This story features Guy Ritchie's (Sherlock Holmes) versions of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson, and is set in the 1800s.

It was just me, alone in the rain, soaked to the skin, hollow and empty.

Again, I had come to this place, against what I wanted – but it was also what I had wanted, and I kept fulfilling that want, every day, and I hated myself for it, because it tore me apart. Day after day.

I was here, again. To my sides, behind me, and far off into the distance were the graves of those I did not care about. Only the stone with freshly disturbed ground before it mattered to me, and I traced the engraved letters with my fingertips, over and over, speaking each letter quietly, too scared to say the full name.

The name. It had meant a great deal to the world and to the police force of London, but it had meant so much more to me. It brought back far too many memories. So always, I would study each letter, trace each letter, one at a time, separately. The rain poured down the stone in fast, fierce streams.

I couldn't believe it was real – but how could it not be, when I had no other reason to be standing in a rainstorm, alone and unaccompanied by all but the angry clouds above me?

I ran my fingernails down my face in revisited agony as a crack of thunder pealed across the sky.

Say it, my mind whispered. Accept what has come to pass.

I felt rain roll down my face; warm rain.

Say it. Say his name. Tell yourself.

Every day, I came here. Every visit ended like this, with my brain forcing my lips to speak when my heart wanted only silence.

Say it.

Again, streams of warm rain slid down my face, and somewhere, deep down, I knew that it really wasn't rain at all.

Say it.

So I knelt, once again, to the ground, and traced the letters once more, my hands trembling as I spoke, so softly.

"Sherlock Holmes, dead one month, seven days – but still strong in the hearts and minds of those who loved him."

And then, despite the soft padding of the rain against the ground, there was a moment of calm as the thunder let up for just a few seconds, giving the damp ground around me time to take in my soft and wretched words. Deep into the ground, they were absorbed, down to the chilled bodies beneath, and I hoped that even in his life after, Sherlock Holmes could still perceive the despairing man above who, every day, whispered to the world and told it of his unmentioned love; what he had never told the man in the ground, and what he could tell no-one else.

"Goodbye again, my dearest Holmes," said I, as another crack of thunder rippled across the deepening grey clouds of the sorrowful sky.

I stood, ignoring the mud stains on my pants and gloves, and, taking my cane in one hand, I turned from the grave and hobbled away, my shoulder's pain now never-ceasing.

And though the rain still poured from the heavens, sleek and strong, I took the long way home, doing my best to disregard the pain in my shoulder. I always cherished the rain when I went out; the cold rain, icy and bitter, that kept the warm rain that slid down my cheeks a bit harder to remember.

A/N: This is very short, I know. But I have a bit of a writer's block and wanted to try and get out of it.

If you enjoyed this, leave me a review and tell me what you thought - I would really appreciate it, and it means a lot!

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