A/N: STOP! Stop... this is important. We have finally come to the end. This is the last chapter, and after that there is only Epilogue. So, before you continue reading, I ask you to do two things. These both chapters includes music in my mind, especially the Epilogue. So, please, for me and for this story, open two new windows and load two songs. For this chapter, the music is the one that I already told you before: Offenbach's Les Larmes de Jacqueline played by Jacqueline Du Pre, cello (video by biluka). This melody is the melody of Sherlock's soul. I don't think anyone of you want to miss it. If you find it disturbing to listen to it while reading, you can listen to it later on, of course. Your choice. For the Epilogue, instead, choose Paganini's Violin Sonata No.6 (video by Richard88) and play it while reading, because it has to be played while reading and not after that. (And when loading these two songs, jump over the stupid commercials in the beginning, if there is any.) Only after doing this, you are free to move on. Thank you so much for following, favouriting, reviewing and reading, I hope you'll enjoy the rest of the story! And yes, the poems quoted in these chapters are: the first; Archaic Torso of Apollo by Rainer Maria Rilke, the second; In November by Archibald Lampman, the third (in Epilogue); a modified version of Francis Quarles's poem My Life, My Way, My Light. Adieu!

Chapter 12

Angel suffered from fever and a cough and chest pain and everything related to having pneumonia. She suffered because of her hand and not being able to draw or play the violin. But most of all she suffered from being in the hospital.

"This is killing me," she said, sighing. "This room is killing me. This imprisonment is killing me. And most of all, Sherlock, the fact that I can't see out is killing me."

"You can look out of the window," he said, nodding to the other end of the room, wondering.

"Yes, but there's only another building there. I want to see the skyline. I want to see far, into the distance. If I don't, I'll die."

"Angel, please. Could you... just for me... stop saying that."

"I wouldn't say it if it weren't true," she said and looked at him, deep into his eyes. "Have I ever told you a lie? I'm not a liar, Sherlock. I never was."

"No one can die from not seeing far," Sherlock claimed, desperately.

"I can," she said.

So he took her from the hospital, to Baker Street. John looked after her instead of nurses and she was happier. Much happier. And she wanted to hear Paganini's Violin Sonata No:6, over and over again. But she was not all right. She didn't get better. The fever didn't calm down. The cough didn't stop. The pale lips didn't go away.

"Is winter back again?" she asked one day, lying on the sofa and shivering under Serlock's blanket.

"No," Sherlock said. "Why?"

"It's so cold in here."

So Sherlock bought a dozen portable space heaters and placed them all over the flat. He and John couldn't wear shirts anymore but walked around bare-chested. From the sofa, she followed them, with her blue eyes full of love and caring, quoting with a teasing voice:

...and yet his torso

is still suffused with brilliance from inside,

like a lamp, in which his gaze, now turned to low,

gleams in all its power. Otherwise

the curved breast could not dazzle you so...

"Never thought space heaters could lead to such a pleasure," she grinned.

Then a dark shadow subdued her features and she fell silent for a long time. Finally, sighing, she slid her hand under the pillow and unveiled a small book, spring green, like a leaf bud, with silver stripes encircling the cover. She placed it, carefully, on the coffee table and left it there, never touching it again. Yet, the way she caressed it with her gaze, every now and then, revealed that it was precious to her.

Sherlock blamed himself for everything. He felt guilty and terrible. He felt... well, like killing himself because of what he had done. For not being careful enough. For not protecting her enough. For not... what? For not living like he and she bloody hell wanted to live! What a fucking mess... Fucking bloody love. The Eden of the Idiots. The stupidest invention on Earth.

And yet so beautiful.

The sweet burning in the throat and behind the eyes. Something heavy and warm pressing against your chest. The heat in the heart. So near to that feeling when you almost cry, not for sorrow but for happiness. The longing to touch. The pure lust. The tender feel of caring and owning.

And the crushing fear of losing.

The day John shook his head, by her bedside, for the first time, Sherlock's heart turned to a chunk of ice. The day John consulted his doctor friends in Afganistan, Sherlock's world fractured. The day that John looked at Sherlock, his eyes full of sympathy and pain, Sherlock lost himself. The night in his eyes swelled up and swallowed him, like a gigantic beast. He swayed toward the darkness and fell.

And fell.

And fell.

"I don't know what's wrong with her," John said quietly, desperately. "I have tried everything. It's just... it seems like, you know... that she is just not able to stay any longer... here on Earth."

To another person, John's words might have sound odd. But to Sherlock, they didn't. No, when it was about her. About Angel.

He didn't know what else to do, so he took her from Baker Street and, wrapped in blankets, carried her to the Sussex Downs. A beautiful place it was, with lots of air and clouds and trees and a wonderful view, far into the distance, where one could see the sea glimmering.

He laid her on the ground and she smiled, yet it was a tired smile and it tore Sherlock's heart apart. She leant against his legs, as he stood beside her, looked into the distance and whispered, mostly to herself:

The hills grow wintry white, and bleak winds moan

About the naked uplands. I alone

Am neither sad, nor shelterless, nor gray

Wrapped round with thought, content to watch and dream.

At that very moment Sherlock knew she would go. And there was nothing he could do to stop it. Sherlock Holmes was, finally, confronted by his greatest fear: the case of the utmost importance that he failed to solve. The case, in which his enormous, brilliant brain was utterly, completely useless.

