Written for Deathstrade Day on Tumblr : warning for major character's death.

Prompt : Sherlock returns to Baker Street after three years and everything is going fine. Sherlock wants to get back into case-work, and so asks John to take him to see Lestrade. John takes him to the grave next to Sherlock's.

Rating : PG

Of Greys and Griefs

Whoever chose the stone made a wretched job of it. It's flat, dull-edged, and, to Sherlock's eyes, a disgracing shade of grey. Sherlock's eyes are their quiet pellucid selves as they stare at Lestrade's name on the grey.

"Look," says the man at his side with a quick dart of tongue over lips. "It's not what you think."

"You have no idea what I'm thinking."

"No, I mean, look. It wasn't the killer, your trick did it all right. It was an accident."

"Or that's one name for it. No. I won't let you sedate me with lies."

"Sherlock." John's voice is calm, but Sherlock can hear the crack in it, the preliminary beat of warning.

"Six weeks," he says combatively. "Only six weeks to wait, and at the end, what? A job back, to start with. A press ola, a revenge, a return, a, a crowning. Everything, I was going to set everything right. Was that so hard, waiting for me?"

"Not half hard," the answer lashes back, and Sherlock has to close his mouth. Instead he concentrates on turning his head and, harder and farther than he has ever pulled in his previous life, observing. It could be the moon (it was late in the day when John flagged them a cab) that has turned his friend's hair ashen and his shoes unglistening, or it could be the wait. Sherlock thinks.

"A heart attack, then. Street accident?"

"Car crash. The M5 exit to Bristol." Sherlock waits, willing more to come. "Do you see? Not your fault, Sherlock."

"I know."

"No, you're not seeing. Not your, never, never your fault. Not then, not before. Never, love."

"I know! I know!"

"Sherlock." John's voice rips at him across his cry. "Who are you talking to?"

But - "never," Sherlock whispers, and as the air clears before the stone, and the graveyard once more stretches before him, something has changed. He doesn't notice it directly, because John has whirled around and is holding him tight enough to tug his chin downward, but then the moon is back and makes it possible to see.

The grave is silvering.