Florence Wood was dead.

There was no other way to explain it, Sherlock gathered. She would not have spent this long away from home. Not even in her mental state – not even if they had fallen out.

She relied on the stability her home had. She relied on the same people, the same setting, the same warm bed to fall into at night, surely to wake up with the same throbbing headache that came with being hungover.

Mycroft hadn't updated him in nearly a week. This was getting really, really bad. She had disappeared off the face of the Earth, it seemed. He was getting increasingly more distressed as the time passed.

Sherlock could only think of two reasons Mycroft wouldn't be talking to him. One of them was that he didn't approve of his continuing drug habits.

This made sense, of course. What big brother would be okay with his little brother high off his nut, his once perfectly functioning brain intoxicated with a mixture of morphine and cocaine. He was disappointed in him, and Sherlock understood. It didn't mean he wasn't angry, but he understood.

The other reason, and this was one Sherlock had already admitted but had not come to terms with – they had found his best friend dead.


Sherlock Holmes was dead.

Florence didn't know how to deal with this information. 'What are you trying to tell me?' an unfamiliar panic rose in her chest as Lestrade spoke to her. His voice cracked with the emotion he was trying to hide.

'I'm sorry, Florence. I really am. John's on his way back, now...' he carried on talking, but Florence heard none of it. Her phone dropped to the floor, and she heard the small crack as it smashed. She didn't care. She stumbled into the bathroom before she threw up into the toilet bowl. Then she screamed, threw up again, before falling to her knees and not having the strength to get up again. Her eyes were dry – she could not cry. She was numb.

Sherlock Holmes was dead. He was dead. He was gone. No more Sherlock. She would never, ever see him again. Her rock - her very being, her reason for existence, was no longer able to fill that position.

She heard Mrs Hudson's shuffle up the stairs, and closed her eyes. She didn't want to tell her.

'Florence, dear? Is everything alright?' she called out when she reached the top of the stairs. Florence was in the bathroom still, and couldn't see her. 'Florence?'

'In here,' she called, and managed to sit up in time to see Martha Hudson look down at her.

'Is everything alright?'

The girl in front of her felt her mind snap as she shook her head. This is what it felt like. This is what Sherlock felt, all those years ago. She suddenly felt more than aching sadness - she felt all the guilt that came along with those eight years of being dead.

It took the older woman a while to catch on. She gathered that because Sherlock wasn't there, the commotion the night before and the look on Florence's face, something was wrong. When she came to the conclusion, however, her knees buckled, and she reached out for the chair that sat in the corner of the room.

That's how John discovered them, sitting in the bathroom, Mrs Hudson silently crying and Florence's eyes as hard as stone. He helped her up, taking her by the shoulders, then hugging her close. She accepted this embrace but did not return it.

He led her to the sofa, and sat her down, before going to do the same with Mrs Hudson. He then sat opposite them, and told them everything.

He had committed suicide. Just like that. No goodbye, no explanation. He just jumped off the roof of St. Bart's hospital. Apparently, he was fake. Apparently, he wasn't the genius everyone knew him to be, apparently, he had set all of his cases up. Apparently, he wasn't real.

The fact that Florence knew this wasn't true made everything three hundred times worse. She wanted to know why he had claimed this, but the crushing realisation dawned that she would never find out.

What hurt her the most was that she could see the doubt for her best friend on John's face. He believed all of it. This sparked something close to anger. She wanted to hurt John Watson.

He was still talking when Florence stood up and left the building.

'I had a dream last night.' Florence said, breaking the silence. Sherlock, sat at the other end of her bed, looked up from his book at her.

'Oh?' he asked, sensing she wanted to talk about it. He frowned. 'You don't have them often, do you?'

'Not at all. I find, though, that these dreams are strangely prophetic. When I have a dream, some aspect of it happens.'

'This sounds like utter bullshit, but please continue.' Sherlock said, a small smile playing on his lips. She scowled and hit him playfully on the leg.

'You were gone. I don't know where, but no one could find you, not even Mycroft.'

Sherlock frowned, then he managed to think of a comeback. 'I was probably dead.'

'You were.' she replied, her voice serious. She had looked down at the book she was reading, and couldn't meet his eye. Sherlock, sensing this was quite difficult for her, sat up and forward, ready for her to say more. 'It was all so real.' she whispered.

His brow creased as a tear sprung to her eye. This wasn't good. 'Hey,' he began, 'hey – look.' she didn't look. 'Look at me, Flo.' Her eyes, large and worried, found his eventually. 'I'm here. I'm right here. And if you think I'm going anywhere, I'm so sorry, but I'm really not.'

