That phone call led to a flurry of activity.
Mycroft was a beautiful combination of elated and incensed. Elated that his brother might, in fact, still be alive, he didn't admit as much but his face had fleetingly crinkled in an involuntary smile. This was quickly supplanted by incensed because, well: "how could he be so irredeemably stupid as to send proof of his continued existence to John Watson of all people? He knows that Baker Street is being watched. Constantly. If John was suspicious enough to bring this to Scotland Yard for investigation," (he brandished the garish postcard like a death Frisbee) "when we both know that he has been avoiding the Yard like the plague—." Greg watched as Mycroft continued to work himself into a rage. He more or less tuned out everything that the man was saying in favor of enveloping him into a spine crushing hug.
"I'm happy he's okay too," Greg confirmed, while Mycroft sniffed with indignation.
"I am not happy. I am profoundly annoyed," he pulled back and glared at Greg, whose facial expression was not in the slightest deterred by Mycroft's hostility, "and Sherlock is going to face the full weight of my displeasure when he returns…"
Greg made a mental note to remove as many sharp objects, fire arms, and potentially lethal poisons from Mycroft's reach. Not that it'll do much good. Man's bloody determined.
From there, they moved on to the more complex task of actually locating Sherlock. "He has undoubtedly long since left Barcelona," Mycroft confirmed, moving towards his desk, where he began strategizing, sending coded messages, and generally using his phone with more dexterity than the DI possessed.
It was quickly determined that it was very unlikely that Sherlock was anywhere near Iberia. He had probably left as soon as he mailed the postcard, likely flown to Barcelona for the sole purpose of sending the note, and then departed to throw everyone off of his scent. Mycroft dispatched a team to Spain regardless (he spent two hours yelling in Castellano over the phone, which Greg would have thoroughly enjoyed under other circumstances). There was, of course, the very real, and simultaneously terrifying, possibility that the missive had been sent by Moriarty's network or a crazed fan. They also had to entertain the notion that Sherlock had been lost to them shortly after the postcard had been mailed. There was no way to contact him, no clue as to where he intended to go, and Mycroft and Greg were back to waiting with baited breath.
Even so, Mycroft had a new lead and Greg was more inclined to believe that Sherlock was at least finding moderate success in his mission. John was the best barometer for Sherlock's behaviors, after all. Say what you will about Sherlock's less savory traits (stifling arrogance, blinding ignorance about certain things, horrible condescension) and more reprehensible behaviors (keeping human body parts in the linen closet and, you know, faking his own death to the misery of his immediate family and friends), but he would not send anything to John, however cryptic, if he was not serious about its contents. Even if the note had been meant for Greg and Mycroft, it had been addressed to John Watson and John was many things to Sherlock but never merely a carrier pigeon (not at this stage of their relationship). He was the most important person in Sherlock's universe. The separation was killing them both. And don't we all bloody know it…except maybe Sherlock…The consulting detective would not have reached out to John, no matter how indirectly, if he didn't mean what he was saying. Not at this point. We're going to have a long talk about honesty in relationships when he gets back, Greg thought with a certain degree of dread.
Mycroft and his team of "experts" ("please, Gregory, do not give them delusions of grandeur. They are already being over paid for substandard work and showing next to nothing for it") dissected the note in every way possible. There were no insights, but neither Greg nor Mycroft had really expected there to be any. Mycroft's eyes flashed with renewed fervor (and potentially violent leanings). Sherlock's going to be under house arrest if and when he gets back…and that's assuming that Mycroft doesn't strangle him on sight. Greg surreptitiously started to serve dinner with blunted knives.
As all of this waiting and wondering continued, Greg and Mycroft prepared for the anniversary. It had been ten months since Sherlock had jumped off of St. Bart's roof.
John visited Sherlock's grave once a week, so far as Greg was aware. He was sometimes accompanied by Mrs. Hudson, but more frequently went alone. Mycroft kept tabs on John and confirmed that the blogger occasionally spent hours sitting or standing near the grave, sometimes in silence, sometimes speaking. Greg didn't like the idea of anyone intruding on so personal a moment, but he also didn't like the idea of John being unguarded. Keeping the agent at a respectful distance was a caveat of the arrangement. Greg visited infrequently but the impulse was like a loose tooth, he couldn't quite leave it alone. He had to worry it. Even though he knew that the grave was empty, it was Sherlock's and while his life was in the balance the grave was a literal touch stone for Greg. He hadn't been to the cemetery with John since the funeral. He was not relishing the prospect of doing so now. It wasn't hard to feel grief when he stood there. He felt sorrow, palpable and stifling for John, who still thought Sherlock was dead, for Mycroft, who was so strained he might snap at any moment, for Sherlock, who was god only knew where, for how their lives had all been shattered and splintered, he even felt, in a rare moment, standing there, for himself.
