Remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall.

— Lamentations 3:19

Once Molly had collected all she needed for the day ahead and left the house—a half hour later than usual—John washed the breakfast dishes and cleaned the kitchen. Ordinarily this would have involved a quick wipe-down of the counters and inspecting the fridge for anything that needed to be thrown out, but today he felt restless, far too much to even consider going to bed. Instead, he cleaned out the microwave and rinsed the limescale from the kettle. He was just contemplating whether it was excessive of him to scrub the kitchen floor, and whether any sane man would just go upstairs to bed instead, when the doorbell rang.

Greg?

John had never perfected Sherlock's way of knowing who the caller was based on minute differences in doorbell pressure, but Greg's prolonged, aggressive policeman's summons had always been unmistakable—and that was when he even bothered with the doorbell. John hung the dish towel over the oven handle and went to answer it.

"Greg," he said, ushering him in. "Hi. Is it your day off?"

"Going in later," he explained, just as John registered that he was certainly dressed for work. Sherlock would have snapped his head off for missing a thing like that. "I shouldn't be too long about it, really, so I can't stay..."

He accepted the offer of coffee, however, waiting patiently in the sitting room while John went and made it. This was new, John though as he fussed with cups and spoons. Greg Lestrade didn't stand on ceremony. He'd normally be standing next to him, talking away, leaning over the counter to grab his cup once it was filled. It wasn't until he'd brought both cups back out to the sitting room, trying not to trip over one or both kittens on the way, that Greg cleared his throat.

"So," he said. "Um. I don't know if I'm doing the right thing, but, um." He pulled a phone out of his pocket—not the iPhone he was currently using, but an older Blackberry. "Do you remember that time I had to come and take your sorry arses home from that apartment in Belgravia, with Sherlock as high as a kite?"

John chuckled. "Yeah," he said. "To be fair, he wasn't hitting the cocaine then. Irene Adler stuck him with a vial full of ketamine, of all things, the poor sod."

"That poor sod threw up all over the back seat of my car."

"I know—I was sitting next to him and caught some of the splashback. Good times."

Lestrade smiled. "Anyway," he said, "you mightn't remember, but the way he was ranting was actually pretty funny... I filmed it on my phone for a bit of insurance against the next time he nicked evidence or what have you. Did I ever show it to you?"

John shook his head. He winced, but took the phone Lestrade held out to him and flicked the video icon to on.

There he was. Large as life, twice as loud, sitting on the edge of his bed slurring something about being the world's only assaulting detective while they were trying to get his shoes and jacket off.

"Stop laughing 'me," he croaked at Lestrade, with the bruised dignity of a child. He lost his balance and swayed into John, bouncing back with a little bump. "S'not funny..."

"Say that again, sunshine?"

"Shut up, 'm'not Sunshine, 'm... world's lonely salted... perspective..."

That voice. John had missed that voice, even if the video had it pitched high with how out of it he was. Filming him had been a bit funny and a bit mean, though to do him credit, it seemed Greg hadn't even looked at it before now, let alone gone through with the threat to email it to every officer in Scotland Yard. On tape, both of them were laughing at Sherlock's increasingly mashed attempts to tell everyone he was the World's Only Consulting Detective, and John felt an unpleasant pang.

He had been the only Sherlock Holmes in the world. Unique and precious.

When the fifty-two second long film had run its course and gone dark, it felt a bit like losing him all over again. He held the phone back out to Lestrade; feeling an itch on his cheeks, he swiped at them, breathless with relief to find that they were dry.

"Could you email that file to me?" was all he asked.

"No problem." Lestrade frowned. Finally, he offered, "... Sorry."

John smiled, or tried to. "No," he said. "No, it's not that. This is good... I... I was thinking only yesterday I'd sort of forgotten what he sounded like. At least I'll be able to remember what he sounded like when he was off his face, the poor bastard."

After he'd reached the bottom of his cup of coffee and a polite lull in conversation with John, Lestrade excused himself and proceeded to the office—the claim of an upcoming work shift had not been a lie. The roads were covered in a slick of black ice, with grey clouds looming over the city and threatening snow, and there was an accident near Hyde Park corner; Greg, with his policeman's instinct, looked for a stretcher and a tarpaulin and was relieved to find no such thing, though the Vauxhall's bonnet was curled up over the windshield like a tin can that had been opened. Rotten luck, he thought; not only a serious car accident, but one only a few days before Christmas. He'd done a short stint in Traffic when he'd first joined the force, and had never forgotten its horrors.

