This story was inspired by a similar one I read once, with the same basic plot, that is, when Holmes was 'dead' on the train, he saw Irene. I don't remember who wrote it or what it was called but I thought it was an interesting idea.

Part 4

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Heaven

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He was dead. Shouldn't that worry him? And yet he really couldn't be bothered. For once, his mind was at rest, and he couldn't read the people around him. He couldn't care less. His curse was gone. Now he looked at the woman next to him, and all he saw was someone he had thought he would never see again.

"Irene," he said, and she smiled at him in that way she had, and suddenly the question he had meant to ask her flew out of his mind. He was young again (but when had he ever been old?) and there was nothing he had to worry about, no one he had to save. (But when had he had to save people?) And there was no darkness in his mind (but what was darkness?) or the world.

And he finally managed to say the words he had never been able to say in life, to feel the feelings that he hadn't allowed himself to feel, for fear of being broken again. (But what was brokenness?) And his mind was filled with peace and joy, and they walked through the park and her dress was cherry red.

If this was heaven, (but what else was there?) This was what he had been searching for his whole life, he knew. And he smiled, and she smiled back, and everyone else was at peace too, and he wrapped his arms around her, and looked into her eyes, and she laughed and pulled away, eyes dancing. "So now you change your mind, now that we're both dead? Don't you think you're a little late?"

"There is nothing I regret more than letting you die," he says hoarsely.

"Holmes," she whispers, coming closer to him. "Sherlock. You did not let me die. It was my own fault and my own folly. You have never owned me."

"I know," he says frankly, and at once there is nothing funnier, and they can't help but laugh at the expression on the other's face.

And they will spend eternity together.

But then, in the middle of some story, some day in the middle of this beautiful paradise, he feels something pulling him back. And it hurts. All of a sudden he can remember pain, and fear, and madness, despair and black depression, uncertainty and anger and helplessness. He looks around for Irene, and she is there, (she had been off visiting a friend but she could feel his pain, so out of place here, and came to his aid, the way he hadn't been able to come to hers).

"What is happening?" he asks, and his mind is hungry again, his enemy, calculating and noticing and he couldn't turn it off, and it tells him with dispassionate accuracy that he is going back there, to the cold, hard world and it must be Watson and why couldn't he leave well enough alone?

And she kneels down with him, holds his hands, and looks into his eyes. "I'll be waiting," she whispers into his ear, and he can smell a hint of her scent even through the darkness.

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