The night before the anniversary, Greg had a nightmare. He saw Sherlock's bloody corpse again but this time it was accompanied by John's and Mycroft's. There was nothing that Greg could do to save any of them as one by one they fell to death. He woke with his heart beating wildly; sweat pooling over his skin, breathing erratically. He was alone in bed and it took him several agonizing moments before he could completely separate his nightmares from reality. He realized that Mycroft was fine; he had just stayed up all night in his study. But Greg needed the confirmation. He gave up all pretense of trying to get back to sleep, and stumbled out of bed, noticeably shaking, to find Mycroft, alive and well, seated at the desk in his study, scribbling in a notebook. Greg sighed and slumped against the door, just observing, before walking to the kitchen and brewing some tea to sooth them both. He had to brace himself against the counter for several long moments while he waited for the water to boil, breathing heavily. He brought Mycroft a cup of tea, padding softly in the early morning. His partner looked up, confused and vaguely besieged, noticing the grey cast to Greg's skin and his bloodshot eyes.
"Did you sleep at all?" Greg asked. He was rewarded with a strained smile.
"What do you think?" The elder Holmes queried, gesturing to the vast pile of notes that cascaded in messy piles around his desk with one hand and taking a sip of his tea with the other.
Greg slumped onto the sofa with a groan and a grimace, "I think it's been a long ten months."
Mycroft smiled dourly, "Quite. Try to sleep, Gregory. I am right here." He watched as Greg closed his heavy eyes, making sure that his partner remained in his line of vision. When Greg jerked awake again throughout the early morning, Mycroft soothed him back to sleep. At seven, they gave up all pretense of resting (or working), and began to prepare for the day.
The two dressed in black. Neither ate anything. Greg sat starred into his mug—his favorite, old and reliable, the one that he had held tight to the day of Sherlock's funeral—searching in vain for answers and resolution in its murky depths. Mycroft sat rigidly at the kitchen table: spine erect, hands folded neatly before him. His knuckles had turned white from the pressure. He was examining his fingers with extreme interest. His focus would have been exceptionally impressive if not for the fact that he seemed to be made of spun glass and likely to shatter at any moment. Like Greg, he had many mixed feelings about this day. It was the anniversary of mourning, a moment to reflect upon what had happened, the tragedies, real and imagined, that had defined their lives, their relations to one another, to those present and those missing. Greg reached his hand out to Mycroft, placing it atop the tightly clasped fingers. Mycroft looked up to meet Greg's eyes. The DI gave him a reassuring squeeze and nodded.
"Are you quite all right, Gregory?" Mycroft asked, his voice perfectly modulated and self-contained.
Greg had a horrible premonition that he was going to spend the day in the grips of terrible all-consuming flashbacks. "Yeah," he grimaced, "Well, probably not, but let's go anyway." He tugged Mycroft to his feet and the elder Holmes surveyed him carefully. "You sure you want to come?"
Mycroft raised his brows archly, "And disappoint John by denying him my presence? Never. I know how much he relishes my company."
Greg laughed dryly, "Well you know how much he looks forward to your little heart to hearts."
"Precisely," Mycroft looked strained and he fiddled briefly with his cufflinks (Mycroft was not a fiddler).
Greg tightened his hold on Mycroft's fingers ever so briefly, "He'll appreciate you being there, My."
"He blames me, Gregory," his face was impassive. Mycroft was used to the weight of other people's blame resting on his shoulders, "Quite rightly given the circumstances."
Greg didn't comment. Mycroft would blame himself continually no matter what Greg tried to tell him to the contrary. "Maybe so, but he, er, respects you too. He'll want you to be there." It was true. Mycroft and John might never be what any sane person would call friends but their shared concern for Sherlock had forged an alliance between the two men. Over the past few months—what I personally like to refer to as hell on earth—there had been serious ups and downs, but around the time that Mycroft has stopped John from, well from following through on his plans something had clicked between the two of them. John would expect Mycroft to be there. Greg would bring him. They could do this together, this horrible, painful, farcical thing. They could be a broken family. Really. They could.
