Sometimes Believing *is* Seeing...

I knew that posh bastard was going to do it sooner or later. Sally told me once that one day we would be standing over a body and Holmes was going to be the one who put it there.

I really never thought it would be his.

Of course, now we all know better.

God I hated him. I hated him with every cell in my body: he shows up at my crime scenes and tells me how to do my job. My job. The one I trained for. Lestrade may have been on the Holmes bandwagon right from the beginning, but not me. If I know nothing else about the "scientific method," at least I can say I know how to think critically; and man, the swanky bastard sure was intimidating. Never mind that he always looked so out of place…

But once you are looking down on what seems to be the bloody pulp of a brain that, in retrospect, helped you actually keep your damned job…

Well, that sort of changes everything…

ooo

It wasn't until a week later when I came across the photos from the scene in front of Bart's that I really started looking…no. I'll admit to what felt like fog clearing from my mind and sadly, for the first time in my life, I began observing.

Looking back now, it's funny how clear everything is to me. It was very late, my coffee had gone cold and the bullpen was empty. I was feeling a little lonely since Sally dumped me and Mindy left with the kids. She said she was going to visit her mother in Paris, and maybe I really did believe her, but once my eyes were opened I started to see everything.

I was a terrible father and a horrid husband, even worse I was probably an awful boyfriend. They all deserved better and now they were all out of my reach. I miss my daughter and my son awfully, and maybe someday I will make it up to them.

I look down at the photographs that I've spread around my desk. When it comes down to it, what gave it away were those eyes. How many times had those green eyes been narrowed in irritation and exasperation in my direction? One hundred? One thousand? How was I to even know? If there was ever a chance for me to go back and maybe make up for any of the things I had done to the man, this was it.

I picked up a close-up of Holmes face and the answer may not have literally been staring me in the face, but the question sure as hell was there. The eyes on the corpse were all wrong: the wrong color, the irises were faded…this was absolutely no fresh body. After that, I picked up each and every photograph and studied them harder than I ever had anything in my life.

The hands were very similar but even I could see that some things were still wrong. When Holmes got away from Lestrade the night before, he had been wearing regulation handcuffs. Even for him they would not have been easy to get out of…there should have been some sort of mark and there was nothing.

My mind was rushing all over the place, but I finally had to admit that even though I was holding a few of the pieces of the puzzle, it was by no means enough to let me see through the ruse—because I had already decided there had been one—and to the truth.

I am ashamed to admit that until I showed my theories to Lestrade a couple of weeks later…two weeks after I had gone online and in my digging ended up corresponding with people who were of the same mind I was, but for different reasons. I did my best to build up the crime scene backwards, just the way he did it…but I had ignored that side of my training for too long. Finally I ended up with one wall in my new flat (because Mindy told me straight out to never come back) covered with photographs and newspaper clippings…everyone thought I was crazy, then.

But I knew I was right.

The idea consumed me. As screwed up as our justice system can be sometimes, here was my chance to right a terrible wrong; and it appeared that I may be able to do it through the correct procedure. Even if Holmes didn't jump to his death, he obviously had a reason to believe that he needed to fake it. As far down as I was at the time I found those photographs, I cannot imagine standing at the top of any building and considering what it would be like for it all to end.

Maybe I am a coward.

Still! My mind was made up and I couldn't stop. I think I missed a week of work after the day I found a way to set up my own forum. I created The Empty Hearse and wonder of wonders, people started signing up.

Then they started talking. There were hours I spent in front of my computer reading thread after thread after thread…all these people! So many more people had been helped by Holmes than I ever knew…I was so ashamed of myself. People talked about Holmes' website, and for the first time in my association with the man, I read it: every single word.

He was no stranger to the scientific method, and if some of the stories that were passed to me from Doctor Watson through Lestrade, apparently it never stopped. Perfume, tobacco ash, a rambling monologue about how unimportant politics are to the average criminal…it made me realize what I sham I had always been. I wanted to work crime scenes because I thought it would give me a sense of purpose, make me important. But here was this mad bloke cataloging fucking dirt in his spare time!

I was finally forced to admit that I was a horrible forensic technician. There were times when I was too emotional to investigate properly. He was right: what could did crying over the body on the floor in front of you do when you could suck it up, look for clues and stop it from happening to someone else.

Damn bastard. He played the 'sociopath' card too many times that we all started believing it. In reality, I think-no. I know that he had to compartmentalize to keep from going insane. How many times had I seen other coppers do the same thing? Hell, in my short time working for NSY, I saw everyone completely smashed off their rockers at least once after a case.

I don't like thinking about that one. None of us do, or did, like cases involving children. Even if you don't have them, there is something wrong about finding an innocent little body…

Look, I'm sorry. Holmes was right. He was almost always right.

ooo

I honestly cannot tell whether Lestrade finally gave up on me or I quit my job to run my forum and The Empty Hearse full-time. There was so much information coming in from around the world pointing to the fact that Holmes was still alive that I would work my shift and come home and my inbox would be so full it couldn't take any more messages. I stopped sleeping, finally drifting off in the wee hours of the morning when I couldn't go on. I lost weight and for a while after I didn't have a job to go to, stayed home and worked. I think I shed some tears out of sheer frustration when two things that I knew went together just would not.

