Author's note: This was a prompt of Let's Write Sherlock on tumblr. Because I couldn't resist.
I don't own anything, please review.
If he had believed in a divine influence, he would have considered being snowed in with Sherlock Holmes as a penalty for his sins.
He hadn't spoken to the consulting detective since his return, not really. He had kept himself out of sight, although he was sure Sherlock could tell he was there, doing his job. He hadn't even commented his rise from the dead among his colleagues. There was no point.
But now Anderson was sitting in a small room in a small house that was being buried under more and more snow as the time passed, and Sherlock was pacing up and down that very same room.
Anderson hadn't been surprised when DI Lestrade – now fully rehabilitated in regards to his connection with the consulting detective and one of the best police officers the Yard had ever seen – had been asked to catch the serial killer who was targeting couples in their homes in the North of England. Neither had he been that the DI wanted Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson to accompany him. He had been amazed that he was invited too, but then again, he had worked with Lestrade the longest, and he was good at his job. When he wasn't busy destroying other people's careers, at least.
He had still taken care not to be left alone with Sherlock Holmes or Doctor Watson – not entirely because he was scared (although he couldn't help but feel a little apprehensive at the thought of being in a room with the ex-soldier) but because he didn't know what to say.
Before, everything had been easy. Before, he had considered Sherlock a psychopath and had happily told anyone who wanted to listen. Before, he had hated him because there were lines that shouldn't be crossed – evidence that shouldn't be disturbed – amateurs that shouldn't be allowed on crime scenes. Before, he had doubted Lestrade's sanity.
Afterwards, he'd come to doubt his own.
Sherlock Holmes died, and he couldn't help but feel that he was responsible for it.
Not entirely. But he and Sally had been the ones to convince Lestrade to go to the Chief Superintendent, to set the ball in motion, so to speak. Sherlock had only seen one way out, and he'd taken it.
He lived with this burden for three long years.
At first, he denied there even was a burden, ignoring the looks his colleagues shot him when they thought he wasn't looking, or the weight he felt in his chest whenever he saw another article about Sherlock Holmes, the fraud.
He was busy processing evidence on the day of Sherlock's funeral, so when he came home to his new empty flat, his wife having left him shortly after the consulting detective's death (when had it come to that, that he measure time in a "before and after Sherlock Holmes's suicide?) and his and Sally's relationship had simply... stopped, he turned on the news and immediately saw a grave and more people than he could count and an ex-army doctor who looked broken beyond repair.
He turned the telly of quickly and told himself that he wasn't feeling guilty –
No, that wasn't true.
Every normal human being would feel guilty after they had accused someone of a crime and this person had committed suicide.
He was trying to convince himself that he wasn't sad, wasn't grieving for Sherlock Holmes.
Only he was. It took him months to admit, but he was.
Because – because, despite everything, the insult and the unprofessional conduct, there was one thing – one quality – in Sherlock he could understand.
His passion for his work.
Once his work had been taken from him –
Anderson didn't want to think like this. He didn't want to think about any of this. He wanted to forget it had ever happened, forget that, despite working as a forensic tech for over ten years, it had been a crazy amateur who had taught him that life was short and could be broken in the blink of an eye, by a stupid decision taken by two stupid people who happened to have their own stupid reasons to wish someone out of the way.
He couldn't help it, though.
He never said anything against Sherlock Holmes again, kept a low profile, did his job.
He didn't visit his grave either, but he felt he had no place there anyway, and he had never understood why people visited graves. There was nothing there of the person they had cared for.
Also, he was ashamed. He didn't want to stand where John Watson had stood.
He didn't comment on Sherlock Holmes being proven right time and time again. God knew he'd been certain that he would long before the task force published their results. That didn't mean he wasn't feeling glad and guilty at the same time, though.
Even DI Lestrade (miraculously reinstated) seemed to notice after a while that he had stopped complaining and was trying to become invisible.
