Laura moved to America just two and a half weeks after Ginny died. There was no body to bury, and the grief the city held was too much for her.
She had tried to press charges against Sherlock for putting their daughter in danger, but a few of Mycroft's well placed connections managed to write a big enough check to talk her down.
She'd also tried to sue Moriarty for kidnapping and attempted murder, but to do that she had to find him, and everyone knew catching him was like looking for a raindrop in the ocean.
John had seen her on the street, the day before she left. She looked like she hadn't slept in years, sadness and anger radiating from her every pore. He hadn't been able to face her, looking down and running to the other side of the road.
In the weeks following, Sherlock reacted the best ways he knew how. He composed sad music, stayed up all night thinking, and watched hours and hours of rubbish TV. Once he fainted at a crime scene because he hadn't eaten in five days.
He brought her up only once, on a rainy night not unlike the one when she had shown up at their door. Watching the drops pound the window, he said softly.
"She was really brilliant, wasn't she? An extraordinary child."
John was silent for a long while. Then he gave a small smile.
"Yeah." He said softly. "Yeah, she really was."
The Blog of John H. Watson
Ginny
{Posted at 11:59 P.M}
He asked me after that, "What do we do now?"
I've been a solider for almost ten years. I've been on a battlefield. I've seen men I knew, men I cared about, fall before their time. I've heard them choke out their last breath, and I've felt them die in my arms.
And I've asked myself the same question.
What do I do now?
It's taken awhile, but I finally have an answer. And I told it to him.
We go on. We live. And we remember.
Sherlock seemed to start healing, start getting better after that. In time he smirked and scoffed and even held John's children when they came along. Molly and John called their daughter Martha Ginny Watson, and eventually Sherlock could even hear that without inwardly flinching.
To the outside world, 'the machine' started working again, all it's cogs and gears functioning as usual.
Though, for the rest of his life, whenever it rained, he made sure to spend a few minutes looking out the window.
Some called it mad, the way he waited and watched and hoped for someone who was so clearly gone.
But you know how fathers are.
A few hours after the incident on the bridge, after the coppers crawling the place had gotten in their squad cars and driven home, a man in tattered army fatigues wandered the banks of the River Thames.
The first light of day shone over Sebastian as he combed the river, looking for the girl's body. He always made sure to clean up Jim's messes. The last thing he wanted was to get dragged through another terrorist trial just because Moriarty had left a head lying around.
The entire shore seemed deserted. However, as he bent over to look through a large pile of dead leaves and driftwood, he heard soft footsteps behind him.
He hadn't even turned around when someone had ripped the gun from his holster and shoved the head into the back of his neck.
"You're going to walk away now." A soft, female voice said. "And if you value your continued existence on this planet, you'll never speak a word of this incident to your boyfriend or anybody else."
Sebastian made a grab for the gun. The hand twisted it away and held it against the top of his skull. He closed his eyes and sighed. A smart man knows when he's beaten.
"How are you alive? We saw you fall."
"You saw a jacket fall. And a bit of hair. But little girls like me are notorious for being good at monkey bars." She laughed. "Hanging onto the bottom of that bridge was something I could've done in year 3."
Sebastian tried to disarm her once again and failed.
"You're just a kid. You can't go running off into the world alone."
Ginny smirked, circling around to face Sebastian, still casually pointing his gun at him.
"Actually, I think I can. It's sort of my thing. What are you going to do, phone my dad?"
She kept her eyes trained on him and she walked sideways to the river. In one swift movement, she pulled a familiar, torn black jacket from the muck, and twisted it dry with her free hand.
Sebastian squinted. Surrounded by the early morning sunlight, in that tattered pink dress and dirty black coat, Ginny looked like she was glowing.
Like an angel, he thought. A dark, sociopathic, extraordinary angel.
"What are you going to do?"
Ginny's grey eyes lit up.
"I'll do whatever I please. Solves crimes, protect the masses..." She started walking away backwards, a big grin breaking open her face. "And a lot of texting."
She backed farther and farther away, into the sunrise.
"I've got a whole lot of texting to do."
[A/N: This story has a sequel; Or Forgotten. It can be found on my My Stories page.]