A/N - For some reason FF.N doesn't let me put at symbols in text, so please imagine them in the twitter sections oops

Chapter 21 – Ripe and Ruin

Emma was back in therapy every week for the foreseeable future, much to both her and Mycroft's annoyance. The fact that Emma hadn't told her uncle why she had come home from her grandparents' house at such short notice had replaced the wall that seemed to have broken down between them over the past few months, and Emma had gone back to avoiding him as much as possible as she had been doing before.

The summer was now drawing in, and it was sickeningly bright outside in the evenings, which only served, strangely, to make Emma more anxious. She hated how harsh the sunlight was on her face, and how it gave no space to hide, unlike the darkness of the winter, which wrapped around her and kept her safe. The only upside of the sunlight was that it gave Jim nowhere to hide either, so she could feel safer when out in the open. Not that she went out in the open a lot anymore.

The only unfortunate consequence of moving back into Mycroft's house was that her phone had signal again, meaning that the moment she got home she had been bombarded with almost 20 texts from Oliver, all apologising in similarly empty and pathetic ways. They made Emma's stomach twist uncomfortably, and she had deleted them without giving them so much as a second glance.

The summer was long and dull. She spent her days moving apathetically through a routine of reading until an alarm on her phone told her to take her meds, then playing the old piano she had found in one of the seemingly hundreds of rooms in her uncle's house until an alarm stopped her again, and she went back to reading. By the time August drew to an end the piano was out of tune, and she had read all but one of the books on her bookshelf.

She scanned the shelf with her eyes, dragging them across the spines of hundreds of volumes, trying to make sure she had got it right. She didn't want to read it, knowing that it was what he had wanted her to do, back when he was alive (assuming he wasn't anymore), but she couldn't stand to let it sit there unread.

She stared at it. She could almost feel it staring back.

Emma sighed and took a hold of the hardback, the only hardback she had left, and pulled it out of the shelf, surprised at how heavy it was.

Grimm's Fairy Tales.

His handwriting was still present on the title page. Emma flicked past it quickly and began to read, ignoring the itching feeling that was creeping up her arms.

She finished the third story and paused, letting her eyes settle upon the pale blank paper that lay naked under the last paragraph. She sighed, knowing what was coming next, and dragged her eyes up to the next page and allowed herself to read the title.

The Story of the Youth Who Went Forth to Know What Fear Was.

Something in her stomach twisted, and Emma scratched at the skin under her t-shirt until it went away. The tale told of a young boy, who was asked by his father what skill he would like to learn in order to support himself later in life. The boy, who lacked the ability to be frightened, asked to be taught how to shudder. What followed was a series of events wherein the boy faced terrors unparalleled, but he met each with a cold, uncaring apathy that Emma could barely even imagine now. There was once a time in her life where she may have identified with the boy, but now she was almost the complete opposite.

Later, the boy was shown the corpse of a family member, which rendered him distraught, but not scared. As he went to inspect the body, it sat up and began to strangle him. The boy still did not feel fear, however, but rather slammed the coffin down on his attacker, before returning home.

The end of the tale confused Emma. The boy was married to the king's daughter, and, in order for him to finally learn to shudder, she dumped a bucket of cold stream water over him one night while he was sleeping. After finishing the final paragraph, Emma's brow furrowed and she closed the book, tapping her fingernails absently on the leather cover.

The boy never truly learnt what fear was.

What did that mean? Jim had obviously left her this as some sort of a clue as to his plan. Was it all a lie? Had it gone wrong and he had expected her to be unaffected by Sherlock's death? Was all of this just a miscalculation?

She shook her head, placing the book down next to where she sat and closing her eyes. She was overthinking this; Jim probably just chose it for the title, he did like to be dramatic, after all.

She clambered off of her bed, where she had sat, and picked up the heavy volume, sliding it back into the bookshelf. She didn't want to look at that book again for a while; the twisting feeling had returned to her stomach.

She scratched at it absent-mindedly as she fumbled with her iPod, placing it in the docking station on her Hi-Fi and pressing play on something she knew would calm her down. By the time she lay down on her bed, staring at the ceiling, a small stretch of skin above the waistline of her jeans was raw. She ignored it, and closed her eyes, letting the music flow through her, tapping her foot along to the beat lazily where it hung over the edge of the duvet.

'Never let me sink, always feel at home, no sticks no shanks and no stones.'