I ran into Doctor Hooper and Doctor Watson at the coffee shop once or twice. Doctor Hooper always seemed to be on the verge of tears and Doctor Watson only tried to punch me once. For some reason, I found that very sad because I felt like I deserved it. I tried to tell him about what I was doing but by the time I had screwed up the courage to speak to him, well, when an ex-soldier looks at you like you are lower than dirt—and you agree with him—you pretty much stay where you belong.

That bolstered my resolve. I took my emotions out of the thing and worked the case backward. I told Lestrade about it, even invited him to one of the group meetings. I remember that he said very clearly that he thought those weren't the kind of group meetings I needed to be having…and I laughed.

The strange cases starting circling closer and closer to London; one grey day I ran into Lestrade on the street and tried again to tell him. I am sad to say that I felt at least partially responsible for the sad, faraway look in his eyes when he told me that Holmes was dead; mostly because I was so sure that was untrue and also because I knew that look…I had seen it in the mirror on myself the day Mindy told me she wouldn't let me see my kids until I cleaned up.

Only later, much later, would I find out that she believed I was taking illicit drugs. Ok, maybe I can admit now that with my new found passion it probably seemed that way. Not like I had ever really been honest with her before. I never fought it, though. It was one more penance when I deserved more.

Sally?

I tried to talk to her about it all. She narrowed her brown eyes at me like a cobra ready to strike and slapped me across the face. I can't remember exactly what she said but I believe the ten minute tirade all boiled down to Fuck You, Anderson!

Or maybe she is still steamed at me because she's allergic to my underarm deodorant.

I almost had a coronary the day Holmes appeared at my door and sat down on my couch. By then, knowing what I knew had me looking beyond the ever-cool exterior. When he told me the story, it was so complicated; but had been executed to simply, so smoothly that I just couldn't believe it. People on the forum had close to two hundred theories…but here I was, hearing the truth. I couldn't admit to myself it was the truth until I watched it several more times.

I destroyed it after that because, really, what was the point? After all the deceptions, all the theories, all the wonderful people I had met that I now considered my friends…perhaps I felt like it would be like looking behind the Wizard's throne in the Emerald City…some things are just better kept secrets.

I tore down everything. I remember sitting on the floor in a huddle and crying, really crying for the first time in years. Those were not tears of anger, but of absolution. Holmes never told me he forgave me, and frankly, I don't think he ever would say that…or maybe he doesn't even think that way. Lestrade told me that Holmes said we were only led to our conclusions by reading the evidence presented to us. Still makes me feel bad, though. After all those years of being there when he was actually needed—I see it so clearly now—we, and I mean that collectively: me, Sally, the entire force—we let him down.

So that's why I never really knew about Moriarty until I went for a ride out to this huge manor in the country with Lestrade. Got to meet Holmes' big brother and good God, that guy is scary. If I had a brother like that, I'd be weird, too. Lestrade sure wasn't looking at him like appearing in a three-piece suit that probably cost more than I made with the force in six months at nine o'clock in the morning was weird, though.

In fact, I'm going to pretend I didn't see the way Lestrade looked at him and we are just going to bypass this entire conversation.

ooo

I've gone on long enough and we do have a ceremony to attend to, yes?

As much as I can admit to being wrong about Holmes and his mental state, I have to say for the record that I never once believed I'd ever see him married. Over the course of these last months, I've had to rearrange my own perceptions.

Come on, let's get a seat in the middle where we can hear. Believe it or not, I'm on the groom's side…oh yeah, that is funny, isn't it? Alright, alright. I'm on Holmes' side, wonder of wonders. Who is that portly, smiling bloke up there? Oh wait, I know him, that's Doctor Stamford from over at Bart's. I've done a few presentations for his classes since...well, since I started living a normal life again.

There's Holmes, too. Wonder how much product he had to put in that hair of his to make it look so tame. I didn't know Holmes could smile like that. I'm straight and I'll tell you he looks delicious in tails, doesn't he?

Oh. The music has started. I just want to tell you one more thing…my god. I've never seen Doctor Watson in his uniform before. It's hard to believe he's on this side of fifty, and now that I sound like an old woman I'm going to make this quick.

Now that it is all said and done, I want you to understand that I can probably never make amends for the nasty things I said. I'm not sure if I've changed or if the people around me have grown more accepting of my faults, and I never want to go back to that time but I wish I would have paid more attention and not taken everything so personal, I could have learned a lot from him…

Oh? I apologize.

Would you look at that? Holmes is looking at Doctor Watson the way a starving lion looks at a zebra. How is it that Watson has never been intimidated by that?

Oops. Sorry, I know I shouldn't laugh, but dammit, it's about time someone around here has a happy ending, and it sure took long enough.

Did you see that? I know I've never kissed anyone like that in my life! No wonder Mindy left me…

Ouch! You don't have to hit me. Yes, yes; I'll shut up now.

A/N: This story assumes that what Sherlock told Anderson in front of the video camera is actually how he 'did it.' I'm also assuming that somewhere deep inside Anderson is a reasonable human being and deserves a little kindness for effectively *believing in Sherlock Holmes.*