She smiled then, and Sherlock watched the life come back to her eyes as the tear spilled. She wiped it away, and moved forward to hug her friend. He placed his chin on the top of her head as he accepted the embrace. 'I'm not going anywhere.'


Florence wrapped her jacket around her, to conserve the heat in her body. She still wasn't crying, and wondered if there was something wrong with her.

She tried to fill in the gaps. She knew he had been arrested, along with John, and they had run away – but she knew nothing more than that. She had been sitting in silence, worrying, for over a day. She couldn't eat, she couldn't drink. Lestrade had called, asking her a few questions. She hadn't given him any answers.

She knew all of this had to do with Moriarty. Secretly, she wondered why he hadn't tried to go after her. That's what he had done last time – it made sense. These thoughts filled her with guilt, and she pushed them aside, trying not to think about her best friend's death. That was easier said than done.

She couldn't believe it. She kept thinking that when she returned to the flat, he'd be there. It didn't seem real. None of it seemed real.

She suddenly felt the urge to throw up, and was thankful no one was within eyeshot of her.

She leaned over into a conveniently close bin and emptied the contents of her stomach for the third time that day.

Fucking hell, Sherlock... what will I do without you... what in God's name is there to live for anymore...?

She found herself at the coffee shop Arthur and her had had drinks a few weeks before. It may have been months. She didn't care at this point. Her phone was suddenly in her hand, and she was calling him.

No. You don't really want to see him now, do you?

She sighed as she realised, she did. She felt the tears coming quickly, but luckily Arthur picked up before she could break down.

'Do you remember that coffee shop we met at a few weeks ago?'

'Yes, why?'

Her voice cracked with emotion. 'Can you meet me there?'

Not fifteen minutes later, Arthur Jackson was sat opposite her. He watched with some concern as she placed her head in her hands and breathed in shakily.

'Sherlock...' No. no. please don't cry. You don't need to cry. Crying does nothing! Nothing at all. Crying won't bring him back. 'Sherlock's dead, Arthur,' he frowned at her. Her voice had raised several pitches, and she was glad the coffee shop wasn't too busy. No one to overhear. No one to spread the news. He is a national icon, after all. She thought. No. No. He was. He was a national icon. She suddenly felt very sick again, and took a sip of the water she had ordered when she arrived.

Arthur was still frowning. 'You're joking.' he began.

'Why the fuck would I be joking?' Florence hissed through gritted teeth. A single, hot tear slipped down her cheek, and stung her face, burning into her skin like acid. 'Look at me!'

'Oh my God...' Arthur stammered. 'Wh... How...'

'He committed suicide. Jumped off St. Bart's. Managed to convince John he was a fake. Managed to convince everyone. He. Was. A. Fake. But he wasn't, Arthur. He was real.' Her entire frame started shaking, and she placed her head back in her hands as more tears escaped her eyes. 'And... now what?' she said through shuddery breaths. Please stop crying. Sherlock would not want you to cry. 'Now what do I do? He was my everything, Arthur!' she was fully aware of how selfish that sounded. However, it was a legitimate problem - she was going to die without him. She knew it.

Arthur leaned back in his chair, still in shock. Suddenly, he snapped back into reality, and realised what was happening.

And, what was happening was clear - his dear, dear friend was hyperventilating.

'Okay. Okay, Flo. Let's go. You need to talk to me.'


John Watson had never felt this before. It was a kind of ache, in his chest, that hurt more every time he breathed. He had just watched his best friend die.

That didn't seem real. None of it seemed real. What had just happened? He ran over the information he had learned over the past two days in his head, trying to ignore the pain in his chest.

Moriarty wasn't real, Sherlock made him up, paid Richard Brooke to act as him. It isn't real.

Sherlock isn't real. Sherlock wasn't real. Everything that happened, he did. It can't be true.

Now, Florence had disappeared, Mrs Hudson was audibly sobbing from below him, and he didn't know what to do.

This is my note.

Hastily, he pulled his phone from his pocket.

This is what people do, isn't it?

He searched his contacts for the last person he usually would want to talk to.

Leave a note.

A silent, unfamiliar tear slipped down his cheek. He wiped it away instinctively, as if someone was there to see it. No one was there. No one at all.

Goodbye, John.

He found the contact, and tapped on it. The phone started ringing, and he pressed it to his ear.

He's my friend, let me through...

'Hello?'

