September became October; the days became even shorter and the weather more bitter. Molly still faithfully visited John at the tiny flat as often as possible, and she was not the only one. Greg Lestrade still came around as often as his hectic schedule would allow, but these were discreet visits. He'd only been back from his suspension for a few weeks, and publicly associating with John Watson was going to make things worse for himself, especially since the incident at the Diogenes Club. But John was a friend, and Lestrade wasn't about to axe a friend for professional reasons. They talked over almost anything and everything, but they never spoke about Sherlock Holmes.

Lestrade didn't talk about Sherlock with anyone. The only person who would understand was John, and John couldn't be burdened with it.

Professionally, Sherlock Holmes had never existed. Lestrade knew most of the cases Sherlock helped him with were being investigated by Internal Affairs, looking for any signs that he, Lestrade, had helped Sherlock with his alleged crimes or was corrupt in any other way. Apart from having to write up or sign the odd statement on them, he was not given any information as to how those investigations were going. His superiors were still in the habit of reminding him daily that he was lucky to not be on the dole queue. He'd expected to be demoted, at least. It was a long time before he realised that he hadn't been demoted for the same reason that John hadn't gone to prison for punching Chief Superintendent Dawson: a well-timed phone call from Mycroft Holmes.

It might have been due to a well-timed phone call from Mycroft Holmes that, at half-past six on the morning of the eleventh of October, Lestrade was called upon to investigate his first homicide since his suspension. A man's body had been found in Hyde Park, in a children's play area near the Italian Gardens.

Despite twenty-four years of active service and seven on the Metropolitan murder squad, Lestrade had never been a morning person, and at this stage of his career it was very unlikely that he'd become one. He was a little late to the crime scene, and by the time he arrived the body had been photographed and covered, with Donovan firmly in charge of matters. She met him at his car.

"What's happened?" he asked her.

"Guy got killed."

"Yeah, very funny." This was his usual banter with Donovan, and had been ever since they'd started working together; but there was something automatic, even cold about it these days. "Is this domestic, or gang violence, or what?"

She shook her head. "Neither, as far as I can tell," she said.

And neither of us are Sherlock Holmes, Lestrade let himself think as they approached the spot where the body lay.

"If you ask me, this one's a sicko," Donovan was saying. Sicko was her go-to term to describe someone who killed people for the sheer joy of killing. "I hope you haven't had breakfast. It's not a pretty sight."

With a sigh of relief, Lestrade noted that Lisa Gifford was the pathologist in charge of this crime scene. She was a jolly, middle-aged woman with rosy cheeks, who'd sometimes left herself open to criticism that she didn't take her job seriously. Anyone who had ever worked with her, though, knew she spoke lightly to get through days of dark work. After greeting him, she temporarily removed the tarp from the body to give him a look at what he was dealing with.

Spread-eagled on his back. Naked. Tall… well over six foot. Measure him at the post-mortem. Shaved head. Arms and chest have large patches that have been skinned. Jaw crushed, teeth broken. Crushing injuries around the throat made with some kind of blunt object… fingers removed at the second joint…

"Okay, go," he said to Gifford. "Time of death?"

"We're in luck." She squatted down beside the body, her boots glistening like slugs in the dewy grass. "The meteorology report says that the dew didn't set in until around two, and under the body was dry. Given his state, I'd say no earlier than ten, and closer to two. You'll probably get a narrower time of death from the post-mortem. He was probably killed here, but that's your department."

Lestrade nodded. "I suppose it'd be a bit stupid to ask for cause of death?"

"I think the post-mortem will confirm it as a single blow to the windpipe. Asphyxiated. Heavy, blunt object, possibly a metal pipe or something of that nature. Whatever it is, it's not here."

"And these other injuries, on his arms and chest…"

"Oh, and his back, as well," Gifford said cheerfully.

"Before death?"

"After. Along with the severed fingers and the smashed face, which was probably done with whatever got him in the throat."

"Well, thank Christ for small mercies, I suppose." Whoever this guy was, and whatever he'd done in his life, it couldn't have been a pleasant way to go, even as far as murders went. Lestrade had a brief moment wondering how he'd end up leaving the world. Hopefully it wasn't going to be stark naked in Hyde Park. Or smashed up on the pavement outside a hospital.

"What about his clothes?" he continued, ruthlessly shoving that thought aside.

"No sign of them. Removed after death, I'd say, or at least after he'd lost consciousness, since there's no bruising."

"Maybe he took them off voluntarily? As far as I know this isn't a known… no, forget I said that."

He could practically hear Sherlock's voice in his head: Oh, come on, Lestrade, will you open your eyes and look? His clothes are missing from the scene, probably in an attempt to hinder identificaton. Anyhow, he wouldn't have taken every stitch of clothing off for sex in a public park in October.

That one almost made him smile.

"I'll be able to tell you more after the post-mortem," Gifford was saying. "Overall, it looks like a pretty professional job."

