Darkness and cold. It took Anderson a few moments to realise that he was lying on a cold floor and that his eyes were tightly shut. Another few moments and he realised why this was. He'd passed out from his panic attack. His eyes stayed shut as if to deny the whole situation. If nobody had found him by now then they'd either given up or would never find him. Both ended in the same result. He could feel the steady rhythm of his breathing and his heart. They were peaceful and now soothed him. He could now think clearly and slightly detached from it all now. Sherlock's grave. He winced slightly as he thought those words but nothing more. The images of it flashed inside his head and lit up the darkness of his shut eyes.
The Summer Solstice. His family always had a stupid tradition of having a party every year for it. "A time of laughter, joy, happiness" they always said. Normally it was and a great excuse to meet up with old friends and family and get drunk. This was the second year in a row Anderson wouldn't be joining them. Last year he sat locked alone in his flat with the guilt crushing and consuming him. His family understood why he wouldn't be there. He'd heard their worried talking about him but they understood. This year they wanted to take his mind off the year anniversary but they were less understanding and more worried when he said he was staying at home. He didn't care. The last year had flown by and he hardly remembered any of it apart from his now constant companion, guilt. The whirlwind of Sherlock Holmes had died down in recent months but Anderson's life continued on the never ending cycling of getting up, going to work, sleeping. He was constantly reminded of one passage from 'Frankenstein'. He always had to read that book to his nephew and now it had made an impact on him:
'No distinct ideas occupied my mind; all was confused. I felt light, and hunger, and thirst, and darkness; innumerable sounds rang in my ears, and on all sides various scents saluted me'
Yes, that was now his life. He merely lived off his instincts and guilt. They passed away the minutes which passed into hours, into days, into months, and finally into a year.
The words echoed in his brain once more as he sighed heavily and, with great effort, heaved himself off his bed. His phone vibrated as he walked to the bathroom. He went to turn it off, knowing it'd be another worried text or voice message pleading him to join the party. He looked at the screen; a text from Lestrade. Lestrade flashed through his mind from the past year. Always the clear vision of his grey face and then blurred images of him from the year gone by. He always looked ill, washed out, thin. He was a mere shadow of the man he once was. It would have scared Anderson normally but he knew he must look the same. He walked up to the bathroom mirror and looked at himself properly for the first time in 365 days. The sight shocked him.
Bloodshot eyes with large bags under them first greeted him. Those eyes swept to his skin, pallid and saggy. He had always been lean but now as his eyes took himself in he saw his frame looked almost skeletal. His hair was greasy and several day old stubble was now forming into a beard he used to sport thinking he looked cool. He looked a lot like the images of Lestrade that his brain replayed to him once again.
He looked back at his phone to see what Lestrade had text him. He seldom text other than work related stuff and there had been none in the past year. He had text asking if he was okay. Anderson didn't reply and turned his phone off; he had no answer to give.
He walked up back into his bedroom still seeing things clearly for the first time. His eyes found his untidy bed first. He had no idea when it was last made or if the bed sheets had even been changed. Empty glasses and plates were dotted around the room where he'd managed to satisfy his hunger and thirst instincts. Crumpled up clothes were lying everywhere, particularly in the corner by the door where they made a small mountain. Anderson smelt the nearest lying shirt to him. Musty? Stale? Unclean? He couldn't describe the smell but it wasn't pleasant. Old bills and paperwork littered any space of floor left. Again, Anderson picked up the nearest sheet to him. He didn't remember writing any of the words on the paper but his signature was on it. It was the same for the next piece of paper he picked up, and the next one. He picked up some of the bills and was surprised to see they were all paid off for the next few months. He didn't remember that either. He set about tidying his room, filing paperwork away, taking clothes to be put in the washing machine, and plates in the dishwasher. Finally he changed his sheets and made his bed. The now tidier room made him feel better, his mind also cleaner.
He now stood in the middle of his room thinking. Something had changed inside him; he could feel it deep down and trickling through his veins. He walked back into the bathroom and got in the shower. Was he actually appreciating the hot water? Even enjoying it? He got out and had a shave. He was careful not to look in the mirror for too long; he didn't want to see himself clearly again. His could still feel the thing inside him now coursing through his veins. His mind was starting to tick over, forming a plan, of what he didn't know. Back in his bedroom he rifled through his wardrobe and finally found an old black suit which was probably the only thing which wasn't creased or unpleasant to smell. It hadn't been worn for many, many years in which he'd put on weight as he'd grown older. It was too big for him now as it hung of his thin frame. His mind had finished forming its plan and Anderson now knew what that plan was.
He stepped out of his flat breathing in the fresh summer air. Dark clouds had rolled over London and cast a premature darkness. At one time he might have laughed about the light and warmth disappearing from the solstice party but today wasn't for laughter, in fact he hadn't laughed in at least a year. He made his way to the tube station, knowing instantly where his brain and its plan were taking him. Choking darkness of the underground took over until he made it back under the increasing darkness of the black clouded sky. He made the short walk until he stopped outside the gates. He was at the cemetery.
He hurried through and briefly wondered if any of the bodies he'd seen and spent hours writing up on were under his feet now. Most graves were too weathered to make out a name and they were too close together for him to be bothered looking. Besides, his brain was only concentrating on its plan. A few raindrops fell as he wound in and out of the dead and to the over side of the cemetery. The graves were wider apart here and most looked new. Anderson stopped sharply. He'd seen it. It was hard to miss; the black headstone seemed to gleam even though there was no sun. His name glowed. 'Sherlock Holmes'. It glowed like a God. Anderson let out the tiniest of snorts. The sound shocked him. A God. That was Sherlock all over. A man trying to be God, above all his mortals looking down on them. How ironic that he knew Sherlock didn't believe in God and such things. He knew he would have hated his funeral and the religious rituals that had gone with it.