She lay there, staring blankly at the ceiling with her iPod shuffling albums for several hours, though to her it felt like only a few moments. Her fingers and feet moved with the beat but she didn't feel like it was her moving them. The music felt muffled, as if there was some sort of buffer between it and her, but she didn't turn it off. Anything was better than silence. At least the sound kept her tethered to herself, even if it was only barely. She was pulled back by someone knocking on her bedroom door and speaking softly from the hallway on the other side,

"May I come in?"

Emma pushed herself up on her elbows, frowning at the dark wood of the door for a few moments before speaking. Her voice was hoarse – just how long had she been lying there in silence?

"Yeah, sure."

Mycroft pushed the door open almost cautiously, and Emma saw for a split second that he was wearing a frown, before it was removed from his face promptly and replaced by his usual neutral expression.

"There seems to be a young boy on the doorstep asking for you," Mycroft raised an eyebrow, his voice only indicating an edge of emotion, "I trust you'd like me to send someone to make sure he does not come back?"

Emma assumed that Mycroft had avoided using Oliver's name in order to avoid her crying – not that she'd been crying over him, of course. Not in front of Mycroft, anyway.

"Has he knocked yet," Emma asked flatly, "or did you just see him hanging around on the security cameras?"

Mycroft sighed, "what do you think?" He asked. Emma knew that he wouldn't have the courage to have knocked on the door, not when he knew the kind of staff that her uncle kept in their home at all times. Emma was surprised he'd even brought himself to be on the cameras.

Emma tutted, sitting up and brushing her hair away from her face as she blew air out of her nose irritably,

"Don't send anyone," She said flatly, "I'll deal with my own shit."

She pushed herself up off of her bed and headed out of her bedroom and into the corridor, squeezing past Mycroft without giving him a second glance. Her feet padded across the bare wood floors, echoing faintly thanks to the high ceilings and the general emptiness of her home – Emma would have thought, with the amount of money that Mycroft had, he would have furnished his house a bit more thoroughly, but anywhere away from where he usually floated about was completely barren. As she walked, she considered what she would say to Oliver, seeing as she was going to be confronted with him for the first time in several months. It seemed as if he was stubborn enough to persist with this constant apology crap until she either gave in and forgave him, or she punched his square in the jaw (something that would hurt considerably more now, thanks to the fact she had started weight lifting as well as running). She still wasn't sure which conclusion was more likely.

Emma reached the oak front door and sighed. She had been trying so hard to avoid anything that would make her feel worse, but here he was – it seemed she really couldn't stop depression from turning up on her front porch unannounced whenever it felt like it. She yanked open the door and fixed the boy stood outside with the coldest glare she could manage, raising a single eyebrow and pursing her lips, letting him know she expected him to do the talking. He looked taken aback, and blinked several times, his mouth hanging open like a goldfish, before he found his voice,

"Emma, I –" He paused, looking at a loss for words, "I didn't even knock."

Emma said nothing, but inclined her head toward the security camera that was pointing straight at him, and Oliver swallowed, before continuing,

"I really am sorry – I walked all the way here to tell you, I didn't mean for it to happen the way it did, I swear this isn't what I wanted."

Emma found herself actually listening to him, and both her eyebrows raised in surprise – he walked all the way to Mycroft's? That was at least two and a half hours at Oliver's usual pace; that took some effort. He looked like he was telling the truth, but then Emma had always found Oliver quite hard to read – probably due to the fact she was always distracted by his pretty face – so she couldn't be certain. She leaned into the door, resting her body weight against it and crossing her arms across her chest, letting Oliver know she expected far more grovelling than that,

"I told you on the phone – I know you remember so don't pretend you forgot – I was just trying to get them to stop making up malicious rumours about you, then they took my words and twisted them - I tried to sort out my own mess and then they just kept doing it. I'm sorry, Emma, I didn't mean for this to happen." Oliver made eye contact with Emma for the last sentence, and she was taken aback by just how sorry he genuinely looked; there were tears in his eyes and everything. She blinked at him, trying to formulate some sort of witty retort, but found herself at a loss.

"You already said that bit," She mumbled, and Oliver's face lit up. Emma assumed he was just happy to have finally been given a response. He nodded, looking a little like a model dog on a car dashboard, before speaking again,

"Yeah, I know, I'm sorry I just – I miss you, okay, Emma? I miss you a lot. You're my best friend."

