra deduction, the further complication, the baby. The baby that I know he's always thought he'd have, finally on the way, completing the picture of the happy family. (No room for the best friend in the picture, the eccentric best friend with the racing mind who can't switch off for a day like this. How can anyone think of me as the best man, never mind the best friend? The things I've done to him, and still he considers me the best friend with an "of course" as if I should have known. How could I have known?) I suppose that I should be happy about that too, that baby, the final thing to shut me out.
The nicotine patches aren't helping anymore, but he'd be so disappointed in me if he thought that I was smoking today, never mind the other things that I've been contemplating. Should avoid the alcohol, too, after last time. (I came so close to what I've wanted to say for so long, but I couldn't get the words out and he wouldn't believe me anyway. The timing has never been right, always something else getting in the way, and for a moment, I almost thought that he felt the same way.)
A black car pulls up beside me. I draw my coat closer around myself, hoping that he'll get the message and leave me alone. I don't want to face the knowing looks and the inevitable "I told you so." But it'll get me away from here, away from these constant reminders, and maybe even away from London too, if he's guessed right. It's a chance that I'm willing to take, it seems. (Second realisation in only a few minutes. What else has been lurking beneath the surface, waiting for expression or acknowledgment?) Swallowing down my pride, and masking the pain again, I open the door and slide inside. Into battle, once more.