"I know you can feel that pain of life, when I speak in poems," Angel said, suddenly. "It touches your heart, just a little bit. But it could touch more, if you wanted. If you had the courage to let it sink into your soul. It would burn you and shred you to tears, yet it would also be beautiful." She looked up at him and smiled, weakly. "But you neither have the courage nor the will. And what good would that do, anyway? It'd only make you more fragile and you can't let that happen, being a man like you; a-consultive-detective-with-no-heart."

She turned her head away.

"And I don't even want you to," she said, sighing. "Because every time you let words come through, it will damage the walls you have built around you. Every time, the walls get weaker and weaker until, one day, when the blow comes, those walls will break down and you'll stand alone, naked, for all the world to watch and to laugh and to torture..." She lowered her eyes to her slightly shaking hands and swallowed. Her voice was no more than a breath when she said: "And that day, Sherlock, you'll die."

A single tear escaped her eye. She cleared her throat.

"My walls had become... so thin. Mere glass they were and nothing more. I could already feel glances and stares of people around the glass. I could hear them whispering and laughing and their painful words and insults. I noticed it at the party... And when I saw you there, in The Tower, bleeding - " Her voice cracked. "When I thought that..." Her breathing became heavy, as she tried to force the words out of her mouth but couldn't. She lifted her gaze and looked at Sherlock, her eyes like an open window into her soul.

"I love the things you do and say," she whispered. "I love you doing the work you do; solving crimes, using your brilliance. Shining like a star. On the whole -" The words seemed to stick in her throat. She struggled to keep talking, explaining, getting out the things that needed to be said. Things that she needed Sherlock to understand. She drew a deep, shivering breath, and continued:

"I can't bring myself to be sorry that I came into your life. What we have, between us, is something that no piece of art can ever capture, or any living language truthfully describe. But love, Sherlock, is a strange thing. As much as it is craving and needing, getting and gaining, as much it is endowing and surrendering, letting go and giving in. What I love the most about you, is everything. You, as a whole, just the way you are... Changing... would do no good. Changing would make you another man. Someone I couldn't love anymore..."

And, all at once, Sherlock understood. The truth struck him so hard that his knees gave way and a wash of blackness flooded through his mind. He sank to the ground, next to her and fought against the horrible sensation that his brain was dying.

She wasn't going just because she had pneumonia, or because her walls had shattered to pieces. She was leaving because she knew that, if she stayed, she would prevent Sherlock Holmes from being what he was born to be. What he was fated to be. What he needed to be - the world's greatest detective of all times.

The truth behind her words was paralizing; Sherlock Holmes was not a man meant for love. He was able to love, he knew it know. But he was not allowed to. Their life together would never work. Sherlock wouldn't dare to take her to the cases, anymore, and yet Angel wouldn't be able to stay away. They would fight and they would love. They would break apart and join together again, because they needed - but could never have - each other. It would be endless suffering. It would destroy them both. So she had decided to give in. Because of him. For him.

Sherlock shook his head, furiously.

It wouldn't do. He wouldn't let her go.

Because he needed her. Because he loved her. God, so he did... He would do anything to make her stay, he knew it now. He would give up living in London. He would move to the countryside if she wanted to. To these Downs, where she could always see the sky. He would... Sherlock swallowed when he thought about it, when he realised how utterly strong his love was and what the price would be... But still, he would do it.

He would give up his work.

'All that matters to me is the work', he heard himself saying in some other life. Now it wasn't all that mattered anymore. He opened his mouth but Angel shook her head and placed her cold finger on his lips.

"You know, Sherlock," she said tenderly, "I never really got into this world, anyway. But I always loved you, from very the beginning. And until the very end, I'll be there for you."

Sherlock's eyes filled with hopeless tears. He stared at her sweet face, hardly seeing it through the mist. And the first and the last time in his life Sherlock Holmes wanted to say something that was self-evident. Yet it came out more like a prayer, or a curse, whose terrifying weight already pressed on him beyond time and space.

"I always loved you, too, Angel... And I always will. Till the end of my days." He took her face between his hands and placed his lips over hers, pale and cold, praying to bring some warmth there, but in vain.

He lent forward and took her in his arms. And having her there, so close, yet already somehow beyond reach, killed something inside him. Like falling stars, sparkling and unbelievable beautiful, faith and hope dove slowly into the blackest hole of his soul, leaving only love to shine, lonely, in the darkness. The strongest of all, the brightest of all, and the one that tortures you the most.

With numb submission, choking on his own breath, he held her, until the day turned to dusk and dusk to night, bright and starry. And when the dawn, full of serenity and pure gold lightened the eastern sky, she faded away.

Without a move.

Without a sound.

Without a word.

He run his fingers through her hair. He buried his face in that silken gold. And it was like the cool, fragrant breeze of morning fondled his cheeks and, suddenly, burst into flames that burned him alive. He remembered the words he had said not so long ago:

Angels don't die. They just fly away.

How desperately he wanted to take those words back, now. How desperately he wanted to be wrong. But the words were so true, so true. She wasn't dead and would never be, as she would live in his heart forever; burning, dreaming, aching, loving. But her soul had already flown away, and the fragrance of her hair would fade to the four winds.