"A hit?"

Gifford shrugged: never a good sign from a scientist. "Someone who's had practice, though that doesn't necessarily mean they've killed before. Certainly I'd say that the skinning was done by someone who knew what they were doing."

"A butcher, maybe."

"Perhaps. Very sharp blade used, I can say that. Same for the fingers—done with a knife, or perhaps a razor, not a cleaver. All done here, without a light source of any kind, unless your murderer brought a torch. He probably worked from touch alone. Looks like you'll have a lot of fun with this one."

Yes, Lestrade reflected. Yes, he would. Six months before, he'd have had Sherlock Holmes on the phone and down to the crime scene before Gifford could even finish. The crime would be solved in two days if not sooner, and then it'd be down the pub for a pint with John so they could both vent about how obnoxious Sherlock could be. As it was, this shit was probably going to drag on for months.

"Never mind; you've a good track record, Lestrade," she said, At this junction, Philip Anderson wandered over. Lestrade gave a barely perceptible sigh. He'd hoped that someone else was on tech that shift. He'd never overly liked Anderson, and after the events of the previous June, there were times when he was pretty sure he hated him. Once, he'd permitted himself to despair that a great man like Sherlock Holmes was dead and Anderson was still alive.

"Anderson," he said. Oh, well. The man was here now, and he'd always been good at his actual job. "What have you got for me?"

Anderson glanced around uncomfortably. "Well, this is a new one..."

Lestrade pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Cleanest crime scene I've seen yet," Anderson went on.

"Yeah, well, there's got to be something to go on. No such thing as a clean crime scene, you know that."

"The area was sealed off by the handover officers when I got here, and looks like nobody'd been within twenty feet of the body except the woman who found him." Anderson gestured to where a uniformed policewoman was comforting a shaken but dry-eyed woman in her late thirties. Having nowhere else to sit, she was seated on a child's swing in the play area.

"And the guy who killed him." Lestrade mentally corrected himself. Person. The person who killed him. Though his experience told him it was very unlikely he was looking for a woman.

"Well, obviously," Anderson huffed. Even he could tell when Lestrade was implying he was below par. "But there's no sign of it. The scene's been fully photographed, and I've checked every inch of the grass around. Nothing. No blood anywhere except for the foot or so around the body, no semen—"

"Not surprised. I don't think any of us were assuming this was a sex crime."

"It doesn't need to be," Anderson said. "70% of male victims ejaculate at the point of death."

Lestrade raised one eyebrow. "Seriously?"

"Medical fact. But anyway, he didn't, so there goes that idea."

Lestrade swiped at his chin, trying to hide a shameful grin. Just a half-formed thought about...

"Neither did his killer," Anderson was saying, "which would indicate a psycho-sexual crime. Also, there are no drag marks. No footprints on the grass, except for those of the witness."

"And those of the victim."

"No, there are no footprints of the victim, either."

"There have to be."

"There aren't."

"Are you sure you aren't confusing-"

"I know the difference between the footprints of a 5'4'' woman and a 6'3'' man," Anderson huffed, full of bruised dignity. "And anyway, what's the likelihood of them walking in each other's footsteps exactly?"

"Right," Lestrade said. "So I guess your theory is that the victim fell out of a nearby tree? Or a plane? Or he was picked up somewhere else and then dropped here by an oversized eagle? No, wait. I've got it. Aliens. Aliens must be behind it."

"Sir -"

"We need something sane to put on the report. Look again."

"I've looked over every inch of ground four times."

"Then do it a fifth time, will you?"

Bloody hell. A dead, naked John Doe on his hands, with no distinguishing features, found in a pristine crime scene. And on top of that, the help he had amounted to the likes of Anderson.

And Sherlock Holmes was dead.


On the second Saturday afternoon after the discovery of the Hyde Park body, Harry Watson descended upon her brother's flat without warning. He had been sitting on the bed, seemingly not doing anything in particular; on hearing the door opening, he got to his feet in sudden alarm.

"Behold," she announced, pushing the door open with one elbow, "it is I."

"For God's sake, Harry…"

"Sorry, but you know the rules," she said without amusement, trying to shut the door behind her with her shoulder. Both hands were occupied with laden shopping bags. "If you don't answer your phone, I come round to piss you off."

John did know "the rules". Harry had made them clear to him ever since that day in June when Lestrade had called her to tell her Sherlock Holmes was dead. In fact, she'd all but presented it to John in writing: She was to be given a spare key to wherever he was living at the time, and either half a day of ignored texts or three consecutive ignored calls would result in an unheralded visit. That this would piss him off was an accepted fact between them.

"So anyway, here I am, so you may as well stop sulking and entertain me for half an hour," Harry went on. "Are you all right?" She heaved the bags onto the kitchen counter and flipped the switch on the kettle.

"I'm fine," he protested, eyeing those groceries with deep misgivings. "Why do you always have to assume something's wrong? I was out."

