Disclaimer: I do not own any of these characters (unfortunately). If I did, Hamish would be in existence and Irene would have a major part in ALL the series ;)
1 month, 21 days, 8 hours
Dementia. Incurable. Terribly sorry.
Sherlock hears the words numbly. Before the doctor is finished he is out of the door, leaving her to rush out after him. It's not enough.
1 month, 21 days, 7 hours
They don't bother with foreplay this time. It is all sweat-soaked skin sliding against sweat-soaked skin, desperate energy of the damned, borne out of the knowledge that this will be the last time for both of them. He is almost able to forget the gaping chasm opening in his chest.
1 month, 3 days, 10 hours
The knitting starts precisely 432 hours after her diagnosis. He has just walked in, back from a 'baby crisis' with John. These always seem to end with John taking him aside and asking him how she's holding up. He always brushes him away.
All he sees is her slumped in John's armchair, needles clicking away at the pool of wool tangled in her feet. He feels something break inside him at the loss of the woman he had once known. Her eyes are empty as she stares up at him, devoid of the proud, confident genius that had shone there. He picks her up and carries her to her bed, tucking the covers gently around her broken body.
Goodnight he whispers. She is already asleep.
A single tear slides down his cheek that night. It's all he allows himself; anything more, he knows, and he will truly break.
0 months, 19 days, 2 hours
She comes back as herself sometimes. Brief flashes of the old Irene Adler, iron returning to her eyes, defences erected. She is able to speak on those days. She still has to search for the right words. It is only a bittersweet echo.
He's not sure whether he prefers her like this or the empty shell. It hurts when she doesn't know who he is. It hurts more when he sees the pain in her eyes when her mind is conscious to the difficulty of reaching the words she would once have used without thought.
0 months, 9 days, 11 hours
John makes another appointment. It turns out that she only has another month to live. Sherlock only feels emptiness.
It is only when nobody can see when he lets himself show weakness. One death among many, he repeats to himself between the waves of pain wracking his body. One death among over 60,000. What's the difference? He knows, though. He knows the difference is that, even though all his barriers and stone walls were impenetrable, every rule has an exception and his exception was her. Sherlock Holmes had let The Woman in through his defences and now she, His Woman, was gone.
0 months, 7 days, 4 hours
Everyone is being kind. Mrs Hudson tiptoes around Bakers Street. Lestrade takes Anderson and Donovan aside to give them stern warnings. John and Mary look at him sympathetically and give him countless talks on expressing his feelings.
He ignores them all. His whole world is wrapped around a woman who can't piece two words together without stumbling, an addiction to knitting and empty eyes.
0 months, 5 days, 11 hours
He sits by her bed at night, waiting for anything to tell him that she's going to be alright. He doesn't eat. They waste away together.
John is worried about him. So is Molly. Lestrade actually has a serious talk with him and threatens to call Mycroft. Sherlock doesn't care.
That night she wakes and calls to him. Sherlock is there. It is a rare appearance of the old Irene. She touches his face and smiles. He swallows and takes her hand.
They decide that he will poison her with clostridum botulinin. The same poison that Moriarty used to kill Carl Powers. It is quick and painless, he assures her. She agrees.
0 months, 0 days, 1 hour
She wakes herself again. She tells him that now is the time. He nods briefly and prepares the needle. She presses a lingering kiss to his mouth. It tastes of tears and death and ashes. He can feel himself crumbling.
She is silent until the very end. Until sobs shake her frail body and she buries her head in his neck.
"I don't want to go," she is whispering. He fights to hold back a sob of his own.
"I don't want you to go," he mutters fiercely into her hair. "It'll be okay. Okay. Okay?"
He says it more to convince himself than to reassure her. She manages a small laugh.
"Okay."
It is her last word.
2 hours, 21 minutes and 7 seconds later, Sherlock Holmes falls.