Anderson was invited to the funeral but had had no plans of attending it. He didn't think he would have been able to face it. He was right. Fate had had other ideas for him. He'd been to another funeral that morning of a distance family member that he'd only met a handful of times but could make no excuse to avoid the burial. How cruel for it to have been held in the one place he was trying to not to be. He'd watched the end of Sherlock's funeral from afar. He'd made sure the full leafed, summer trees had hidden him from view. Like all things in the past year, it was a bit of a blur. He'd caught the odd word, seen the coffin lowered into the ground, and watched the mourners say their final farewell. It had been too much in the end and he'd turned his back on it, vowing never to return. Yet here he once exactly one year later almost in the same spot.
Anderson glanced around him but he was the only living person around. He slowly approached the grave. What was he doing here? Why had he returned? He didn't know why and didn't know what he was actually going to do now he was here. He stopped at the headstone. His heart was beating loudly as if to prove he was alive among the dead. He reached his hand out to touch the headstone but stopped, his fingers hovering millimetres above it. His heart beat louder. He dropped his hand back to his side. He wasn't sure why he didn't want to touch the headstone. Was it because it made it real? A physical object that confirmed death? His hands stayed glued to his sides. He just stared at that glowing name whilst trying to think of what, if anything, he was going to say.
His sat down by the grave, being careful not to touch it. His mind suddenly surged, brimming with thoughts and he blindly opened his mouth to let them all out. Before he knew it he was talking to the headstone. He was blurting out the first thoughts to cross his mind.
He talked about how the past year had been at work. How they'd found out about his death. How the important looking man had taken over for the time being. He wanted things to ease back into the norm even though Lestrade was off indefinitely. Anderson had been back out on cases for a few weeks. He wished for the paperwork, something he thought he'd never admit. It was a different atmosphere now. He hated being there. He used to think death was mundane but not anymore. The bodies scared him. He dreamt about them at night. Every night. The bodies always turned into Sherlock, sometimes alive, sometimes dead. They always stared at him for all of the dream though. Those piercing blue, hawk-like eyes. They burned into his very soul. He always woke up in a cold sweat and gasping for breath. He feared the nights the most and went to all sorts of lengths to avoid sleep. In the end, he saw sense and asked to be taken off field work and kept in the office. He was asked if he needed see the counsellor.
He talked to the headstone about the counsellor. He felt stupid for going at first but he knew he needed help. He didn't say much to her at first but eventually talked about his dreams. The counsellor had him what he thought the dreams meant. He trailed off talking to the headstone then. The counsellor had asked him something else, something which Anderson had forgotten as it was repressed deep down inside him and his brain sensed what it was but pulled out all defence mechanisms to keep it buried and safe.
He skipped that topic and continued talking about work colleagues and Lestrade. He came back to work after 4 months. The thin, ill-looking mere shadow of a man. His colleagues had seemingly moved on with their lives after 4 months, there was only one exception: Donovan. He hadn't seen her at all in the first month after they'd found out. He'd plucked up the courage to text and ring her a few times but had no answer. As the weeks went on, the thoughts of trying to contact her became less and less. He still looked out for her at work, often making unnecessary trips round the building, but he never saw her. At the end of the second month, he accidentally overheard she'd asked for a transfer weeks and weeks ago and moved today. He didn't know where. He felt more alone than ever. The constant pain squeezed him tightly. Donovan was the only person he felt he could talk and relate to and now she'd deserted him. From that point on, he knew he had to learn to hide everything and pretend everything was fine. He'd moved on like his colleagues had.
He talked to the headstone about John Watson. He struggled to get his words out for this topic. He didn't know John very well, only when he tagged along at crime scenes but he'd always had a soft spot for him. He told the headstone how awful he looked, 1000 times worse than Lestrade. He was a shattered man. He'd only seen him a handful of times in the past year but every time his face had entered his nightmares as well and haunted him for days. There were no words to describe how he looked and Anderson didn't dare think about it for too long.
The sky above him suddenly opened and heavy rain fell. It was only when Anderson went to wipe the drops off his face that he realised his face had already been wet from silent tears. He got off the ground and realised that he'd put something in his pocket before he left the house. His brain's grand plan. An old unsolved case was crumpled up in there.
He turned to face the grave and explained how it was one of the first cases he'd worked on after his death. Nobody at the yard could solve it and it was now deemed a cold case. Anderson had taken the briefing paper home with him to keep. He had convinced himself it was in case he got a sudden thought in the night and could continue working on it. He now knew that it was really because he had saved it for Sherlock. He knew Sherlock would be able to solve it. He'd brought it with him as a small token to him. He'd thought of him. He left it under a small flower urn behind the grave so it didn't get wet and, more importantly, was left out of sight.
He then stood at the grave in the downpour thinking how to say his farewell. In the end. Deep in his unconscious mind something was beginning to stir but the defence mechanisms still held in place as he went with a quick and awkward mumbling of 'goodbye'. He reached the spot where he had first stood and seen the grave and turned back to look at it once more. It still seemed to gleam.
He raced back through the dead, back into the choking darkness of the tube he went, racing once again back home. He stepped from the cold and the darkness of outside into the cold and the darkness of his flat. It had followed him. Always the cold and always the darkness.