She glanced over her shoulder at him, brushing tendrils of unruly, sand-coloured hair out of her hazel eyes. In the last few days, John noted, she'd dyed one thick lock near her temple a blinding shade of electric blue. Harry's physical age was rapidly barreling toward her forties, but her mental age was stuck permanently at seventeen. "Out?" she echoed. "Out where, doing what?"

"Out walking on the common, if you really must know."

"On your own?"

"No. Molly Hooper came around." John watched her as she made coffee for them both. Her hands and voice were both steady enough to indicate that she was, for now, on the wagon.

"Molly Hooper?" she said lightly as she clinked the teaspoon against the ceramic cups. "Where have I heard that name?"

"Blog, probably. She's... she was a friend of Sherlock's. She only left fifteen minutes ago. I haven't even had a chance to look at my ph—oh, don't look at me like that."

"Well I'm just saying, John."

"What are you 'just saying'?"

"That it wouldn't hurt you any to go on a date every now and again—good Lord, there's actual food in here," Harry said, opening the fridge for milk. "Ooh, and milk that didn't expire four days ago. What a treat." She shut the fridge door again with her hip.

John rolled his eyes and decided not to lay out all the reasons—and good reasons, too, he thought—that he'd be the world's worst date. "So what's been happening with you, then?" he asked instead as she handed him a cup of coffee. If anything was going to put his life into perspective, perhaps it'd be Harry's life.

"You mean, how long it's been since I had a drink? Two months, eighteen days and… I don't know, eleven hours this time? I'm getting better at this, I really am."

He sipped his coffee. "Yeah," he agreed without malice. "You are." Her last drying-out attempt had lasted a grand total of four days, and he'd not known her to lay off the booze for this long since her twenties. "What's changed?"

"Hmm?"

"Well, you're doing something new."

She shrugged. "I'm not really doing anything new," she said. "Just got a lot of willpower this time around, I suppose. If I can hold on and make it three months I'm well clear of this, and then I can start looking for work again."

Harry was an architect by profession, and a very good one: a past winner of accolades and awards. She'd been compelled to resign a well-paid position four-and-a-half years before when her drinking, which had been heavy since her teen years, finally got out of hand. John had been in Afghanistan at the time, but he had an idea this was the rock Harry and Clara had finally split on.

"I, um." John fidgeted. "You, um, you know I'm really proud of you for this, right?"

"Thanks. I've worked bloody hard to stay sober for this long." She looked around. As usual, the bedsit was pristine; it could hardly be otherwise, given that it was barely bigger than a cardboard box and John didn't own enough things to make it untidy. He had always been neat, ever since earliest childhood. Any sort of emotional turmoil, though, resulted in him being ridiculous about it. The bedsit had officially been in ridiculous territory ever since John had moved in. Pristine countertops. Perfectly level, unwrinkled bedspread. Washed ceiling, for God's sake.

"John," she said, "come and live with me."

"Harry -"

"Just for a few months, while you get back on your feet. You can't stay here. It's pathetic."

"Not as pathetic as a grown man moving in with his sister."

"Oh, shut up, people do it all the time. My old boss was forty and lived with his mother. And don't snap at me, because I'm enjoying this feel-sorry-for-John business about as much as you are."

There was an awkward silence.

"I can't move in with you," John finally said with a shake of his head, as if he'd at least considered it. "We'd kill each other. You know we would."

"But I'm sober…"

"That's not what I meant." John hid his expression in his cup of coffee. "I mean, yeah, that doesn't help much, but... look, I don't make a very good flatmate. For anyone."

"We could be thoroughly messed up individuals together," she suggested hopefully.

"Like I said, I think there'd be murder," he said. "And you'd kill me first. But thanks. For offering, I mean."

Harry paused. "Okay," she said. "But remember, there's a spare room over at my house and it's yours whenever you want it. For however long you want it for."

"Right," John said, nodding. "Okay. Thank you."

"And John, I was just speaking with Greg Lestrade yesterday. While I appreciate that Mycroft Holmes needs to be punched in the face more often, and I wish I'd been there to see you deck him, if you ever get the gas cut off or anything like that because you're too chicken to tell me you're broke, I'm going to punch you in the face. Are we clear on that?"

John nearly smiled. "Clear."

"Great, glad we've got that cleared up." Harry sipped her coffee. "Now anyway, back to this Molly Hooper…"

"Oh, God, Harry, no. She was a friend of Sherlock's, that's all."

"Hmm. And by 'friend…'?"

"Oh, God, you've no idea. She wanted to have about fifteen of his kids." To John's own surprise, this had come out without bitterness. He felt an urgent tug on his heartstrings, wishing that Sherlock had had children—with Molly Hooper or anyone else, just so that he could have left something, that some part of him could have stayed in the world.

"That's… really sad," Harry said softly.

"Yeah, it is. So can we not talk about it anymore?"