Emma raised an eyebrow again, "I'm your only friend,"

"That's true," Oliver said quickly, "It doesn't mean you're not the best though." He gave her a smile, but Emma didn't return it, still not satisfied with the situation. Oliver's smile faltered, and he swallowed hard before speaking again, "I really am sorry – I know you can tell I'm telling the truth – I really didn't mean to do it."

Emma nodded, and closed her eyes for a few moments. Was she really considering this? Forgiving Oliver, who effectively sold confidential information about her to the tabloids? It seemed like it.

"Okay," She opened her eyes and fixed him with a hard stare, "I forgive you, we can be friends again."

Oliver smiled, and opened his mouth as if to answer Emma, but she cut him off, "Just friends though, I can't go back to anything else."

Oliver nodded, pressing his lips together for a moment, "Okay, cool, I can deal with that," He gave her a small smile, "Thank you, I really did miss you."

Emma nodded again, averting her eyes from his for a few moments, before locking eyes with Oliver once again. She couldn't discuss this further. Both of them needed time to process this.

"Go away," She said shortly, "I'll text you later."

Oliver nodded, and shoved his hands in his pockets, raising his shoulders and taking a sharp intake of breath, "I'll see you later then I guess," He said, turning to walk away. Emma was hit with a wave of guilt and quickly called out to stop him,

"Actually," She said, shifting her position against the door a little and looking down at her arms, which were still crossed over her chest, "I'll get James to drive you back, it's getting late."

Oliver shot her a small smile and nodded, "Thanks," he said, but made no attempt to follow her inside when she did so, pulling out her phone and sending her driver a short text explaining the situation before heading back upstairs to her bedroom and closing the door behind her. She collapsed down onto her bed and lay there for a while, staring at the ceiling blankly and letting numbness overcome her for a while, letting time slip by at a pace unknown and unnoticed until a knock at her door pulled her back. She clicked a button on her phone and checked the time – Oliver would be long gone by now – before pushing herself up on her elbows and calling for whoever was outside to come in.

Mycroft pushed open the door and stood in the hallway, not bothering to enter, or perhaps not wanting to in case Emma was upset. He made eye contact with his niece, silently gauging how the situation with Oliver went without having to ask. Emma nodded at him silently, and he returned the gesture, before closing the door and leaving her alone once more.

Now that she wasn't at school, and she wasn't picking up any A Levels in the new school year to prepare for, time dragged on for Emma, scraping across the ground and sticking in odd places, leaving her wondering if the rest of her life was going to feel like a century. The summer stretched ahead of her and Oliver, and shone with opportunity and promise. They could do whatever they wanted, go wherever they wanted… it just so happened that Emma didn't want to go anywhere, or in fact do anything.

They spent many days sat in Mycroft's house, Oliver playing solitaire while Emma played the piano or read, barely speaking, comfortable in each other's company. This was familiar, it was something that Emma could cling to, something that made her feel less lost. Piano music had begun to appear on the coffee table next to the small sofa in the room, and Emma suspected that Mycroft was starting to take notice in her hobbies, though neither of them was likely to mention it to the other. It wasn't that she wasn't grateful, in fact she was incredibly so, it was just that she didn't think that Mycroft would appreciate her confronting him about it, or forcing him to admit any form of emotion driven activity. Her time was now mostly spent learning the songs until she knew them from memory, which didn't take her very long.

Emma's evenings were mostly spent alone, reading whilst listening to music, or browsing the internet. She often found herself scrolling absently through Twitter, searching for Sherlock's name and reading the hundreds of thousands of Tweets numbly, her pale face illuminated with a sickly white light from the screen.

It's been months and I still can't believe everyone fell for that Sherlock Holmes crap #RichardBrookIsInnocent

Just spoke to someone at work who believed Sherlock Holmes wasn't a fraud – didn't think people could be that stupid!

She shook her head and clicked back to the tab that showed her own profile page. She had slowly been accumulating a following on the internet thanks to the newspapers printing her name every week post Sherlock's death, and was endeavouring to use this new platform as a way to try and raise awareness of the fact that Sherlock wasn't actually a fraud. She tried not to look at the replies.

The comments that she had read had made her stomach twist so tightly that she felt that she could be sick. People genuinely believed that Jim had been played by an actor all that time – that Sherlock had invented all the crimes and had people killed, just so that he could look smart. Why would he do that? He had plenty of money even before he began consulting for the police, so what other motivation could he possibly have had? The general public were stupid and easily led; they took the first answer they were handed without even looking at the facts. There was no reason for Sherlock to be lying.

Emma sighed and clicked on the screen to compose a tweet, driven on by this newfound anger to speak out, not that she believed that anyone would listen to her.

