There are no visiting hours. The only ones who can enter there are some family members of patients. Two at time.
One oddly warm late autumn evening, six month after John's funeral when they sit in garden. There isn't much light and it feels good, being there in dark.
"How long? If ever?" Lestrade asks and Mycroft is still, like a ghost sitting beside him.
"John was his anchor." Is his answer. Answer to every questions.
"I still hope, you know. I still hope." Lestrade leans forward, rubbing his face tiredly.
"About what?"
"That he comes back. That another empty chest will be just another empty chest."
Mycroft looks the detective and nods. "Somehow… I hope too. Because of Sherlock." But that hope is very small.
"He doesn't hope anymore."
"No."
"Then we have to hope for his sake because this will kill him."
"Yes."
It's hard to accept. They are older than those men and watching them die slowly was terrible thing to see. It wasn't meant to happen. Not to them. Lestrade was always though, well, maybe after the day when Sherlock returned, that those men should grow old and die old.
"I think…" Lestrade is up, stretching his limps and he feels the sudden coldness in air. "I go say my goodbye and then we can go."
Mycroft nods, watching the night and think when is his turn to die. When he'll give up the hope. He's tired and he knows that if Sherlock go before him, he can't go anymore. It doesn't feel right to be there without his younger brother.
Sentiments.
He buries his face to his hands and is verge to cry, but then he hears something what makes him alarmed. When he raised his face he saw the movements near the wall in the shadows and he pick up his phone to call Anthea.