"Who knows?" A shrug, as if it doesn't matter.

Of course he knows. The shields in his eyes couldn't quite hide the knowledge, and I longed to reach out and hug him, but couldn't. Had to respect the enforced distance he put between us, make it easier on him. (What about me?)

He's going off to his death. Must be. Why else such a sombre tone to his voice, instead of the buoyancy of a case, of his excitement at something new, and different? It's the only logical explanation resulting from this undercover work.

He's going to die within the next six months. (And I've brought him to this. My best friend. He wouldn't be flying out on that plane now if it wasn't for me, and Mary.) I wonder, idly, how it will go. A bullet? A knife? A noose? Thinking about it is too difficult (though real). His body, pale and cold and bloody. (Not false from jumping off a building, yet that's the image that my mind juxtaposes.)

The plane has taken off. Too late now to tell him how sorry I am that it's come to this, how I wish that it could be different. (Illogical sentiment, he'd say if he could hear my thoughts now. Not going to get him or us anywhere.)

The east wind that takes us all in the end, has swept him off to his end. And whether he fights for those six months, or lasts longer, or gives up (he won't give up, surely not, he can't) remains to be seen, but he'll never be coming back to British soil again, unless in a wooden box, dead and hardly recognisable.

Yet, Mycroft has said six months. So six months it shall be. And no more.