Sorry to keep you waiting guys! I decided to bring Yanmei back to life for this chapter - I quite like her to be honest. :) I hope you'll like my little twist of the story at the end. :)

All the characters (except for Yanmei) belong to BBC ans ACD.

'You have to do it!' John yelled angrily forgetting about opened door. Suddenly everybody at police headquarters started paying attention to their discussion.

'John, calm down, please.' Lestrade asked quickly shutting the door and unwinding the blinds.

'He helped you so many times, selflessly, when you were all in a dead end and that's how you repay him?' He just couldn't believe it.

'John, please, listen to me.' Lestrade said slowly, emphasizing words like when talking to stubborn child. 'I'd really like to help you but after last incidents I'm this far from not being detective inspector anymore'. He gestured in a vigorous manner. ' Besides, Sherlock is... Let's just say he's not needing it anymore.' Lestrade casted his eyes down.

It was too much for John.

'Of course he's needing it!' He hit the desk with his fist spilling DI's morning coffee. 'How much alive, in your opinion, one has to be to deserve his name to be cleaned?' He asked ironically.

'That's not what I meant you know th-'

'I don't care what you meant and what policies and directives were given. If you have any evidence proving Moriarty was real, you have to make it public.'

'We can't do it. The investigation is ongoing and any press conference held at the moment could jeopardize it!.' Lestrade was polite but definite.

'Then I'll do it on my own.' John stood up, took his jacket and headed towards the door.

'John, don't. It will bring more harm than benefit to the-'

But John wasn't listening to Lestrade anymore. He rushed across the corridor. People were stopping conversations, looking at him curiously. He heard them whispering. John knew that believing in Sherlock's innocence put him in minority. Especially here, among police officers, everybody easily believed in stories about Richard Brook - in past they were attacked and mocked by late consulting the most. Revenge was sweet. Though the rumours were not John's biggest concern now. He really wanted to prove them wrong. The problem was, he hadn't got evidence needed.

John left the building quickly, glad to finally breathe fresh air. He felt dizzy and his stomach rumbled loudly. He was weak. In a past few weeks he did everything to occupy his mind (taking additional patients at the clinic, trying to conduct his own investigation (with a worse than poor result) and even helping Mrs. Hudson at tiding up the other part of the house. John suspected she wanted to take another lodger, but didn't dare to offer Sherlock's room to anyone. He was glad she decided to solve it this way. Renting that bedroom meant organising Sherlock's belongings and John wanted them to stay where they were when Sherlock was still...alive. His therapist considered doing it a necessary step to move on. But John suspected she was wrong again. What if he didn't wanted to adjust to new reality? What if he just wanted to hold on to what was left?

Suddenly he heard phone vibrating in his pocket. It was unknown number that has been calling him a dozen times lately but he decided to answer it now.

'John Watson speaking. Who am I talking to?'

'John? Oh, god, I'm glad I hear you!'

'Yanmei? Is it you? Have you changed your number?' John was genuinely surprised.

'Yes and I've tried to reach you for weeks but you've never answered. I was afraid that...'

'Oh, no. No. I'm...okay.' A okay as a man who lost his best friend can be, he added in his head.

'I was wondering if you'd like to meet me for a dinner?' She asked hesitantly.

'I don't feel like showing in any restaurant.' He learned to avoid public places. Paparazzi were everywhere just waiting for a cheap news they could sell to the tabloids. But his stomach was screaming louder and louder.

'It's alright. I can come to your place and maybe we can cook something together? As long as it's fine with you...'

'It is. In an hour at 221b?'

Yanmei arrived punctually with all the ingredients needed to prepare a traditional Chinese meal. On the contrary to what she said before, she forbade John to enter the kitchen and started preparing dinner on her own. So there was uncomfortable silence in the flat interrupted only by occasional jingling of pots or knives.

'So, how are you coping without him?' She asked quietly after a while. It was a direct question. But on the other hand, she had never been beating around the bush and that's what John used to like about her.

'I don't know.' He answered surprised by his own frankness. 'I really have no idea.' Yanmei silently kept on chopping vegetables as if she was letting him to talk all of his heart's content. John didn't know why, but he continued.

'I heard somewhere...' He stopped, looking for words to express his thoughts. 'Someone told me once, that in hard times the thing that can keep you sane is routine.' He sighed loudly. His voice was trembling. 'So I get up every morning, I shave, I go to work, I read paper, watch telly... Just like I should, just like I have done all my life. But somehow, I don't think it helps, you know?' Yanmei stopped chopping and looked at him with sadness in her eyes but remained quiet.

'Sometimes I feel like a coward, running away from what's unavoidable. Because the truth is, Sherlock is dead. Dead.' John repeated this word like he had been learning it, ensuring that he remembered its meaning. 'Yet here I am, surrounded by his belongings, symbols of his life, of our life, unable to move them. Like if I only touch them, all the memories will disappear as if they never existed.' He got up and headed towards the wall. Just above the fireplace, where Sherlock used to pin up photographs and documents relating to cases they worked on, there was now a small collage he did by himself. It consisted mostly of clippings from various magazines with stories about Richard Brook and other related things he managed to find. In the centre of that little visual map there was a photograph cut out of some local newspaper: Sherlock Holmes and John Watson together after solving the case, that made detective's name. John was facing the camera, smiling, whereas Sherlock was caught looking at him.

'He had all the life ahead.' John whispered touching his friend's face in the picture, his blue eyes and distinctive cheekbones doctor used to laugh about so many times. But he wanted to feel soft, warm skin under the fingers, not a rough paper. First tear which hit his cheek almost burned him. John didn't cry a single time since he had visited graveyard 3 months ago. Now his whole body started to shake from emotions that accumulated through that time.

