Hi guys! Sorry for the long wait, there's a lot else going on in the moment, so... But the next chapter is already planned and half-written, so we'll see when I post that - especially as I have holidays. Do you?

Anyway, Enjoy!

The ride home is awkward and tense, but the prospect of being there is better than New Year's Eve in a hospital. The doctors released me with less fuss than expected, probably because there is almost no swelling on my neck anymore, and because Sherlock kept annoying them. Mycroft stayed out of my room most of the times and I have no idea what to make of that.

Why did he look and sound so relieved and guilty when I wake up? Why did he not mind that I called him My by accident, still sleepy? Or was it just a dream?

I sit in the front of the car, next to Thomas. I didn't want to be too close to Mycroft, and I still don't, but somehow I am not so sure about what's happening anymore. Why is Mycroft so distanced, so far away? It is better than the three weeks before, but I wonder what is happening in that big head of his. He might be angry at me, might distrust me and suspect bad but I still care for him. I still feel like he is my older brother.

And what is with Sherlock and Mycroft? I don't understand the looks they are exchanging, the few times I saw Mycroft in the hospital and now in the mirror of the car. They are calculating and cold, but is there a smirk on Sherlock's face? When I see a blink of gratitude in Mycroft's eyes I stop trusting mine.

Around ten o'clock I realise that we don't have any firework, at least not as far as I know, and neither Sherlock nor Mycroft are sentimental. Remembering that last year I didn't have any either, I try to not be too disappointed, but for some reason I am. Last year I had a reason. Last year I had been occupied because of Father's death and then because of training again. Then again, the excuse that I died yesterday is just as waterproof.

I don't know why I do it or how I do it, but ten minutes before midnight I am sitting on the roof of the manor. The tiles are cold and wet, but only slightly slippery, and the dangerous places with the moss and leaves are clearly visible – the moon makes everything else shine, they are the dark spots. My jacket keeps my trousers dry as my legs dangle of the edge. I'm sitting at the highest point, holding on to a stone-decoration, looking out over London.

Surprisingly, the night is cold and clear and dry, not even mist lingering about, just some small wafts over the Thames, illuminated by the lights of the London Eye.

I can nearly see our house from here, Father's and mine. Or now probably Moran's, even though I doubt he really lives in it. It feels like decades since I saw Father the last time, a lot longer than the one and a half years it really has been. I'm nearly eighteen now, and then I had been just sixteen. The thought hurts.

The first firework pulls me out of my thoughts, the red and white lights lightening up the sky. They are early by eight minutes, that's not watches being wrong, that's just eagerness. I like to imagine it was a child who wanted it, maybe a little girl who begged her father to light them earlier, because how would she ever be able to survive eight minutes? Eight minutes were an age.

I did that until I was ten. After that I was too grown-up for that, I always told myself, old enough so I could wait those long eight minutes.

Slowly but surely, the other fireworks start. There is one unique one, a shape I know, the colour very familiar to me. Maybe it's really Andy and David, the direction would be right. On the other hand, why would they still live there? The idea is comforting, though.

In the same moment the big fireworks, the official ones, start, I take out my gun and start shooting the air. Sherlock, Mycroft, Melissandre. Andy, David, Father. Only a second later I have reloaded and throw the fifty-pence piece in the air. The black letters are barely visible, showing the sign I use for Moran, Mn, before my bullet shoots through it.

I watch it fly away from me, hurled through the air by the sheer force of the bullet, disappearing somewhere in the dark.

The fireworks illuminate the city, green, pink, red, blue, yellow, white, orange in the black sky. It is blue when I leave.

I don't sleep after that. A strange sense of calm has filled me, almost numbness, but somehow I am still too unsettled for sleep. Finally I decide to sit down in Mycroft's study, in the armchair I always sit in. I can't bring myself to care that he might not like it, I am researching after all, I think while I start my laptop. I guess I'm just in a too strange mindset right now.

After a while I take out my phone as well, just searching through the network-app. Another ten minutes pass until I realise I'm just looking through pictures. A lump in my throat appears when I find the picture of Father, my favourite, him looking at me, not the camera, his mouth open in the process of saying my name, his eyes twinkling with a smile.

Swallowing doesn't help, and somehow I start coughing and can't stop. The fact that my throat is still a bit raw because of Daunt doesn't help either.

My eyes water and I feel like I can't breathe, there suddenly are two clicks like the door opened and closed, but as there's no one in the room, I might as well have imagined it.

The laptop is threatening to slip off my lap as I curl in, trying to figure out how to breathe, when a hand takes away the laptop and my phone, putting them on the floor two metres away. I don't resist, still coughing, until the person claps my back.

I wipe the tears from my eyes and gratefully take the offered glass of water when the coughing finally stops.

Only seconds later I realise what I have seen and I look up to Mycroft with wide eyes.