There was actually something more Irene could do for Sherlock.
She later thought it was so stupid that she had forgotten this, but she still had a huge promise she had made to Sherlock that she needed to fulfill.
It came to her right before she was curled up in a ball on the floor of her shower, sobbing uncontrollably because she wasn't feeling well. She hadn't been feeling well for some time, but with the stress of losing her job, losing her husband, losing all sense of the world, and then some, it made sense. But when she started to regain humanness but still didn't feel right, all sense she had had of the situation quickly went away.
Irene was crippled by the loss of Sherlock. She had no livelihood left after his death. With his life went her life too.
She had left his belongings in the corner of her flat, ignoring the boxes for at least two months until she decided that she needed to move out of the flat and go somewhere a little more cost effective. Once she started packing, she found the letter from Sherlock that she had pocketed upon coming across it, but later tossed into the boxes of his belongings.
It was one of those things that she never wanted to look at, but felt wholesomely compelled to tear into the envelope and see what it was. It was a curiosity that she knew would be her demise, but despite this, she slid a slender finger under the flap and broke the seal. Sherlock had not done a decent job at sealing the envelope; Irene supposed this was due to his failing health and his dry mouth. With shaking hands, she creased the top flap back and drew the note from the envelope.
I know why you did it. You had to. As my therapist, as my wife, and as my person, you had to do this. You've known this day was coming the whole time; I did too, but you've always seen this. This has been the subtext of our relationship that you've ever known.
Please know that this was never the subtext I had. I never thought of it as the end, but rather, the beginning. Please know that I have never lived more in my life than I did when I was with you. Please know that I am not dying as an empty man, but rather, as a man who has been completely blessed to have been given the opportunity to reconcile the lack of stability and companionship my entire life with the fact that I die as a man who has married a remarkable woman who has the courage and compassion I never had.
Irrevocably, I am a madman. I see things of this world that do not exist, but hold my view as the truth, because it is. It is the truth. I am a consulting detective who goes out and solves crimes and you are The Woman. You are not a dominatrix or a criminal, but you are cunning, brilliant, and my perfect equal. Do not underestimate what you can do with your life. Do not waste your life away.
Do not live your life regretting this choice. I know I don't have much time left, but the time I do have left will not be pleasant. I suppose it was always supposed to end this way, but that's fine. I did everything I wanted to do, and said everything I wanted to say, except for this:
Love is not a disadvantage. It never has been and it never will be.
My entire life has been spent thinking that love is a disadvantage, and look at me. The man who had never been loved ended up in a mental institute before someone, who could love so deeply without knowing the true fullness of such love, came and loved him. I know my feelings are misplaced in some respect, but I am confident enough in my feelings to say that I love you. I appreciate you, trust you, respect you, and know that you will always be there even though I am no longer there with you.
I trust you will know what to do from this point forward.
Believe me to be, my beloved companion,
Very sincerely yours,
Sherlock Holmes
If Irene hadn't completely lost her ability to handle her emotions prior to reading the letter, she certainly had by the time she reached his scrawled signature. She, and everyone else in this world she lived in, had underestimated Sherlock Holmes for far too long. She had been the closest person to see that he was capable of emotions and normalcy, but even she had been too far from seeing the truth before it was too late.
Struck with her new purpose, or at least a new path to her original purpose, Irene slid the letter back into its envelope and tucked it away in her top desk drawer before she flipped open her computer and spent the next twelve hours furiously working to complete Sherlock's memoirs. By the time she finished, it was eleven o'clock in the evening and she was exhausted. She didn't have time to sleep though; something was still nagging at the back of her head.
Not sure what it was, she just started walking until she reached the nearest chemist, which was two blocks away from her flat. Fortunately, it was open twenty-four hours a day and there were a few other people in the aisles, so it wasn't too strange that Irene would be in the shop at that hour. When she found herself walking past the feminine product aisle, it dawned on her that she hadn't had her period in a while. She had gotten lazy with trying to remember these things with the stress of everything else going on in her life, so she figured that maybe it had come and gone and she had just gone through the motions of the monthly occurrence, but just as a precaution, she picked up a pregnancy test.
If she was exhausted before, by the end of that night, she would be even more exhausted. The test came back positive.
She crawled into the shower and slammed the water on, full-blast. Despite the fact that she was still fully clothed, she sat in the shower and sobbed for an hour before she determined that she had done enough crying and it was time to go to bed.
There was no time to be sad or distraught. Sherlock's last wishes still needed to be tended to, and Irene's life now had a very different course to take that didn't allow for crying like a little girl. Irene needed to be strong, courageous, and compassionate for Sherlock and his ever-growing legacy.