All of a sudden he felt arms embracing him tight, steady against his trembling figure.

'You loved him.' Yanmei said quietly, still holding him. 'You still do.' And John fall apart. He could no longer stop the tears, overwhelmed by sadness and helplessness. How could he have not known? How could he have realised it when it was too late? He sank in Yanmei's arms, feeling emotionally naked and small.

Air in São Paulo remained hot and stifling , even though the summer was about to give its place to autumn. Sherlock Holmes was looking at himself in the mirror standing in one of the shop-windows. These 3 months and 2 weeks had certainly changed him: his hair were shorter and brighter now, looking a bit reddish in sunshine and his skin, once pale and almost transparent, gained a healthy shade of peach. Dressed in a dark sunglasses, flowered shirt, plain shorts and sandals he looked indistinguishable from hundreds of tourists wandering through the streets of this crowded city. Sherlock was about to be setting off, when his phone vibrated.

Playtime is over.

It's time you come home.

MH

He barely glanced at the message and switched his mobile off. As usually, his brother did not have the faintest idea about the rules of the game. It wasn't in Sherlock's blood to act like a cringing refugee. He used every second of his temporary immigration to investigate even the smallest leads to Moriarty's web. It was only rational to assume that its threads were spread out all over the world. So he could have started tracking them down here, in Brazil, as well. It appeared promising from the very start but as with every deduction process, one had to confirm and thoroughly eliminate every false conclusions, narrowing down the number of possibilities. In the end he was left with only few of them, which turned out to be dead ends - all but one. Man, who introduced himself as Samaritan, agreed to meet and provide Sherlock with some valuable information about the web. Of course detective didn't really believe in unselfishness of this offer - everything in the world has its price, after all. But having brother in British government was a trump card he intended to play.

When he arrived at a small square, with few trees and benches Sherlock stopped and carefully looked around. Finally he found what he wanted to: man in his mid-fifties, dressed in sunglasses and turquoise shirt sitting on one of the benches, holding his dog on a leash. Sherlock approached him and sat by his side. They remained silent for few minutes and then the man stood up, spread a pocket cane and slowly walked away, following his dog. He was blind. Sherlock reached underneath the seat and felt small piece of paper under his fingers. He took it and quickly hid in his pocket.

Though it was hard to keep back from checking the note right away he didn't do it until he found himself safe in his flat. Time, date and address - that was all, but it made Sherlock smile. He fell heavily onto the sofa feeling tiredness and pleasant satisfaction This was just a promise of a meeting but at the same time first real step ahead he had taken in months. Even the ringing phone couldn't have spoiled it.

'I didn't receive any answer from you.' Mycroft stated the obvious. He really didn't know when to give up.

'How was your dentist appointment, dear brother?'

'Fine.' Mycroft replied seething.

'Oh, judging by the way you speak it was quite the other way round.'

'Stop playing, Sherlock.' There was strange tension in his brother's voice, not just the usual self-assertion. 'Meeting with Samaritan, even if it's going to take place, won't give you information crucial to identifying Moriarty's web.'

'And how would you know that?' Sherlock replied resentfully as if Mycroft had just have broken his new toy.

'It's simple. Moriarty's web doesn't exist.'

'Oh, I see what you mean.' Sherlock smiled again. ' I have to admit that such an appreciation for our late consulting criminal coming from your mouth is a bit surprising. And I'm sure a man like Jim Moriarty had it all meticulously planned, so the moment he pulled the trigger every single thread of his web disappeared into thin air. But ordinary people are too unreliable for that plan to work. They are greedy, cowardly, guided by utmost emotions - like a weakest link even in the strongest chain.' And he just had found that particular link here, in Brazil.

'What about John?' Mycroft asked nonchalantly leaving Sherlock without a clever riposte. 'Those were hard months for him. Putting up with a death of best friend and his disgrace, constant fight with all the accusations. How long are you going to test his loyalty?' Sherlock felt sudden sting in his chest. Guilt?

'Goodbye, Mycroft.' He cut off the talk coldly.

'Sherlock, listen to me just once. I helped police collecting all evidence necessary to clear your name and they're waiting to make it public. All they need now is your comeback. Don't extend your exile when it's utterly useless.'

'I said, goodbye, Mycroft.' Sherlock ended call and turned off his mobile. He spread himself on the sofa and closed his tired eyes for a moment. Then he took his laptop from a coffee table and opened it - there was a video stream from a poor quality video camera placed at 221b. Sherlock installed it long time ago to carry out one of experiments but quickly forgot about it. But now, thousand miles away from home, he was watching its stream all the time: John eating his breakfast, watching telly, reading newspaper. At the moment he sat motionlessly on the sofa, staring at the wall. There were two dirty plates and sets of cutlery on the table, so someone visited him. Who was that? Never mind - John was the most important now. From the place he installed the camera, he could see his friends face - so tired and dispassionate.

'John...' He whispered touching the screen.

He woke up with a scream. It was dark and he was in his bed, but sounds of battlefield were still in inside his head and the pictures were flashing before his eyes. The same dream was hunting him since Sherlock's death: he was in Afghanistan, holding young bleeding soldier in his arms; they were surrounded, waiting for help. Suddenly soldier became Sherlock and as he was dying, he said: 'It's a trick. Just a magic trick.' And then John woke up.

He switched on a lamp at the bedside table and rubbed his eyes. It took him some time to realize he was not alone in the room. His uninvited guest moved the chair he was sitting on close to the bed. John breathed in, petrified. Eerie blue eyes were staring at him with incredible intensity and...sadness. John instinctively looked at the drawer where he kept his gun.

'Don't.' The guest said. 'I'm not here to hurt you.'

'Who are you?'

'My name is Sebastian Moran and it's nice to meet you, doctor.'

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