AN: Thanks for the feedback, folks. As a bonus, have a follow-up thing. I wasn't all that sure about whether or not I should post this but I ended up liking it enough. So... enjoy. Or cry. Or something.

Aftermath: Ashes, Ashes


Hours pass before he regained some measure of composure and longer still before he could finally bring himself to peel the phone away from his ear, though it had already been hours since the battery on that phone had die - been drained. In spite, or perhaps because, of this, it takes him only one hour to make all the necessary arrangements to have his brother found. If he cared to notice, that was easily past record time.

He did not notice. He wouldn't have cared if he did.

His people are efficient. Planes fly, his people bearing arms and armor, tasers and trackers. All in all, the whole of journey took less than a day to make.

(which meant, of course, he thinks bitterly to himself, that the journey took far too long)

He had people scour where his brother had made his call, tracking it using his phone's last known location. They found ashes and debris, the charred skeleton of what had once been a magnificent building, and absolutely no traces of anyone having survived.

(despite this, he hopes. It is foolish, idiotic, and beyond irrational... but he hopes)

They found corpses, half-mangled, half-rotten. They found bones laying amidst the ashes, burnt remnants of flesh still clinging to their since-charred surfaces. They found bodies almost untouched by decomposition, faces still in recognizable expressions of shock, half their bodies ripped apart from the waist down.

And they found —

And they found — !

He forces himself to take a deep breath.

(hope is a gentle, comforting caress. dashed hopes are a serrated blade to the chest. It burns)

They found him, too.

(he used to be the Iceman. Now, he supposes the dampness staining his cheeks is sign enough that he has thawed)

He had been there himself, of course. He would not have done his brother the disrespect of doing anything less. He was there when they found all that had been left of him.

What little that had been there.

(when under pressure, ice shattered. He did not shatter under pressure)

He —

Sherlock, he had always been the tallest of the Holmes siblings. He was a beansprout, a lanky, stretched-out skeleton of a child too large for the skin he'd been given.

But now —

(now, he, Mycroft, shattered)

He had looked so small.

(ergo, he was no Iceman)

He is not strong. He is no soldier, no warrior. He is an overseer on an ivory tower. He is the watchman of the United Kingdom's panopticons.

And yet, he tries, regardless, to bear his brother's weight one last time. It was difficult. Sherlock, he was a d —

(he was human)

He was a — !

(with all the emotions that humanity entailed.)

He inhales sharply once through his nose. Releases it in a harsh hiss of breath through his teeth.

His brother was a dead weight in his arms. Heavy, inert, still, and lifeless he was dead, there was no point in denying it, his brother was dead and he'd heard him die and there'd been nothing he could've possibly done to save him.

Nothing. Most powerful man in the British government and he'd been powerless to do anything but give his brother the honor of knowing that he wasn't going to die alone, unheard. He was dead, his brother. Sherlock, he was dead. He was dead.

Without meaning to, without wanting to, he places a hand over his brother's heart.

There was nothing, no sensation, no movement, no warmth —

— he breaks.

His men are efficient. They scour the remnants of the enemy base with a thoroughness worthy of their training. There, they find plans and information on enemies to the nation, secrets and stories enough to unravel at least six organizations that threatened the stability of the British government. With the deaths of Hermann von Bork and the Baron von Herling, and the destruction of the base in eastern Europe, his brother had effectively assured the end of their schemes, of their machinations, as well as provided them with information invaluable to their cause. There was no doubt in anyone's mind that his brother had not only succeeded in the mission but had also far surpassed everyone's expectations beyond belief. Even Mycroft's.

His brother was to be honored for this. His exile was to be declared officially ended and he was to be awarded many times over. He was to receive knighthoods from the queen herself, honors from the British government. His brother would be known in history, when all was said and done.

He doesn't care.

(what was the point of honoring a pile of ashes?)

They return to the planes, his men laden with salvaged files. Half-burned papers and heat-warped flash drives, those were — those were still salvageable, unlike —

Him. He could not be salvaged.

He rides with Sherlock all the way back to London. The smell was horrific. Mycroft didn't care.

It had been years since they'd done it but he held his brother's hand, clasped it hard and tight. Sherlock's hand was cold and stiff and pliant despite rigor mortis. The hand stays cold and still in his hand. Pliant, if he tried hard enough. The hand stays cold, still, and cold and still and —

And here, Mycroft cared.

(he would say that he broke but he'd already been broken)

They're back on English soil when they tell him.

They had also found the phone.

