Chapter 2: In the darkness

Lestrade waited a whole day before he called Mycroft to ask him if he could talk to Sherlock. Mycroft sounded tired on the phone. He told Lestrade he could try it. As the DI entered the room, Mycroft stayed outside. Sherlock was in his bed, a few pillows behind his back so he could sit up, his handy on his lap. He was looking out the window. At least that was what Lestrade thought at first.

He set on the chair near the window. 'Hollowness'. That was what Lestrade saw. In front of him sat an empty shell of a great man, dead eyes looking at him. He tried his best to cover his shock. "Hey Sherlock." No response, he did not even notice Lestrade was there. "…how are you feeling?" Nothing happened. "Can I do something for you, anything?" Lestrade touched Sherlock's hand, it was ice cold. "Can you please answer me? Shout or scream or just tell me how stupid I am, please Sherlock." No answer. Lestrade tried and tried again. After an hour he gave up and left the room.

Mycroft waited outside, sadness showing on his face. "He has been like that since he woke up yesterday morning. I tried everything. He is lost in his mind. I don't know if he will find his way back."

As Lestrade stood outside the building, he looked up to the Sherlock's window. He would come again and try it even if he had to do it for the rest of his life.

Mycroft sat on Sherlock's bed, a week has passed since John's death. Mycroft had had to call a doctor who had put an IV into his brother's arm to get some fluids and nutrition into Sherlock's system. "Sherlock, please, you have to get up. It's his funeral today. You have to say 'good bye'. John wouldn't want you to be like this." Sherlock didn't react to whatever Mycroft said.

In the end Mycroft went alone. No one asked where Sherlock was, they knew it. Sherlock Holmes was as good as dead; he had died together with John Watson. As the coffin disappeared into the ground, Mycroft sent a prayer to a god he didn't believe in to save his little brother. The answer was rain that covered everything around him as he walked back to the black car that was waiting for him.

The upcoming weeks were a horror trip for Mycroft. Sherlock's condition didn't change, at least his mental status. His physical one was something else. He had always been thin, too thin for a healthy person but now he was only skin and bones. His face was more like a skull and his eyes hadn't yet got the spark of life back.

Sherlock received many visitors. Mrs. Hudson was a daily companion by his side; Lestrade came as often as he could. Even Mummy and Daddy came but they couldn't watch their son slowly dying. Molly Hooper was there every few days, Mike Stamford came once but none of these visitors could get Sherlock back, out of the place where he was hiding himself from reality.

Mrs. Hudson went home for the day, she had told him to go to bed earlier. She had started to mother hen him too. This was probably her own way of dealing with John's loss. The doorbell rang and a very unexpected guest was standing outside. Harriet Watson, Harry, John's sister. Not sure what the reason for her visit was, he blocked the door in a protective way. Her face didn't show any trace of anger. She tried a smile, it worked a bit. "I have something for Sherlock; DI Lestrade gave me your address. Actually I wanted to give it to him at the funeral but he wasn't there." The last part wasn't condemning. Mycroft let her in but stayed in the door to Sherlock's room, close enough to intervene, but far enough to give them some form of privacy.

Harry Watson had never met Sherlock in person but she had read John's blog. Every entry had shown more and more sides of Sherlock. Of their friendship, the strong bond between both of them. Sometimes when she would talk about her brother and also mention Sherlock she sounded like she had met him. But the man opposite her was less than a shadow of the great detective.

She set on his bed like Mycroft always did but not all the other visitors who would sit in the chair. The man at the door didn't move. "Hello Sherlock, we never met but I'm John's sister, Harry, and I have something for you. From John. He asked me a long time ago to give it to you if something happened to him." There was no reaction but Harry Watson wouldn't give up that easy.

She took his face into her hands and turned it so that he had to look into her eyes. She fished something out of her pocket. Mycroft thought at first it was a normal neckless but he recognized the familiar looking dog tags every soldier had to wear. Harry hung the chain around Sherlock's neck, lifted one of his hands and closed it around the tags.

"It's for you, so you will always feel him close to you. Whenever you feel lonely hold them like that. John loved you, more than a brother and I know you loved him too." Initially Harry and Mycroft thought that it hadn't changed anything, not even that. But suddenly Sherlock's lifeless eyes filled with tears, they flooded his eyes and streamed down his face. Sherlock lifted his other hand and closed it around the hand with which Harry was holding the tags. Mycroft was then witness to the first words Sherlock spoke in weeks. "I'm sorry." He said, his voice raspy because not used for so long. "I'm sorry, it's my fault. I'm sorry." He crouched himself around the tags and threw himself into the embrace Harry was offering him. One hand still on Sherlock's she rubbed his back with the other. She did the one and only thing able to make Sherlock better. She whispered in his ears 'not your fault' as often as Sherlock needed to hear it. His crying sounded like it would never end. As Sherlock's body went limb, she knew Sherlock had cried himself to sleep. Or lost consciousness because of exhaustion which was the more likely considering Sherlock's current condition.

Mycroft came to the bed and freed Harry out of Sherlock's boneless body. Careful not to disturb him he laid him back onto his pillows. He made sure Sherlock wouldn't lose the tags during his sleep.

Harry and Mycroft left the room and at the door there was a moment of awkwardness between the two of them, but Mycroft had to show her how grateful he was so he hugged her. "Thank you." Harry didn't answer and after she hugged him back she left without another word. Her mission, the last mission her brother had given her was accomplished. Mycroft closed the door behind her and rested his forehead on the cold wood. The first step was done. Sherlock was back in this world. He would wake up in the morning and enter it without John.