Chapter 1

6 months earlier

Sherlock sleepily opens his eyes and looks briefly looks around him. Everything is white. There are nurses running between patients in the room with him. Oh God. He's in a ward. Mycroft's slipping again. He's forgotten about… Oh, of course.

Then, lifting himself onto his elbows, Sherlock instinctively looked around for John, hoping to see his smiling face to make this loud, idiotic hell al little more bearable. He's not there. Perhaps he went to get something to eat... Oh, no. He'll be at Baker Street. Life as a ghost is ever so lonely.

Sherlock lay down flat and took a deep breath. He looked around him and saw things in a little more detail now. The chair beside him hasn't been sat in. His bed is warm, he's been here at least an hour and, judging by the light, it's about 10 in the morning. He looks at the ceiling and knows that he's going to be in here for at least another 24 hours for 'observation' unless he starts taking hostages. He considers it briefly but knows it's more work that it's worth.

Closing his eyes, he tries to block out the screaming, crying, coughing, beeping and talking that surround him, overwhelming his every sense. Then he hears a voice to his right, from the bed next to him. "Really, I don't need to be here. There are others who need your attention more than me. I don't want to be here. They do. Why can't I just leave?"

Her voice was familiar, although he couldn't place it yet. He thought about looking to see who this mystery woman was but was interrupted by an elderly nurse. "Ah good, you're awake. Now dear, can you tell me your name?"

"John Croft," he answered without really thinking about it. He knew his real name wouldn't do much good for him now. Plus, he needed to be invisible for a while. Quite a while. "Mr Croft, can you tell me what happened?"

Sherlock answered her questions with as much patience as he had until she finally relented and let him rest. As she stepped aside he saw the face of the woman he heard previously and they were both surprised to see each other.

"Sherlock," she breathed. Her emerald eyes grew wide and a small smile crept across her face. "How long has it been?"

"Miss Butler. About 2 years I believe," he answered quietly. He was about to ignore her but then realised he had nothing else on which to focus. Sitting up in his bed, he turned to face her completely. "What brings you to this…establishment?"

Her smile faded a little. She looked down at the ground and then back up at him. The look told him everything. 'You know what.' She rolled over in bed so she was facing away from him. He didn't need to see her face to know that she was crying. But then, he saw something odd happen. A nurse came over and offered her comfort and she asked for some morphine for her headache. The nurse returned with some and injected it into the IV. Immediately after the nurse left, her tears stopped and she sat bolt upright in bed, looking at Sherlock.

"So," she started, crossing her legs. "Why did you jump off a building? I thought you were far too fond of yourself for suicide. Or was the singular solitude just too much?"

"I'm not, wasn't, on my own. I have, had, a flatmate," he answered, constantly stopping to correct himself.

"Good God. You would have been a terror to live with. Did you just ignore each other?"

"No, we... How come you don't know this?" he questioned her. She simply pulled her knees to her chest and looked at him, puzzled. "Why should I?"

"He keeps a blog about my cases. He's, was, my…colleague."

"I haven't had access to a computer in a while. Or the papers before you mention that. I know you've been in them recently but I haven't been able to read them. Completely off the grid and out of the loop," she said with a smile.

Sherlock couldn't help but smile a little at that. Here sat the one person in the world who doesn't know what he's being accused of and why he's all alone. This woman, this reminder of the past he once had, was his only link in a world that believed him to be a fraud. The one woman who thought he was still on the side of the Angels.

"So, Miss Butler-"

"Erika, please. I hate formality."

"Erika," he said the work foreign in his mouth. "Lung or pancreas?"

At this she did something he didn't expect. She laughed at him. Then shaking her head she let the sorrow creep back onto her face. "Brain."

"Inoperable of course."

"The tumours to close to the brain stem."

"How Long?"

"Six months. Maybe more, maybe less but I don't rely on that."

Sherlock looked at Erika and saw all that was going to go to waste. Her intellect, her satire, her beauty. No, beauty was all superficial. What did that matter? Her mind was the most important, and it was going to wither away.

"It won't damage my intellect Sherlock," she said interrupting his thoughts. His eyes snapped up to hers and he looked at her coldly. "Don't look at me like that, it's written all over your face."