Mycroft surveyed Greg's face closely and nodded. "We'd best be on our way then. I'm certain that the good doctor will be expecting us."
Greg nodded and let Mycroft lead the way, stopping on the threshold to take his umbrella. It had started to rain.
John was waiting at the gates of the cemetery when they arrived. He was standing at attention and he nodded curtly when he saw Mycroft and Greg approach.
"John," Mycroft offered by way of greeting, "always a pleasure to see you."
"Mycroft," John returned. His face was closed and distant. Greg couldn't blame him for not lying about being necessarily happy to see Sherlock's brother, "Greg."
"I…ah…we brought these," Greg proffered the bouquet of wildflowers that he held in one of his hands.
John smiled tightly. It looked that he might be developing a case of lockjaw, "He would bloody hate them." Greg let out a sharp laugh and Mycroft smirked.
"Well, that's the point, isn't it?" the DI replied, as if it was obvious.
"He wouldn't get the sentiment," John said with a pained smirk.
"But he would absolutely adore the attention," Mycroft rejoined and the other two men couldn't quite help but agree.
"Shall we pay our respects?" he nodded purposefully in the direction of the grave, and Greg was somehow reminded of the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, forcing Scrooge to confront his destiny. The three men trudged together down the path in silence. By unspoken agreement, John walked between Mycroft and Greg, the steady drizzle falling onto their heads, a mist rising from the earth. Mycroft used his umbrella as a cane. Greg buried his hands deeply into the pockets of his overcoat. John walked with a slight limp, hands fisted at his sides. When they reached Sherlock's grave, they stood at attention, sentinels for the absent and the lost. Greg had a vivid image of the moment when they lowered the coffin into the earth, the way that John had collapsed, the way that he himself felt like his heart had been ripped from his chest and there was not enough air to fill his lungs and never would be again. He had to take a deep breath in and let it out slowly. It echoed like a sigh.
Greg was the first to move. He laid the bundle of flowers at the base of the headstone. The bright colors looked gaudy against the black stone, the grey cast of the day and the generally bleak atmosphere. John was staring fixedly at the name etched into the stone. Greg rested his hand briefly against the top of the cold monument and closed his eyes, sending out a prayer, though to whom or what he didn't know. Please, just let him be all right. Let him get the hell back here and let us all come out of this in one piece. You hear that, Sherlock? Fucking just…stop this whole bloody thing and get back here? All right? I promise I won't let either of them murder you on sight, okay? So just stop the bloody nonsense. Okay? Okay? He nodded and tapped the stone and stepped back.
"Idiot," he muttered as he moved to stand behind John. The blogger just kept staring straight ahead.
"The flowers are lovely," John said, clearly trying for levity and sarcasm and not achieving it. His voice was largely toneless. At least he tried; Greg had to give him credit for that.
Mycroft, on the other hand, let out a bitter laugh, startling both John and Greg as he chuckled, wiping at his eyes.
"My, are you—?" losing your mind? Going insane? Having a breakdown? A fit? An existential crisis? Greg wasn't sure how to finish his question.
"They are positively hideous," he said through his laughter, "quite right. They were Greg's idea."
"Hey!" Greg was mildly annoyed to be blasphemed in such a way.
"Sherlock would despise them," which was apparently why Mycroft had let Greg pick them, "which is precisely why we brought them."
Mycroft glared at the gravestone as he slowly came back to himself. "My brother was an idiot and he deserves nothing short of mawkish and tawdry funereal traditions."
"Mycroft, ah, are you okay?" John asked, his brow furrowing in concern.
Mycroft assumed an attitude of sobriety and a somber expression as he carefully laid a hand on John's shoulder. The blogger flinched. "I am perfectly fine, John. Thank you for your kind invitation." He nodded at Greg, pivoted, and swept away from the two of them without a backwards glance.
"He's been a bit, ah, stressed lately?" Greg offered by way of apology, torn between staying with John and running after Mycroft to make certain that he didn't do something foolish.
He was still vacillating between who needed him more when John spoke and the DI's attention redirected of its own accord.
"You know, I used to think they weren't quite human, you know?" He said, staring at Sherlock grave.
"I'm still not totally sure they are," Greg muttered, and the corner of John's mouth quirked before falling back into a frown.
