A/N written as a sequal/reaction fic/heavily inspired by With or Without You. The authour of which, by the way, is a good friend of mine and I have permission from them to write this 3 triggers for suicide and homocide and grief (oh my) . You should go read their fic before reading mine because it's really good and if you like Dimmock you will not regret it! (Leave them a review also! They deserve it! :-) )

It takes him nearly an hour to call the police. He spends almost an hour sitting in the chair opposite the derelict couch facing the corpse of his friend. Some may even argue his best friend. He holds the note tightly up against his chest as if it was addressed to him. It wasn't really addressed to anyone except the 'Bastards' which he assumes he is part of.

Regardless of his parents living in the sin, it did not take Sherlock Holmes to realize how angry Dimmock was. What did Anderson do? Nothing. He'd known or a long, long time that Dimmock's hero worship of Lestrade wasn't healthy but he'd always thought as long as the man wasn't hurting anyone then what harm could having a bit of a puppy crush do? By the time he was trying to tell Dimmock to cut his ties and leave it was already too late.

So here he sits, giving Dimmock's corpse his undivided attention. Possibly the first time anyone had given Dimmock their undivided attention since the death of his brother if his understanding of Dimmock's lacking personal life was correct.

He's good at science, and he may not be the coroner but he does know a thing or two about bodies. He's cold to the touch, but his limbs are soft. So more then forty eight hours then. Dimmock has been lying here dead and alone for two days. His body is digesting itself inside and eventually, if Anderson were to just leave him here, he would either mummify or rot completely away to bone. He looks back at the note he is still holding.

He sits back in the chair to study the note again. The subtext is burningly clear. He was never a genius in English but he doesn't have to be to see what Dimmock was telling him. Them. The underlining of this was significant as well. Drawing attention. Emphasis.

The contents of the note, that took him a moment to understand. 'THIS is a suicide, you bastards.' written in Dimmock's unnoteworthy handwriting on unnoteworthy paper. He was talking about Greg, the only person Anderson knew that had commited suicide in the last year. Unless it was Sherlock but Anderson sort of considered them one in the same. And he never felt responsible because there was no way for him to have prevented those deaths. He did his job and relayed what the evidence told him. It was no business of him who they incriminated and what they did.

Until now. Dimmock had been so sure of it, he'd almost been swayed himself by the young Detective Inspector. But there was no evidence to say otherwise. At least, not that he was aware of. In the notes he'd received from his labmates, Lestrade's fingerprints were on the gun. He had gunshot residue on his hands. He'd tested negative to drugs of any kind. They'd run test after test at Dimmock's request to come up with an answer that the DI would like to no avail. He'd even pretended he wasn't hurt when Dimmock questioned the competency of his hand picked team. He knew his team bettter than his own family. He knew that they had all excelled in their schooling. He knew without a shadow of a doubt that his lab was the bed, and yet Dimmock requested a new scientist. He breathes out a breath of thick air and decomposition before breathing it right back in again. He picked up the phone and called the police.

…

Dimmock's funeral is a small and sad occasion. Not a lot of people attended. He'd ostracized a lot of people and burned a lot of bridges these last few months, Anderson thought. He wonders if Dimmock had at least been able to keep his hands warm on his burnt bridges before realizing how bitter that sounded. Since Dimmock's only close family was his sister in law, Anderson helped plan the funeral, and he wonders how anyone could disown Dimmock, Anderson knows he's not the easiet person to get along with even at his best, but Dimmock had put up with all his eccentricities and bad habits. He even tries to find Dimmock's parents, but to no avail. Because he is a vain man, he takes the podium to make a speech.

"I always told Iain that I would never willingly go to Church. I was right." He said, after several moments pass, he continues. "I've never been very good at putting my thoughts into words, or being empathetic, that was usually his job, but I hope that he will appreciate that I have tried." He pauses again, before turning to the coffin, where Dimmock's plasticy face had been given what was, he assumed, supposed to be a peaceful smile. Unfortunately it looked more like he'd bitten into an exposed electrical chord very suddenly. "I wrote you a song." He said, after a minute, and moved to the church organ and played a small tune simply titled 'Iain Dimmock'.

The whole tune was about a minute long, and was composed in the minor key. Anderson has not really done he best to care for his piano skills but music was simple mathematics to him so it was easy enough for him to write and perform for the rest of the mourners. There are no words to the song because he was scared if he added lyrics then they would just be swears demanding how Dimmock could do such a thing to his family.

Dimmock's sister in law hugs him after and tells him how lovely it was. He hugs her back and commends her on her beautiful speech. He presses a kind kiss to the top of each of his nieces heads. They are polite children, he thinks as the eldest girl offers him a drink. He accepts, and watched the tiny crowd of mourners as they leave the hall Anderson had booked for the wake. He leaves second last with Sally.

…

Eventually, he's given the task of dealing with Dimmock's possessions. He does what he usually does: Dumps them in a box and takes them to his storage unit. There's three boxes that were given to him by his sister.

His storage unit is full of other boxes. Things of his fathers. Things of his mothers. A box of things his wife left. Anderson doesn't want to add Dimmock to the list of people he couldn't bare to think about but he supposes this is what it comes down to.

He has nothing of Gregs, he thinks, as he settles the box down. Sitting on top is a coat that his sister in law had nearly taken. It's heavy and black, and probably very expensive. After several moments of looking at it, he takes the folded jacket into his arms and presses his face into the back of it. It smells vaguely of cheap soap and deodorant. He moves it away to look at the back of it to see the name embroided into the back of the jacket is not Dimmock's, but in fact G Lestrade. He slowly sinks to the ground under the harsh light of the overhead lamp that casts a yellow glow on everything.

