Prompt from Winter Winks 221: Nice knowing you, old friend.
"It's been a long time, hasn't it?" Holmes' voice echoed through the empty graveyard.
The wind whistling through the trees was his only reply. Their branches stood stark against the grey sky, their leaves stripped away by the encroaching winter.
Holmes shivered against the cold, pulling his coat closer around himself. He hadn't intended to stay so long, but once he'd sat he'd found it hard to leave. Leaving would be leaving behind his last connection to his friend. "I'd never considered that I'd be the one standing at your grave. It should have been me."
The gravestone continued to stand silently, the dates gleaming on the fresh stone as evidence of a friend gone too soon.
"Have your rest." Holmes stood to leave. He would not be able to come back again - he would leave for America tomorrow, and his undercover assignment may not be something he could come back from. "Nice knowing you, old friend."
As he left the graveyard, the dying sunlight hit against the gravestone, throwing the name into stark relief: Inspector Stanley Hopkins.
