John Watson sat alone near the back of the church watching the small crowd of people as they milled about. Mycroft was standing near the front, occupied with a steady stream of mourners offering their condolences. To the untrained eye he seemed sad and reverent, like anyone who'd lost a brother should be, but John could tell that it was just a façade. He was too cold to care. John was surprised that so many people had shown up after the whole media debacle following Sherlock's death, but when he started inspecting the faces it all made sense.
He saw Lestrade and a couple other people from the police force (including Donovan surprisingly) and Mrs. Hudson, but there were about 50 other people there. They appeared to all be clients. John hadn't realized until then how many people Sherlock had helped, and what he'd meant to them. He realized that he had thought of Sherlock, rather selfishly, as his own private marvel, but that that just wasn't the case. Sherlock and his genius had been the light at the end of some very dark tunnels before he'd even met John.
He overheard an old man saying that Sherlock, five years earlier, had helped solve the murder of his wife, even when the police kept saying that it was just a slip and fall accident. Even if Sherlock hadn't been the most emotional of human beings, John hoped he had realized just how much closure like that meant to people. John sighed, and tried not to tear up again. He had purposely come late to avoid all the fuss, and just blend into the shadows. He didn't want to talk about Sherlock Holmes any more, he couldn't. He'd been staying at a hotel since Sherlock died; he couldn't live in that place that held so many memories when the one he had made them with wasn't there anymore.
Mrs. Hudson had started to fuss when he told her he was going, but she eventually gave in. Mike Stamford and Lestrade had both offered for him to stay with them for a while, but he'd refused. Both of them came with the baggage of association with Sherlock. He hoped someday he might be able to get over that, but today was not that day. Today was the last day of that chapter of his life that had been filled with so much joy and so much pain; tomorrow a new one would begin.
Sometimes people come into your life that who alter it forever. Just by knowing them you slowly become a different person. Sherlock Holmes was one of these people. For better or worse, the John Watson sitting in the back of that church was not the same one who'd come back from Afghanistan. He realized that he'd never really be rid of Sherlock Holmes, but he needed to get away from that world and those people and gain some perspective again. Maybe he'd go see his sister…
Everyone started to make their way to their seats, and John wasn't surprised to sense someone sliding into the pew next to him. What did surprise him was who it was. He'd expected Lestrade or Mrs. Hudson to be there trying to comfort him like they'd been doing unsuccessfully ever since that day, but when he looked over it wasn't either of them; he didn't know who it was. A teenage girl with long red hair and grey eyes was sitting there looking down at her phone with a vaguely irritated expression. John tried to just ignore her since she seemed content to just leave him in peace, but that was before the music started playing.
She pulled out a tissue, and at first john thought she was crying into it, but then he realized she was laughing. He turned and gave her a stern look and she stopped. "I'm sorry," she said softly in an American accent, "I swear I'm not trying to be rude, it's just that I'm kind of a connoisseur of irony." "And what, pray tell, is so ironic?" John grumbled; he was not in the mood to deal with annoying teenagers today. "Sherlock always hated Bach," she smiled, "Mycroft must have picked this to spite him."
"What are you talking about?" John snapped, really starting to get angry, "Sherlock played Bach all the time!" She gave him a 'keep your voice down' glare, and elaborated, "Yes, but it was always his own rendition, never the original composition," she explained, "he recognized and admired the influence of Bach, and possibly even the musical genius, but he never really liked Bach." He was about to ask just who she was (there was a certain level of familiarity required for him to tolerate her talking about Sherlock like that) when the music ended and the priest stood up and started speaking. It was the typical funeral service about how many great things Sherlock had done and how many people would miss him blah blah blah. John spent most of it trying to deduce the girl sitting next to him.
He didn't know anyone in Sherlock's family except Mycroft, and the girl didn't look anything like him, but that didn't mean she wasn't family. In fact, her age coupled with the fact that she seemed to know him so well actually suggested that she was family rather than a friend. From the look of her dress she was wealthy, but probably not independently so since she couldn't be older than seventeen. And from the paint stains that still lingered on her hands he could guess that she was probably an artist. Other than that he wasn't sure.
As the minister finished and Mycroft started walking up to the podium John turned to ask how she'd known Sherlock, but she was texting on her phone and held up her finger to silence him until she was done. Unfortunately, by the time she'd finished, Mycroft had already started talking. His speech only supported John's opinion that Mycroft hadn't really known Sherlock at all. It was all about how close they'd been and how heart broken he and their parents had been after Sherlock died. Their parents weren't even there! The one part that did seem genuine was when he said in closing that Sherlock had died much to young and that there was a void in his life now that nothing else would ever be able to fill.
After that there were a few standard Bible readings, and everyone got up to leave. "Well, it was nice to finally meet you Dr. Watson," the girl whispered with a grin, and strode quickly to the door of the church before he'd even had time to wonder how she knew his name when he hadn't told it to her. She took the arm of a tall man with long, dark hair, but John couldn't really tell what he looked like because he had a beard and sunglasses. He had apparently been sitting unnoticed in the only empty pew at the very back of the church behind John and the girl.
"Hey!" John called after her as he fought to keep ahead of the rest of the crowd, "What's your name?" "Reyna," she called back laughing and waving over her shoulder. John racked his brain trying to think whether Sherlock had ever mentioned that name before, but came up blank. Meanwhile, Reyna and the mysterious man walked towards a cab waiting for them. The man opened the back door for her, and as she slid in she turned to him.
"You just couldn't resist could you?" she asked with a mocking smile. "What?" he asked, playing at being affronted. "Attending your own funeral," she laughed. Sherlock Holmes smiled slightly, and shut the door. He strode around to the other side, and paused and looked back to see his best friend standing bewildered by the door of the church. He pulled the door open and climbed inside, a forcibly detached look on his face. He told himself that he was being irrational, but he knew that walking away from John for a second time was the hardest thing he'd ever done