She smiled slightly a reached out her hand. Gently, she brushed her hand across his brow. "Your face wrinkles a little when you worry and the only thing that would make you worry about me would be losing my intelligence and, although it might fray a little, along with my emotion wellbeing, I'll get to keep both."

She then proceeded to lie back down in her bed, completely ignoring the world around her. Sherlock decided to take heed and did the same. He flattened himself back out on his and stared at the ceiling. Neither of them spoke for hours. They remained completely silent and unmoving until the sun began to set and the nurses began to slowly filter out of the room. Then, Erika sat up dead strait and turned to face Sherlock.

"You get released in the morning." There was no question in her voice, she knew that it was the truth and he knew that there was no point in arguing with her. "I'll be gone by nine."

She nodded sadly. "I'll be here for weeks. They want me to do an experimental trial. They said it could give me an extra month or two. I thought, 'Why not?'"

"You referred to that in the past tense," he said, picking up on every detail. "What changed?"

She smiled slyly and relaxed a little. She lay back down on her side and propped herself up on her elbow. "You've been here for 7 hours and 46 minutes."

"47," he corrected.

"None the less, you said you had a flatmate. You also have a brother and that plain girl with the small lips from the hospital who fancies you."

"Is there a point to this?" he questioned.

"Yes," she responded, mildly irritated by the interruption. "The point is that you've been here for almost 8 hours and you haven't had a single visitor."

Sherlock went stiff at that. What could he tell her? The truth wouldn't do very well as that was what he was running from in the first place. Besides, how could he know she could be trusted? Last time they met she was a criminal, stealing jewels from the necks of those otherwise engaged. Hardly the most trustworthy of all people.

"And then," she added, cutting across his mental monologue. "There is the fact that you gave that nurse before a false name. John Croft. That's something criminals and cops usually do. You, Mr Holmes, are neither as far as I'm concerned."

"Are you going to make a point, Miss Butler?" he said, joining in on her mock formality.

"Indeed. I just wondered how long you plan on keeping up this façade?"

At this, Sherlock laughed. He knew that she was a curious type but the fact that this was all she wanted to know was comical at least. He chuckled as he answered her.

"As long as I wish," he answered smugly. He then focused his attention on the ceiling, trying to count the millions of small, black holes that were there for both decoration and insulation but Erika wasn't one to let these sorts of things go.

"But you don't want to, do you? Something's forcing you too. Otherwise you'd have visitors," she stated matter-of-factly.

"You haven't had any guests either."

"But I have none by choice."

"You choose to be alone?" Sherlock was surprised at himself for asking this as the same had been asked of him many times in his youth. By his parents, teachers, fellow pupils. They all questioned him, and now here he was, enforcing it onto another. Surprisingly though, Erika didn't even blink. She just smiled slightly at him and dropped her head for a brief moment. Then she looked him right in the eye.

"I want to live alone, but I want to die with someone there."

"For what purpose?"

"So that there is someone on this earth that remembers me."

"I'll remember you." Erika laughed at this. A light giggle that burst from her lips and a smile spread across her face. She looked down and shook her head a little before coming back to meet his eye. "You misunderstand me. I want to be remembered as a person, not a puzzle that a frustrated child could solve."

"Does it really matter?"

"Of course it matters! If you were remembered as a dull, idiotic fool wouldn't you be offended?"

Sherlock was taken aback by how close to the truth she was, reminded that the world now mourned him as a fraud, a killer and a kidnapper. Erika still appeared to be waiting for an answer, even though he knew she saw his uneasiness and discomforts. She was going to make him admit defeat. Make him admit she was right. He sighed a little and decided perhaps it was better just to be out with it. "Yes, but…"

"Exactly," Erika said, cutting him off mid-sentence. Something that he was not used to people doing. He looked at her and was met with a completely unbiased and yet somehow, a satisfied expression gracing her features. "Context matters, Sherlock."

"Sometimes," Sherlock muttered as he rolled over in his bed so that he was facing away from the darked haired woman across from him. He was just drifting off into a drug induced sleep when he heard her.

"Always, Mr Holmes. Always."