The office, once he'd reached it, was warm, verging on overwarm, and almost deserted: most of his team were out. He made himself a cup of coffee and was just sitting down with it to go through some paperwork—notes from a middle-management meeting he'd been glad to miss the previous Tuesday—when there was a rap on his office door and Sally Donovan came in when invited to. She was holding a manila file and looked harassed.

"Boss," she said, "Fair warning, Dawson's upstairs and he's on the warpath."

He hastily tried to swallow a hot mouthful. "Oh what now?" he demanded, grabbing a napkin for the small puddle on his desk and trying to think of what on earth he was in trouble for.

"He's had David Everard on the phone this morning. Who says he wants Sherlock Holmes's case re-examined."

Lestrade flashed cold for a second. David Everard was the Police and Fire Minister. A public-school jobsbody in an ill-fitting suit, someone he had complete contempt for the opinion of, but he was ultimately in charge of the police for and everyone in it from the Chief Commissioner down. In almost three decades as a police officer, he had heard of ministerial inquiries, but never come across one. They were always a big deal. "What? Just 'cause Claudette Bruhl says the man who kidnapped her wasn't Sherlock?"

She nodded.

"We're reopening the bloody kidnapping case; he should know that." It had, so far as he'd been aware, been given to another DI, James Bradstreet.

Donovan looked uncertain, glancing toward the door. The attitude was so unlike her that he stopped and looked her over more carefully. Was that… was that guilt?

"Also," she said, "He's asked that the suicide finding be pulled and Holmes's death re-examined. Someone found some discrepancies in the suicide report."

The Suicide Report. Sherlock's suicide report. Despite himself, Lestrade felt a shudder run through him at the memory, the sensation of having walked over Sherlock's grave. Then came a wave of something like relief. He'd not had anything to do with Sherlock's suicide report, after all; he'd been on admin leave at the time. That had been Gregson's problem. And Gregson was going to be in a rage about this. It was a wonder Donovan had found him first…

"Wait," he said slowly, realisation dawning. "You found it. You found discrepancies in Sherlock's suicide report—"

"Well there were, Greg, and they're not going to disappear if I just shut up about them," she said.

He pinched the bridge of his nose. "Okay," he said, trying not to lose his temper, "What kind of discrepancies are we talking about?"

There was an odd look on her face; exactly, he thought, like the one on Hayley's every time she'd stuffed something up beyond all repair, needed help, but was too stubborn or scared to ask for it. When had Donovan last looked like that? Exactly what the hell had she done? "Discrepancies," she finally said. "Just… discrepancies… okay? You said you believed me."

Lestrade had believed her, and still did; and thinking it all over later, he decided this was why he felt an almost uncontrollable anger come over him, enough to bunch his hands into fists. "You never think," he said, getting the words out with an effort. "Christ, Donovan. You, Holmes… does anyone in this place ever stop and think of what their bloody investigations and adventures mean for me?"

Through the glass partition wall behind Donovan's shoulder, Lestrade saw Chris Halloran, the youngest detective constable on his team, standing at his desk, his phone cradled in one hand, looking at him open-mouthed. Obviously that glass was thinner than he'd thought, or he'd just let Donovan get to him. He scrubbed his hands over his face and tried to start over. One of his good points was that he was patient—if he started getting a reputation for losing it at his subordinates, he thought, Dawson may as well transfer in another DI and let him hand his resignation in, he had nothing left to offer the Metropolitan Police.

Donovan was about as subtle as the brass section of an orchestra, but she too dropped both her shoulders and her voice. "If you really want to know," she said, "I didn't pass on those discrepancies. The only person I told about what I found was John Watson."

Lestrade dropped the pen he'd been fidgeting with. "You told John?"

"Went to his house. On my own time, not yours."

"My time is the least of my worries. You seriously went to his house and told him there were discrepancies on Sherlock's suicide report? What did he say?"

"About what you did. In fewer words. He didn't let me get far. So however this found its way to David Everard's office, I doubt it was through John Watson."

"I believe you." He scrubbed at his face with his hands. "God. This is a nightmare."

"Maybe not," she said, her voice almost tender, for her. "I did think about what this might mean for you. I think it'd do you a favour, actually. Get everything out there. Find out what really happened. It'd probably help John Watson, too."

"Doubt it," he said. "He's barely back from his honeymoon, happy for the first time in two years, trying to get his life back on track. You seriously expect him to be thrilled at all of this being dredged up again? We'll be bloody lucky if it doesn't send him—"

"I can't see how the truth would be any worse for him than whatever he thinks now."

Lestrade stood up. Halloran, still on the phone, was trying to get his attention. "The truth is that Sherlock's dead," he said, reaching behind Donovan's shoulder to open the office door. "We can't spend the rest of our lives investigating why. Thanks a lot, Donovan; Merry Christmas to you too."