'Mycroft? Hello. It's me.'

Sherlock felt the sadness in the pit of his stomach. This was a horrible feeling. It was sort of sinking, a hollow emptiness. He'd felt it once before, when Florence had been missing for more than a week, and he was not used to her absence.

This time, however, he knew she was alive, but he couldn't go to her. He couldn't comfort her - and he knew, selfishly, arrogantly, that that's what she needed - him, to comfort her. And, it wasn't just her. He had more friends now, more people that meant something to him. And he had just lied to every single one of them.

The plane was waiting for him as the private car pulled up to the runway. He couldn't risk going to the airport, so Mycroft had arranged discreet transportation until he was safely out of London. He would start in Glasgow, and work his way across Europe – wherever he had to go to wipe Moriarty's print off the world.


'Slow down, Flo. Please.' Arthur muttered. His fingers were pinching his brow as he devoured this information. James and Michael stood next to him, and they were all opposite Florence, in James's flat.

In other circumstances, Florence would have loved this. All three of her good friends together again, with her.

However, the circumstances now were not good, and as tear after tear rolled down her cheeks, she recounted everything she knew about the last few days – leaving out even the mildly confidential stuff.

In all honesty, she didn't know anything about what had happened the evening before, or that morning. All she knew was that Moriarty was trying to make everyone believe Sherlock was a con.

'Sherlock. Holmes. Is. Fucking. Dead.' Florence hissed, and Michael's eyes widened at this sudden outburst. 'Is this slow enough for you, Arthur? Do you need to make me repeat it a few more times, just so you can watch me...' she breathed in as she found a suitable word, '… melt before your fucking eyes?'

'Calm down, Florence.' James said sternly as Arthur frowned, and her solid emerald eyes turned on his scarred face.

'Do any of you understand me?' she cried, throwing her hands in the air. She knew that one of the stages of grief was anger, but that that was a bit further on. She couldn't be going through them this fast. No, this was shock.

And shocking it was, to her fellow onlookers.

'Can any of you even hear me? Can you see me, do you understand any of what I'm saying?'

'I know you're upset, Flo...' Michael tried to reach out his hand, but she flinched away from it.

'You don't. You don't, at all. It doesn't matter to you. You probably believe Moriarty, don't you? None of you liked Sherlock. You all thought he was... I don't even know. You thought he was fake.'

'That isn't true-' Arthur began. His distress was becoming visible on his face. He did not like to see his friend like this, but calming her down now would be like trying to defuse an atom bomb seconds before it went off.

'Sure it isn't.' Florence breathed in shakily, and held her head in anguish. Her brain was screaming at her. There was this constant noise, this constant screech, going around and around and around and around and around...

She was losing it. She was actually losing it. She couldn't handle any of this – she would probably end up on the streets again. With no one. She would shut out everyone, until the only thing she'd have left was the memory of her best friend.

The thought brought a fresh round of tears to her eyes. The three men opposite her watched her, quite unsure of what to do as she wept into her palms.

Eventually, Arthur stood up. Florence had had some sort of falling out between both of the others, and he figured she needed a friend.

He stepped over the small coffee table between them, and sat beside her. She didn't even seem to notice him. He wrapped his long, thin arm around her shoulders, and pulled her to him. She fell into his chest.

'I'm sorry.' she whispered, so quiet only he could hear. He nodded, stroking her hair. He figured she needed to let it out now, otherwise she'd be crying for the rest of her life.

'We can help, you know.' Michael said, his voice timid. He knew what she thought of him. He knew she feared him. Little did she know. 'We helped before-'

'You've saved me before. That was different.' her tone was deep as she replied. She wiped her eyes with her sleeves. 'He wasn't dead then.' she stood rather abruptly, and Arthur's arm fell. 'I have to go,' she said, her voice cracking.

'Do you really think-'

'I have to fucking go.' she growled, and was gone before they could protest.

Running down the stairs to the apartment building James was residing in, she looked out of the large window on each landing to see a sleek, black car waiting outside. A woman was leaning on it, typing ferociously on her phone. She growled internally. She knew it was there for her.

'What do you want, Mycroft?' she spat, after his assistant had opened the door for her. She had climbed in, to see the man himself uncharacteristically sitting on the other side of her.

'To offer my condolences.'

'He is...' she breathed in shakily. '... was your brother.'

'That doesn't mean anything to you.' Mycroft's voice was grave – he was genuinely sad for her. This realisation curbed the anger she was feeling.