"That's the last thing that I ever said to his face," John admitted. "I told him, er…I called him a machine, told him he didn't care…"
"I, ah, didn't know that," Greg admitted. John had never told him this before in all their talks, in all those moments that they had sat together stewing over the grief; neither had confessed to the personal responsibility that they both felt for Sherlock's death.
"…and then I left…" John took a moment, trying to find the words he wanted; Greg wasn't sure what to say, "and, you know, it's, ah, silly now, because he was just trying to get me out of the way, and I wonder…sometimes, you know, I wonder if I hadn't gone if he would've…hm, if I could've stopped him before he…before he got to the roof..." John didn't move his eyes from Sherlock's name, and though his eyes were a bit wetter than usual, there was no other indication of his grief. He looked as if he might have been made of marble. Sherlock's ghost hovered between them, still and pale, blood across his forehead, silent, judging.
"John," Greg tried gently, coming up next to him and placing a steading hand on his shoulder. It was a mark of their friendship, he thought, that John didn't immediately pull away. "The last bloody thing that I…before he, before all this, the last thing I did was have him arrested." Greg shook his head. Never mind all my sins since then. "I…I blame myself every day for what's happened."
John didn't respond directly, "It's different." Greg couldn't deny that, "He's Sherlock and I, I should have known. It was Mrs. Hudson. He once half-killed a man for her, if she was in danger there was no way that he would just sit there and—"
"John," and Greg was surprised at his voice, reproachful and stern, a voice that he never used with John but had often used with his erstwhile flat mate, "You're not going to do yourself any good with this. You're just going to drive yourself mad. We can't undo this and even if we'd…" he paused, "he's Sherlock, John. He didn't want us to know and so we didn't and you can't blame yourself for that."
They both knew that he could and likely would do just exactly that.
"I'm sorry," the DI said.
John nodded tersely, "Me too…you should go on, catch up with Mycroft. He seemed a bit off."
Greg hesitated, "Why don't you come with us? We'll get some tea…or a pint? Whatever you'd like."
"Thanks but I think I'm just going to stay for a bit longer."
Greg nodded. He understood. There were things to be said between John and Sherlock. Things that one of them might never hear. Greg felt a squeezing pressure in his chest.
"'Course, John," he gripped the blogger's shoulder in what he hoped was reassurance, "If you change your mind, you know where to find us."
"Yeah, Greg," He forcibly smiled, "I'll catch up with you later."
Greg nodded and turned to leave; looking back, once he'd reached the gate, at the lone figure by the grave. John had moved closer to the headstone and he seemed to be saying something, but the DI was too far away to hear it.
Mycroft was waiting in the car and the two drove home in silence. Mycroft staring out the window, Greg with his head tipped back, massaging his eyes.
"That could have gone worse," he admitted.
"Was John all right?" Mycroft asked.
"Eh, about usual," they walked into their flat, both dragging their feet with a combination of physical and emotional exhaustion, "He held up better than I expected."
"Well, one can always count on the good doctor to soldier on." Mycroft said.
Greg just blinked, "Did you just make a joke?"
"It's been known to happen on occasion."
"My, you know I love you, and I really don't mean to offend you, but I'm starting to worry about your sanity," Greg admitted.
"Only just beginning?"
Greg rolled his eyes, "More than usual."
Greg opened the door and shrugged out of his coat. Mycroft set his umbrella to dry. Greg made his way towards the kitchen ("Shepherd's pie for dinner, we could use some comfort in this bloody mausoleum" "Are you attempting irony?" "Maybe"), Mycroft to his study ("I shall see if anything has turned up" "And if not you'll just yell at people until you feel better" "You know me too well"). There was a moment's quiet in which Greg began to gather ingredients from the refrigerator in order to prepare dinner (which they would both eat, damn it), and Mycroft presumably began to make "very important" phone calls. Greg turned around carrots in one hand, peas in the other, and almost had a heart attack when he heard Mycroft shout from down the hall. He dropped the vegetables and ran, banging an elbow against the door in the process and reaching for the gun that he had taken off and put away hours ago. He slammed into the study able to discern words amidst the shouting.
"You bastard!"
"My what the fucking—shit."
AN:
Welcome, everyone, to Chapter 26. What did you think? I hope that you enjoyed. Please, take the time to leave a review if you get the chance. They are greatly appreciated it.
Thank you everyone for following, favoriting, and reviewing this story. You are all fantastic. More to come soon.