Guilt

"It's not exactly conventional, but you would have him back."

John stared open mouthed at the woman, her mouth turned down in a sympathetic frown as she reached out to touch his arm,

"And if nothing else," she continued, oblivious to the revulsion rising in John, "it'll be good for you to simply have him around. Won't it?"

John shook his head in disbelief, hardly trusting himself to respond with anything more than a hushed,

"Excuse me."

It wasn't the first time he'd been sick at the thought. Acceptance would come late, but for now remembering was enough to gall him.

Sherlock Holmes was dead. And nothing short of a miracle could bring him back.

So what was Yvonne talking about?

"It's the latest innovation!" He heard her chatting away to an unsuspecting Mike, once he'd returned, "Everything the person's ever said, every photo, anything they've ever put on the internet, that shapes the consciousness. Texts, emails, videos, it's a marvellous thing-"

He turned away before she could say any more. It was almost as if she'd pioneered the software herself, so enamoured of it she seemed to be. He slipped into the patio of the plush bar- hardly somewhere Sherlock would have frequented, but Mycroft had organised it all- and relished the moment alone.

The cool air hit his face with whiplash intensity for a moment, before settling. The momentary pain felt good, cleansing. He took several deep breaths, eyes squeezed shut. John was just wondering how long he would have to hide out here before someone came to find him, when someone did just that.

"Hardly a gracious host, John, hiding from your guests," the painfully familiar voice was tinged with wry amusement, but the smile was forced and careful when John turned to face it.

"Mycroft," his voice sounded rough in his own ears, "You're very good at playing least-in-sight."

The smile softened ever so slightly, an acceptance of the terms under which John will now speak with him. Blame still burned and roiled in John's gut; everything Moriarty had needed to ruin Sherlock, Mycroft had given willingly.

"A necessary precaution. I'm due to leave after this conversation."

"Then say what you've come to say, and go," John's snapped in reply. Mycroft's lips pursed, a look of almost-pity coloured his features for a moment. He cleared his throat,

"Look after yourself. Without Sherlock I see little need to continue our acquaintance. Of course should the need arise-" he raised an eyebrow, the letter he had sent John the previous week plainly being addressed, "Then you have the means to contact me. Until then; take care, John."

His voice was uncharacteristically soft, and John was unsurprised that Mycroft had already left when he turned around.

It wasn't until later in bed that he allowed himself to mull over what it was Yvonne had been suggesting. She had slipped a card into his hand as he'd left,

Look at the website, she'd murmured, pressing a gloss-sticky kiss to his cheek, It'll tell you everything you need to know. He'd had two whiskeys since then, and hours to think in the silence of his flat.

He had his laptop open and the website loaded before he'd had another moment to reconsider.

It's just curiosity, he assured himself, that's all. I'm not going to actually... He shuddered at the thought.

As far as he could tell the service was set up as somewhat of a private chat room. One that they would always be logged in to, ready to speak to the bill payer.

As if it were really them! the nauseatingly cheerful banner read,

Amazing! one review exalted, As if she'd never been away!

John shut the laptop with a snap and returned to bed. In the morning he does not return to the website.

"John, hey!" The shout is friendly, and John can't help but turn towards it, "Where have you been mate? Been trying to call you for ages!"

John eyes Mike and gives him a cheerful smile, forced,

"Buggered my phone, lost all my numbers." He didn't tell Mike that he had lobbed it against a wall in frustration almost two months earlier.

In the year since Sherlock's death, everyone around him seemed to have changed. Mike, before a round-face man who had joked about his own weight, now merely stout and growing steadily thinner. He looked happy. John hated him a little for it.

Reluctantly he agreed to coffee with him. He sat through forty minutes of idle chat; he asked the expected questions about Mike's wife and their two daughters, listened attentively and chuckled appreciatively at an anecdote about one of his students getting caught in a deep freeze container. John thought perhaps he'd managed to avoid the subject all together, until Mike cleared his throat.

"So. How are you doing?"

How was he doing? He'd moved out of Baker Street ten months ago, had moved into a sparse flat and had taken every hour under the sun in order to escape being there, had only spoken to those who spoke to him first, and had pursued a string of women, all of whom he had left not long after taking what he wanted. And he was lonely. He didn't say any of this. Not to Mike.

All he said was, "Fine. Yeah, I've been fine. How's Lianne?"

He agreed to meet Mike the next week. Speaking with him, allowing himself to be buoyed by the gentle pointlessness of their conversation, had actually been therapeutic. Perhaps he was ready to begin behaving like a human being again.

He was on the train a couple of days later when he heard it. The company name that Yvonne had given him. He continued to stare at the sentence he'd already read as he listened carefully.

"It's unbelievable. I can't- I mean I hardly dared believe-"

"So it worked then?"

"Worked! It's ridiculous! And that's just been the free trial. I bought the whole thing, I couldn't stop. Five hours I messaged him for yesterday!"

"And it was just like-?"

There was a pause. When he spoke again, John could hear the unbridled joy in his voice.

"Just like speaking to him again. The way it spoke...it even sounded like things he would say, y'know?"

John got off at the next stop. He hasn't thought of the possibility for months. Had toyed with the idea of speaking to Sherlock again countless times, and had dismissed it as fanciful. Unrealistic. A ridiculous pipe dream.

And yet. He had gotten off the train.