'Yes it does. I'm talking to you, his actual family, and you're giving me sympathy.'

'You and he were... closer.' Mycroft said, turning away from her and looking towards the front window. He rapped on the seat before them, and the car started moving. Florence noticed his assistant had gotten into the passenger seat. She didn't feel completely comfortable talking in their presence.

She closed her eyes as another, fresher wave of realisation dawned on her – Sherlock was dead. He was actually dead. She rose her hand to her mouth and bit hard on her finger to stop herself from crying.

'I'm sorry.' she managed to whisper.

'It's quite alright – you have every right to be upset-'

'No, Mycroft.' Florence said. 'I'm sorry.'

'Oh. Yes. Condolences.' he said the last word with some distaste, despite him offering them to her moments before. He seemed to forget this as he continued. 'They're customary at this point. No one really means it, they're just trying to look for something to say. Something that isn't offensive, that'll make the person receiving them believe they're cared for-'

'But I do care.'

'I know you do. But you still said "I'm sorry". You don't want to dwell on it.'

'Why would I want to dwell on it?'

'To teach everyone a lesson.'

Despite herself, Florence laughed a little. 'A lesson?'

Mycroft turned and looked her dead in the eye. 'I can hear the rumours, Miss Wood,' - Florence gave him a meaningful look – 'Florence. People believe Moriarty got to you, too. Of course, no one knows about what that man did to you, and Sherlock - but everyone thinks my brother... wasn't real.' the words were audibly emotional for Mycroft to say. He was finding this very difficult.

'But he was. I know he was.'

'Yes. I know, too. I'm trying very hard to combat the rumours, especially about him. But trying to do that, and orchestrate everything else...'

'What lesson am I teaching people?'

'That you are with Sherlock. No matter what. You have become his face, now. Everyone knows who you are. It's not Doctor Watson, it's not me. It's you. You are the one people liked. You could really, really help us. We want people to know Sherlock Holmes was real, and he died for nothing.'


Mycroft didn't drop her off at Baker Street. Instead, they went to his own house, where he offered her a room for the night. She protested slightly, but realised she had nowhere else to go. She had gone to bed immediately.

She checked the clock on the bedside table in one of the many spare rooms Mycroft owned. It read 2:30 am. It was so late, and she was so tired, but she couldn't sleep.

Quite suddenly, her mind caught up with her, and she couldn't breathe.

She sat up frantically, clasping at her chest as panic rose. Sherlock Holmes was dead. Her Sherlock. Her everything.

The panic continued as she thought about what she would do. What she could do. She suddenly didn't have a home, or anywhere she could go. She couldn't stay with Mycroft, that would just be wrong.

Mycroft had told her Moriarty was dead. She didn't believe him. He knew what he was like.

Her lungs felt like they had collapsed, and they hurt just as much. She laid down again, trying to steady her breathing. Tomorrow, she'd figure out what to do.

She fell into a shallow and very fitful sleep.


Tomorrow came, as did the next few months, much to Florence's dismay. Oh, how she wanted to die. However, Mycroft had given her a mission. She had to do her bit. Then, maybe, when it had been proven he wasn't a fake, she would die. Maybe.

It turned out people cared for her more than she knew. She was like their favourite character on a TV show, and they rooted for her. She hated being treated like this. She did interviews, so, so many. She answered all the same questions about Sherlock, and about her relationship with John, which admittedly went downhill. They hadn't spoken to each other since the funeral.

The funeral itself was not a dramatic affair. The only funeral she had ever been to was her mother's, but she had Sherlock with her then. This time, she was all on her own. This was more uneventful than the last, but it was what he would have wanted. The simplest farewell. He was so dramatic in his life, a quiet send-off was the perfect way to end.

According to Mycroft, at least.

Mycroft had allowed Florence to stay until she found herself again, and she had moved out within three weeks. She was now in a youth hostel, which did wonderfully for the papers.

Dead Detective's Suspected Lover Resorted to Youth Hostel

Lestrade kept in contact with her frequently, even asking her to look at a case with him. He missed Sherlock as much as any one of the detective's friends would, and it showed.

He was growing more and more concerned for this woman's mental health, as well. Every time he saw her, there were bigger bags under her eyes. Her lips were cracked and dry, and her cheeks were gaunt. She almost looked like she did when she was found, except this time she wasn't dead. Yet.

But everyone suspected it would only be a matter of time.


Ahhh, another day in Bikini Bottom.

I am a bit worried about this chapter - I'm not great with emotive writing. Or emotions. Or... writing.

:)