Adam and Eve
Ramona focused on the motion of her hands. The uncontrollable shaking, a silvery tear rolling over her thumb. Attempted to still herself, to lean back into the cream leather of her chair. Up in the atmosphere, shoulder to shoulder with the clouds, she was already in the afterlife. She had given her life for Sherlock Holmes in every sense of the word. And he would never even know why.
Redemption was now unthinkable. The fact that she would never again see his face, never be able to graze her fingertips against his skin – even momentarily – left her paralysed. It wasn't as if she hadn't realised this would happen; the darkening, looming thought had overshadowed her every waking moment. But now that it had finally arrived, she couldn't even begin to wrap her head around it.
Sherlock would get over this. He always got over it. He had John. He had Mary. He had Mycroft. He would be fine. He would be fine. He would be–
A woman slid into the seat in front of her. Ramona blinked, head cocking.
'Ramona. Oh, how I've been waiting to meet you. Excuse me if I seem a tad starstruck.'
'Sorry, but I'm not in the mood for dancing around what -' Her words caught in her throat, the frog in her throat betraying the stony exterior she had pulled on. 'Whatever it is you're here for.'
'I've been sent as a sort of… guide. To help ease any complications in this transition.'
'Complications? What kind of complications could there be? I signed my deal with the Devil a long time ago. That should count for something.'
'No, no complications, excuse my clumsy way of putting this.' She reached into her pocket. Ramona tensed. 'Quite the opposite of a complication, in fact.'
She pulled a pill bottle from the inside of her pocket. Placed it on the table between them, which was surprisingly still, considering that the plane was steadily climbing. She instantly knew what it meant, this singular pill. This was cold, even for Mycroft.
'A solution.' She took a breath. 'This is cold. Even for Mycroft.'
'It's for the best, for all of us. For you, especially; this is mercy.'
'I never had mercy that smelled like cyanide.' The unmistakable scent of almonds. She took the pill out of the bottle, held it between her fingers. Up to the window, the light filtering and spilling out around it. Some sort of twisted halo. The plastic cap was half red, half white.
'You have a very simple choice. You can die in a few months, after being caught by guerilla forces. Extreme cold, starvation, sleep deprivation - those'll be the gentle parts of life. You're a big girl, I'm sure you don't need to be told what they'll do to you when they inevitably catch you after your suicide mission goes wrong. They'll prolong it. Or, you can take that pill. You can die as you are, memories of your life still fresh in your mind. Far away from what waits for you at your destination. You can die untouched.'
Ramona chewed on the inside of her cheek. She never thought that it would come to this, not in a million years. The first time she walked into Baker Street, that it might end in a poison pill in just a matter of years was unthinkable. Looking up at the woman, she took in the face of her maker. It was long, thin. Hollowed out eyes and a high brow, cut cheekbones. Full lips and black hair. She almost reminded her of Sherlock.
'What part of the government do you work for?'
She laughed. 'Technically it's not the government.'
Ramona sighed. 'When is it ever technically the government?'
'I'll give you a while to decide, shall I?'
'Sorry, am I being indecisive?' She rolled her eyes and looked away from the woman. The pretence of civility was sickening. The woman had handed her suicide in a bottle, and she was talking as if they were making small talk at a bus stop.
The woman was silent, unfazed. She simply took out her phone and made herself busy.
What was there to do? The woman was right, she had very little choice. Either way, it was dying. It could never be nice. It could only ever be nicer. She would never see anyone she loved again. She wouldn't laugh, she wouldn't relax. She certainly wouldn't see Sherlock ever again. His face, so utterly saturated with despair, was now branded into her mind. Whenever she thought of him, that was all she would see. To tell herself it was for his own good didn't seem to be enough.
She thought of how the pill would slip down her throat. Easily, like it was nothing in the world. It would dissolve in her stomach, and she would experience brain death within a matter of minutes, pulse stopping a short time after. And then - what? Blackness? Or perhaps flames, licking at her feet? Or the white of eternal bliss? What would it be? Was she ready to find out?
The answer seemed to be an overwhelming no. Regardless, it was hurtling towards her, an oncoming train ready to smack her into the ground.
'What would happen to me?' Her voice was surprisingly steady through the silence.
'Excuse me?'
'To my body. What would you do with it?'
The woman blinked. 'Burn it, probably.'
'Right. Unmarked?'
'You of course already have your grave back in England. Just because it's not filled, it doesn't -'
'Yeah. I get it.'
There was nothing left here for her. Her world had been full of life, happiness. Perhaps she had had her allotted amount of it, and now her time was up. She couldn't be anything but dead. The overwhelming feeling that THIS ISN'T FAIR, I HAVEN'T DONE ANYTHING WRONG, WHY IS THIS HAPPENING TO ME! subsided. What had once been an angry, thrashing sea, subsided into calm waters. Resignation washed over her, and in that moment, she was calm. She was resolute.
Ramona took the pill.
She blinked, and her two last tears ran down her face.
All was black.
Sherlock wanted to be alone. The flat was dark, stagnant. His hands were shaking. The doors were locked. He could barely control his breathing, slap down his hysterics. He needed this, more than a man at the bottom of the Mariana's trench needed air. The bag of powder shaking emptied into his spoon, and his hands scrambled for a lighter, ziptie already pulled tight around his arm. Christ. CHRIST. He wouldn't think about her. He wouldn't. Her unending beauty, her unrelenting deception. All the thoughts he had held about her - all were wrong. He simply needed to correct his schema. That was all. He was a machine, after all. Sherlock would function again; he always did. He just needed this hit first.