He pressed his face into the black cloth and he must sit there for a long time until he feels a warm arm wrap around his shoulders. He glances up to find Sally looking at him, pink hat pulled tightly down over her head and hands pressed firmly into thick gloves. She doesn't have to ask why, but she seeks out his arms in a comforting embrace. He holds her for as long as she will let him before she pulls away and looks him in the eye.

"I took the Sussex job." She murmurs quietly. Anderson nods silently. He doesn't question her motives. Sally liked to move on and move fast. He liked to linger. He loves her but he knows better then to expect to keep her. "I'm sorry, Andy." She murmured, using a nickname he despised to get a rise out of him. It doesn't work. "But London...It has too many ghosts."

"I know." He replied, folding the jacket over his arm. A slip of paper falls out onto the floor. He ignores it. "When do you leave?"
"Tomorrow."

"Do you need someone to drive you to the station?"She shakes her head no. "I just wanted the right time to tell you and then with Iain…" Anderson nods. He knew perfectly well of Iain's crush on Sally, at least, a few years ago before he grew out of it. She kisses him lightly on the cheek. "Promise me you'll go home tonight. Get some sleep?" He nods lightly, and holds her hand until he is forced to let go so she can leave.

…

It's funny but there are no pictures of Anderson by himself on his mantle piece. The flat piece of marble has eight pictures on it but he's in only two of them.

The picture closest to the left is a photo of his parents on their wedding day,

the next picture is a baby photo of his son

a picture of his dog the day he was adopted

a photo of Sally, Dimmock and Greg when they had all been newer and greener and almost ten years younger

a photo of himself Dimmock and Greg, with himself bent over in the middle, a blurry blob of laughter

a photo of his wedding day,

A photo of his dad and his son

and a photo of his son and his dog.

All the photos with Greg in then are turned over, he cannot bare to look at their happy young faces right now. He'd always thought if one of them was going to break down, then it would be him, the one who was always wound too tight, the one who made a lot of mistakes, the one who never knew what to do who never had his shit together

but it wasn't.

He's tempted to throw Greg's coat into the fire and to yell at the sky that he'd been right the whole time. That Sherlock Holmes would give them nothing but grief. But he restrains himself, the way he always does. He feels like an outsider looking into his own life.

…

It occurs to him almost a week after Sally leaves that Greg didn't leave a note. This revalation surprises him because even the Freak had left a note. He goes though the files of the suicide, there is no note. He supposes it might have been on his phone but Greg could barely type on his phone and for the ten years that Anderson had known him always been a paper and pen man. And then he sees it.

A single drop of cast off blood hidden under Greg's shirt cuff.

He had not been assigned to the case, conflict of interest with him working with Greg on an almost daily basis. He'd never even seen the crime scene photos. How could anyone possibly miss what he'd found in a few seconds with a magnifying glass? Certainly Greg was covered in blood, as is the result of a gunshot wound but under the cuff?

It's enough to get the case reopened.

…

He puts flowers on Dimmock's grave. He wants to be cremated when he dies. "You're such a fuckwit do you know that?" He asks softly, folding his arms over his chest in a typically Anderson gesture. "You must have loved him an awful lot but Dimmock...Why would you do the one thing he would have told you not to do?" He asks, softly, lowering himself onto the earth and tilting his head so it was resting on the stone. "How could you possibly think that there was no life worth living without him?" He continues to question. "I just want to understand why..." He murmurs. "You could have called me. I would have been there. Or Sally. She would have gone. But now you're gone. And he's gone...And she's gone...But I'm still here...I'm still...Just Anderson, and just here." He closes his eyes for a few moments before allowing them to open again. "Sometimes when I go into work, I still buy four cups of coffee, like I used to, to surprise you all." He said, quietly. "I can trick myself into thinking that you haven't gone. Haven't died. That's just the denial I suppose. I can't wait for this seven stages of grief bullshit to be over." He sighs, and looks out into the distance for several long moments, and closes his eyes.

…

His initial reaction to Sherlock Holmes returning from the dead is apathy.

He didn't care a great deal when he was alive for the first time so why should he care now?
Then Sherlock goes and fucks his careful wall of apathy up.

"I'm sorry, about Dimmock." Anderson looks up from the file he standing by the new sergeant's desk reading.

"It's not your fault." Anderson lies, not even looking up.
"Phillip-Richard..." He begins. Upon hearing his rarely used double barreled first name, Anderson looks up at Sherlock "I really had no idea that..."

"Stop." Sherlock blinks, but does stop. "I don't care about your apologies." Anderson told him. "I only want you to know that I hope you get shot in a drive by. I hope your care flips off the road and crushes your spine. I hope your next plane crashes into the earth." Watson has appeared now, clearly about to say something, but the dangerous tones in Anderson's voice stop him "I hope you feel, even for one second, what it must have been like to be them. I hope you feel second place to the person you care about most. I want you to know how much loathing I have for you now because anything I used to have...Is nothing on this. I hope you die." He tells Sherlock, drops the file on the desk, and walks of, feeling the same sort of odd apathy he'd felt years ago when they told him Lestrade was dead.

This station had been his home. His family. And now it was just him. There's a picture of Dimmock Greg and Sally sitting on the station by his desk. He sits at his seat with a sort of twisting feeling in his gut as the file labeled 'Lestrade, G' burns a hole in his desk drawer.

I hope we both die, he adds mentally, even though he knows that blaming people doesn't change the fact that they're dead.