Okay, so first of all - I am so so sorry. I don't really have an excuse (okay, I was in Denmark and then La Réunion but still - half of this chapter had already been written), so yes. The next chapter is already written, so it's coming soon :) Thank you for all your support :)

Mycroft's POV:

It sometimes feels like the time is moving in chunks. Mycroft would wake up way too early and then bury himself in work, doing more for the government than he had in the last year. He can't help but feel guilty for the sudden increase in time Melissandre has to be at the office – even though he offered her half time she said she was fine with it.

It is comforting, but also mind-numbingly dull. It's still about life and death, still about the fate of a whole country and therefore connected to the fate of the whole word, but it wasn't the same. The sound of breathing of another person, which he had despised before while working with files, is now something he longs to hear.

The work he does is more long term and didn't have an immediate effect; maybe, he thinks to himself, he understands now why Sherlock loves being a detective this much.

Not that Sherlock is doing all that much better, he knows. He can see it in the tense lines of his shoulders when they see each other, in the way Sherlock snaps at him and then frowns, almost as if he wants to apologise. Mycroft understands, he feels the same whenever he makes a snappish remark at his brother – it's almost as if he can hear Kiara telling him how even though he was a politician, he was absolutely rubbish at remaining polite if in the same room with his brother.

After a week, a day before the funeral, he already feels himself being more polite to Sherlock. He doesn't want to be reminded of Kiara again and again and again. Maybe it's also kind of fulfilling something he knows she would have wanted.

Sherlock's POV:

Sherlock clenches his jaw as he watches the casket being lowered into the ground. It's closed, the body inside is so burnt that a DNA test was the only way to make sure it is her.

The feeling of rough, disfigured plastic together with the sharp edges of the box in his left hand freezes him. It's only a burnt, pink piece of a phone case and a memory chip, but they are parts of the very few things Kiara held close.

He doesn't know whether he'll actually look at the contents of the chip. There won't be much on there that's useful to the case, but on the other hand, being at this funeral isn't either.

John is a steady presence on his right side, shooting him concerned glances every few seconds.

A week after the funeral

Sherlock looks down at the name again. It looks strange, engraved in the grey stone, with the two numbers beneath it:

Kiara Moriarty

1995-2013

There's nothing else on there, no little note, no ornaments at all. Sherlock and Mycroft had agreed on that – Kiara was so much more than could written on a stone, so why attempt to do so at all?

John is standing next to him, hands in his pocket, chin tucked to his chest. It's cold for June, nearly July, but it's still nice. For a moment Sherlock wishes it would be raining heavily.

"She always expected to die." John looks up sharply, surprised at the suddenness of the statement.

"I mean, we all knew how likely it was that it would end bloody, but..." Sherlock let his voice trail of, not knowing how to explain the curious ways he'd seen Kiara's mind work.

"What was she like?" John's voice is quiet, and too understanding.

"Do you want me to describe her now?" Sherlock snaps irritatedly.

"Yes."

"She kept me alive." Sherlock turns around and walks away, not waiting for John to catch up.

A month after the funeral

John's POV:

Sherlock won't talk about Kiara at all. He gave her clothes, those which were left behind in the flat, to Mycroft, along with her headphones and anything else he can find of her.

John quickly realises it's no use trying to ask him about her – wherever he is, he just becomes unbearably rude and blocks any further questions. Wait, not quite. They have been to the gravestone twice now, and the second time Sherlock had opened up, not much, but more than before. John had listened with horror, fascination and sorrow to Sherlock's words. He didn't know Kiara well, had always met her with distance, and now he heard about the under-age girl who threw herself in front of Sherlock to stop a knife. About the girl who had gone through so much, had lost nearly everything she had and was still willing to fight for something she thought was right.

4 months after the funeral

It is strange, in a way, that John can be so happy and still feel sorrow. He isn't sure whether he grieves or mourns, he had accepted Kiara in 221B Baker Street after not long after and had sometimes talked to her, but now, after four visits to her grave, one each month, each with a little memory of Sherlock, he wonders how much of her he really knew.

For her she had been a point of conflict, daughter of Sherlock's sworn nemesis, but still having saved his life many times, barely eighteen but still with an arrogance matching Sherlock's.

Sherlock is different. Different to how he was before the fall, less cold, but also different to how he was after the fall when Kiara was still alive. He is careful now. Seems to understand the sorrow of his clients, if not well, then at least in parts. Swallows every time they have a murder or kidnapping victim with red hair resembling Kiara's.

Sherlock doesn't openly grieve, but he smokes more. His music sheets are constantly being filled.

Mycroft is burrowing himself in work, as far as John knows. Of course, he says he is far behind, and that might also be the case, but John can see the reason, even if the brilliant mastermind himself can't.

When he is once again fetching the phone for the detective, he feels the slightly out of shape, molten form of the small piece of pink plastic that once used to surround an iPhone.

The headphones on the skull on the wall are new. Neither Sherlock nor John comment on the fact that they used to be lying around on the table, connected to the iPhone.