Moriarty was real. #IBelieveInSherlockHolmes

Her notifications started flashing almost immediately, but she refused to read at least 20 replies calling her a liar, so she closed the window and sat staring at her desktop background for a while, not entirely sure if she was even seeing it. The pale glow lit up her face in the darkness of her bedroom - she had been so distracted as the sun went down that she had never turned on a lamp. She shook her head, her hair falling down in front of her face, and shut down the laptop, slamming it shut as she ran a hand through her hair, pushing it back from her forehead, and standing up, moving over to the window and shutting the curtains. Emma flicked on the lamp on her bedside table and sat on the edge of the mattress, looking down at her socks in the dim yellow light – surely there had to be other people like her, people who knew that Sherlock was innocent? She chewed her lip absently, trying to think of some way that she could find them, but then settled on that as a problem for the next day – it was getting close to 3am, she really ought to sleep.

She slid the copy of Grimm's Fairy Tales off of the bedside table and lay back on her bed, deciding to read a few more stories before she slept. She stopped as she flicked open the cover for a few seconds, studying the handwritten inscription on the title page for longer than she knew she should, before she pulled herself back together. Now was not the time to be thinking about Jim Moriarty.

Emma awoke with a huge weight on her chest – she had fallen asleep with the fairy tales book still in her hands, and the hardback was now covering the majority of her torso as a pseudo-blanket. She pushed it off of her and shut it, dumping it on the floor by her bed, and began trying to tame the mess of bedhair on her head with one hand, while grabbing blindly in the dark for her phone with the other. She blinked as the screen flashed on, the light harsh and bright in contrast to the room, and was shocked to see she had over 30,000 Twitter notifications.

Emma groaned – this was why she never tweeted.

She unlocked her phone and began scrolling through her notifications feed – it seemed like overnight some sort of campaign had started – apparently people were listening to her.

I #StandWithStoneheart EmmaMStoneheart #IBelieveInSherlockHolmes

EmmaMStoneheart we believe you #StandWithStoneheart #IBelieveInSherlockHolmes

There were thousands of tweets in the same vein, all reassuring her that they were on her side. Suddenly her feeling from yesterday was gone – maybe the public weren't so stupid after all? That being said, there were still an awful lot of people in her mentions calling her crazy. You couldn't win them all, she supposed.

She sat up and texted Oliver, telling him to search the hashtags people were sending her and report back what he found – she couldn't be bothered to look through that many tweets when she could be getting breakfast instead. He replied almost half an hour later, with nothing but an emoji of a shocked face with its eyes crossed out.

Emma Stoneheart – 10:30 04/09/2012 – whats that supposed to mean

Oliver Roberts – 10:32 04/09/2012 – That's amazing!

Emma Stoneheart – 10:33 04/09/2012 – my follower count has doubled why are people suddenly interested in me

Oliver Roberts – 10:35 04/09/2012 – You've been in the public eye a lot lately I guess

Emma Stoneheart – 10:35 04/09/2012 – ye thanks for that

Oliver Roberts – 10:36 04/09/2012 - :/

Emma Stoneheart – 10:36 04/09/2012 – im mostly kidding

Oliver Roberts – 10:37 04/09/2012 - :/ :/ :/

Emma Stoneheart – 10:38 04/09/2012 – but no why do people care now

Oliver Roberts – 10:39 04/09/2012 – Probably because you mentioned him

Emma Stoneheart – 10:42 04/09/2012 – oh

Emma wasn't sure which 'him' Oliver was referring to, but either way it couldn't be good. She had already realised, of course, that people were only interested in what she had to say when she was giving them more information about Sherlock, but only now had the idea crossed her mind that these people were after information about Jim. Did it matter, though? As long as she could get her message across and convince more people that he was a real criminal and that Sherlock was innocent, surely it didn't matter why they were paying attention to her? She was the only person in the public eye that had solid proof that Moriarty wasn't an actor. She had to let people know. Maybe that way the investigation into Sherlock could reopen.

Emma closed down Oliver's text conversation and reopened twitter, her thumb hovering over the keyboard for a few seconds before she decided what she was going to say. There was no point censoring herself anymore; shying away from the specifics was going to get her nowhere, if she really wanted to clear her father's name she had to let people know exactly what happened to her. That was the only way.

Ask yourself – could you pay someone to torture your own daughter within an inch of her life? #IBelieveInSherlockHolmes

That should do it.