When he asked him to work with him again, Anderson stifled the ridiculous urge to cry and the not so ridiculous one to beg for forgiveness and simply nodded.
All in all, three years after Sherlock's death, his life wasn't bad.
One evening, he was called to Baker Street to collect evidence that Colonel Moran had attempted to kill Sherlock Holmes.
He couldn't remember how he'd got there, but when he saw Sherlock and John Watson standing together, talking, laughing, as if no time had passed at all (true, the consulting detective had a bloody nose, which probably came from the doctor, but they appeared as comfortable around each other as they had ever been), he felt more grateful than he had ever been.
Sherlock gave no indication that he knew Anderson was there, but he was sure he did. He noticed everything.
But it was alright. He could live with the consulting detective ignoring him. He wouldn't have known what to say to him anyway.
So they both did their job, he was subtly watching Sherlock from a distance, the consulting detective not insulting him, but not acknowledging that he was even alive either. It worked.
And then he'd been left alone at the latest crime scene, because he hadn't collected all the evidence, and Sherlock had decided to take one last look, and here they were, in the middle of a snow storm in a house a couple had died in not twenty-four hours before.
As if the whole Sherlock-Holmes-had-faked-his-death-and-had-only-been-forced-to-do-so-because-of-him-situation wouldn't be enough.
Anderson wasn't an idiot, no matter what the consulting detective might think (alright, he was ready to admit that he was an idiot for ever believing him to be a fraud), and he knew it was more than likely that they would have to talk before the night was over, or at least before the snowstorm stopped and they could be freed.
And talking to Sherlock Holmes would be... difficult, to say the least.
He knew that his opinion of the consulting detective had changed. But what Sherlock thought of him... He'd rather stay ignorant, if he could.
"Anderson, please refrain from thinking. It's distracting".
The first words Sherlock had said to him since he had returned; and when Anderson, who'd sat down on the sofa eventually (they had finished processing the living room hours ago) looked up, he found that the consulting detective was looking at him too.
He swallowed. The "sorry", the automatic response, or at least automatic nowadays whenever he thought of Sherlock, lay heavy on his tongue, and the only reason he managed to refrain from uttering it was that it would sound like he was sorry for thinking, which he wasn't. If he had thought that day, Sherlock would perhaps never have been forced to fake his death.
He said nothing and lowered his gaze to the floor again.
He only realized after a few minutes that the pacing had stopped and once more met Sherlock's eyes.
Before his – disappearance, the consulting detective wouldn't have had the patience to wait for him to look up.
Neither would he have looked at Anderson the way he did now.
He wasn't just deducing him; it felt like he was staring right into his soul, and the forensic tech understood that he was trying not only to see what he was thinking, but what he was feeling too.
People changed in three years. He should know.
"I'm sorry"-
The words came unbidden and hung in the air between them, and if Sherlock Holmes had been ordinary, Anderson wouldn't have been so worried.
If he had still been the Sherlock Holmes from three years ago, he wouldn't have understood.
Now, he simply said, "It was all part of Moriarty's plan".
"That doesn't make it better" Anderson replied.
Sherlock stared at him again, and the forensic tech considered the possibility that for him, it did, because Moriarty had been a genius, like him, and being manipulated by him wasn't Anderson's fault –
Only it was. He'd always know it was.
Instead of arguing, though, Sherlock eventually said, "I accept your useless apology", and how he said it made Anderson suspect he wanted his voice to be as hard as it had been before, but didn't succeed.
They didn't speak again, but it was enough. It had to be enough.
Eventually, he fell asleep on the sofa. Sherlock didn't wake him.
Neither of them mentioned his apology when John and DI Lestrade showed up the next morning after the storm had finally stopped and the roads had been somewhat cleared.
But from this day on Sherlock greeted him on crime scenes.
He knew him well enough to see this as the honour it was.
Author's note: Anderson character development. Because.
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