It was an ugly thing. All battered, black plastic and chipped glass, the model was ancient but durable, a fact only enhanced by how heavily they'd modified it. It had survived the explosions and fire, survived the fight and the fall. Even now, it still had two remaining bars of charge.

The dial-pad was stained with blood. Mycroft recognizes the stained numbers as his own.

The screen was similarly speckled with oxidized blood.

He closes his eyes and remembers the sound of a breath, a single, loud sigh, an almost liquid noise. He remembers the quiet after, a silence near absolute save for the crackling of flames in the background.

He opens his eyes. Releases his brother's hand. Slips the phone into his pocket with a brief gesture of thanks for Anthea.

Then, dry-eyed, with more composure now than he'd had in the past few hours, he brings out his own phone and makes a few calls. He could still do this. This much, he could do —


He presses the sim card of what had been Sherlock's phone inside a small, silver locket, one he'd owned since childhood. Sherlock had once worn its twin, just as their parents still did. Their parents wore theirs around their necks. Sherlock's, he knew, was in a vault in Baker street. His own locket was kept in the inside of his tie, the pendant a steady weight against his chest, the sim card tucked away behind the photos of him and his family, all of his family, when he himself had been young.

The phone itself, he adds to the pyre.

For all intents and purposes, Sherlock was, he was back in Baker street and he - he had meant it when he said it.

It was a promise, as far as he was concerned. The bonfire.

The pyre is a good one. Firewood stacked as high as he was tall. Plenty of kindling scattered about. The whole arrangement reeks of gasoline. The wind blows the fumes into his eyes and makes them water.

His vision blurs and he thinks he can see a flash of his brother's hair through the wood and logs that made the pyre, thinks he can see his brother laying amongst the kindling as if it were a nest, but when he blinks, the illusion breaks and he sees it for the mirage that it was. To think, he'd once prided himself on his lack of sentimentality.

His brother - his brother was not here. his brother was in an upstate funeral parlor midway between his and his parents' home. There was to be a funeral a week from now, once morticians finished putting his brother back together into some semblance of a living being, finished knitting his skin and gluing his bones back together and —

He inhales. Exhales.

Whatever the morticians were to do was immaterial. There was to be a funeral. As per Sherlock's own wishes, whatever organs that could salvaged were to be donated for the advancement of scientific studies. The rest — the rest would be cremated. Dates would be set into the old tombstone and, finally, it would fulfill its intended purpose.

He still has yet to tell John or Mrs. Hudson or Mary or Lestrade or Molly about what was coming. He'd wondered once, briefly, whether it would be kinder not to tell.

(for him or for them? If it ached to remember then having to say the words themselves...)

He would, of course. They would've known regardless. It would be on the news, in some way. Though the exact nature of his death would be kept secret, the fact that he, Sherlock was awarded with high honors, that his exile had been declared ended in light of his services to the British government, would not. They would know, regardless. It would be a kindness to tell them himself.

But he would not tell them now. For now, he was alone. Even Anthea, even his bodyguards, even his security team - he'd urged them all to protect him from a distance. Just this one time. Just this one, single time, he would ask for privacy from even his people, even disregarding his safety.

God, Mycroft, he remembers the words. That's dull even for you.

He closes his eyes and sets it alight.

The roar of flames, the crackling of wood — it's the same as what he'd heard back then. Yesterday. The day before that. All that's missing is his brother's breath and he knew —

(he ached. He would never not ache)

— he knew that was gone forever.

Mycroft looks up to the sky. It really was a beautiful sight, the brilliant orange sparks dancing heavenward, stark against the dark of night. Like fireworks in reverse, as his brother put it.

He wonders if this really was what Sherlock saw, before he died.

He leans back against the wall of Baker street, eyes fixed on the bonfire in front of him.

"Your bonfire, little brother," he whispers. "As I promised."

There are hundred different matters he has to oversee. He has an inbox full of e-mails concerning the stability of the nation, boxes of files concerning vital information on key players in the battlefield of politics. There are so many things that he should be doing, that he'd planned on doing, that he would've been doing.

Instead, he stays there until long after the fire has died, until long after the last ember has dimmed, watching the smoke curl as it rose into the atmosphere and fade in the light of the rising sun, eyes warm, the ashes dusting his lips matching the bitter taste in his mouth.

end


That's the end of this. There won't be any more updates for this though I may eventually write a follow-up fic, of sorts. The idea of Mycroft breaking the news to all those concerned has been playing around in my mind for a while, I must admit. Tell me if you'd like to see that. I'm very busy so no promises but I'll do my best. In any case, thank you for reading this and, please, feedback is always appreciated.