A knock at the door.
'Sherlock?' Mrs Hudson's teary, unsure voice on the other side. 'Mycroft's here for you.'
'Tell him to fuck off!'
'He's quite persistent, deary.'
Sherlock tensed his entire body. For a moment, he was still. He suddenly let a terrifying roar, his drugs and paraphernalia flying across the room. Tears streamed down his contorted face, rampaging around the room in a blind rage. He threw the side table at the glass doors which shattered on impact, kicking through the television. It ended as quickly as it begun, and then he was left in the aftermath. Sherlock looked down to see his gun in his hand. Slowly, shaking, terrified, he turned the muzzle until he was staring into it. He concentrated himself, willed himself to. He shook with the pressure of it. Yet, nothing. He let out a cry and threw it on the ground. Tears already spilt from his eyes, betrayal running down his face, and he sunk to the ground. His sobs were ripped from the deepest part of him, curled in on himself, face in his hands. His heart had physically split, and it ached so desperately he felt sick. Ramona.
'Sherlock.' Mycroft's voice was quiet, for once. He stood still in the doorway. His eyebrows were pulled together in concern. He approached. 'Are you-'
'I will cut off the next foot that takes one more step towards me.' Sherlock growled, slowly looking up at his brother. His blue eyes burnt with ferocity.
Mycroft's mouth parted, seemingly speechless.
'I know, brother mine.' Sherlock laughed, deranged. 'I know what you did!'
'What I did?'
Sherlock stood, advanced on his brother predatorily. 'You are the reason this happened.'
'Me?'
'DON'T LIE TO ME!' His voice shook the room. Mycroft stood back, mouth agape. Then, softened. Guilt leaked through the cracks of his expression, until it was flooded with it.
'It was for your own good.'
'My - my own good? My own good! A woman is dead!'
'My intentions were to protect you. Do you not understand that?'
'Who was she, really? When you hired her? What was she? One of your spies? God!'
'What?'
'She told me that you hired her to do this, to lie to me. That was her job, but apparently now its yours too.'
Mycroft looked confused for a moment. Then, calm. 'I wanted someone to protect you. She fulfilled the criteria. She knew what she was getting herself into.'
'What do you want, Mycroft?'
'Haven't you seen?'
Mycroft looked up to see a hole in the television, where moments before Sherlock's foot had been. He took his phone from his pocket, and showed Sherlock.
DID YOU MISS ME?
Ramona was choking.
There was salty dirt water in her mouth, coating her teeth and every inch of her skin. Everything was black around her. She panicked, thumping on her chest as hard as she could. Something lodged in her throat threatened to kill her all over again. She hit herself so hard it winded, but something black flew from her mouth, and air filled her lungs. It was sweet, quenching the fire that had built there. She fell onto her back, gasping for more.
Where was she? Perhaps a more fitting question - how had she got there? The last thing she remembered was Sherlock on the airstrip, then… the pill, and the woman, and…
She suddenly came to a realisation that the white noise that had filled the background was not white noise, but water. She shot up, and saw the bank of a river against sand, rocks, and general dirt. Then it hit her that she was shivering, and soaked to the bone. It was so cold.
The area around her seemed to get larger and lighter as her eyes adjusted. Why did everything hurt so much? She saw the river, how it stretched, but only until it met an embankment on the other side. There were big lights, sparkling. Was this the afterlife? Had she ended up on the shores of death?
Something chimed - no, bonged. It was a familiar call.
This was London! Her mouth fell open, and she began to laugh hysterically. The sounds of cars going past was such a rush, the distant sound of occasional footsteps made her heart soar. She was alive. Ramona rushed towards the slope that was the exit out of the embankment, and up onto the street. She never thought she'd be so happy as to see a Starbucks! She was alive, and that was all that mattered. Perhaps a little disorientated, but it was fine. She looked up at the sky in wonder, the sky she thought she'd never see again. A single star looked down upon her. Simultaneously, a single word escaped her lips.
'Sherlock.'
(A/N)
Hi. In the words of a great man: Did you miss me?
I can only apologise for how long it's been. It's been a very, very long time since I updated.
My excuse is only that well, life has sort of changed a lot for me since I first started writing this. A lot has happened in my life since I started this fic, and all of it for the better. When I first started this, I was a pretty clueless writer, and pretty much used it for escapism. Now I can firmly say that I don't think I'm clueless, or using it for escapism. But, I found out that I do still enjoy writing it, and I now have a plan for it. Also, all the reviews asking me to update this was like, the worst ever guilt trip, so well done there haha. I love this fic so much that it would hurt me to ruin it by writing something I didn't full heartedly like, y'know?
regarding the deleted chapters: I hated them. end of story, really. I hated where I took the story, I hated how it was written, just everything about it I didn't like. So it's gone, lol. Also theres the new series that I can't wait to put my own twists on! So, yeah. That's all gone.
I really would love a review from you if you've read this. It would mean a lot just to talk to you guys again, and find out your thoughts on where I'm taking this! Also, if my writing has changed since I left, which I think it has.
Sorry for the short chapter, but it's on purpose. Thank you for reading, and see you in the next one!
