AUTHOR'S FIFTH NOTE
Hi, guys! We have now reached the last chapter. I know that some of you have asked me to continue with more chapters but I feel like the quality of the narrative would decline because it was always written as just a three part story. Quality over quantity in this case is crucial to me but I still have to apologise to you who had hoped for more chapters. I do also want to thank everyone who has chosen to follow, waited so patiently and given me so much feedback during this whole process. I'm right now working on a lot of fics at the same time but am quite far from concluding any of them because I also study for a master's degree and work part time on top on that. When I'm done with something I will post as soon as I can, I promise! Once again, thank you for all your feedback! Now, let's conclude this story…
PART THREE…
Sherlock turned away from me when he saw that I had realised what had happened. At the same moment I quickly rose from my chair.
"Sherlock, I didn't mean..."
"Yes, you did." he answered sternly, staring blankly out of the window. "You meant every word."
I would have said something if it hadn't been true. Sadly, I couldn't say that it wasn't. I fell quiet and lowered my gaze.
"Let me explain yet again what feelings are, Dr Watson." he said harshly in a cold and cynical tone. "They are the crack in the lens, the grit in the microscope, the dust in my eyes that prevents me from observing the tiniest details that in the end means everything. All emotions are the enemy of the true cold reason which I value highest of all."
"Yeah, I know but..."
"That being said," Sherlock interrupted loudly before the tone in his voice suddenly softened. "... I know I'm not incapable of feeling, John. I choose not to, for the reasons I have already made clear. Believe me, I do know why because that morning... The way I... felt..." He spat at the word. "Besides that it could have compromised the whole plan, it was... painful and I never want to feel that way again. Never..."
The silence that now entered the room felt completely different from all the others before. You could hear the sound of the city, an occasional car driving by or a horn in the distance but the silence in the room itself was like a haunting echo that said more than any words could have done. I lifted my head and looked at my friend. His eyes seemed locked on the street below us. With his hands in his pockets, he stood with his back strait but with his head hanging.
Painful...
It wasn't what I had expected but maybe what I had wanted out of him and still it wasn't and... Truly, I didn't know anymore. I think I needed a moment to process what he just had told me. It wasn't just an act. In that critical situation between truth and lies and life and death, Sherlock Holmes had actually lost emotional control. Even though it had fit his purpose, he had still lost the self-discipline that defined him. It was against everything that he believed in and he despised himself for it.
Just like that, the pieces fell into place. Maybe that's why he had acted like a complete dickhead, even by his standards, when he first had returned? To distance himself as far as possible from those feelings which he hated so much? Maybe a strategy to remain "sane", maybe to prove that he was still Sherlock Holmes? My best friend might be many things but in the end, even how unthinkable it seemed sometimes, he wasn't a machine. I if anyone should have realised this long before I said the things I had done.
Leaving my pride behind me, I walked to his side by the window. My gaze also fell onto the familiar street below us, just as empty and cold in the early morning as I felt inside. Baker Street hadn't changed much in the last two years. The cars were still parked with a bit too much space in between them. Some of the apartment houses facades still needed a restauration. The one that didn't was the newly built one right across the street. That building had replaced the apartments that had been destroyed the morning when James Moriarty, the most dangerous criminal the world had ever seen, had made his first move in the great and deadly game of wits against his only rival, master detective Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street. It truly sounded like a narrative fit any of the great detective classics but in reality, the story was even more complex than this.
I stared back at my friend. I hadn't thought about it before but he did look older, more concerned, almost abstracted in a way. Just as intelligent but different from the eccentric young man with the face of a twelve year old that I first had met. These last two years had changed him too, maybe more than I had cared to notice. Maybe tonight had been a glimpse of just how much? In the end, Sherlock Holmes wasn't a character in a detective novel or a blog post. He truly was so much more than that.
I sighed deeply and closed my eyes.
"Sherlock, I'm sorry."
His answer was quiet but calm. Two very simple words.
"Don't be."
They were enough.
No, I wasn't who I had been and neither was he. It could be for better. Also for worse. Time would have to tell that. As I met his gaze, at least I knew that he knew that I understood.
The silence was broken when my phone suddenly buzzed in my pocket.
"Hmm, Mary's already up." I declared after reading the text. "God knows what Janine has in store for them today."
"Janine?"
"The maid of honour. She's been organising the hen party. So many ideas but she works as an assistant so I guess she's used to organising things."
Sherlock frowned, as if searching in his mind where he had put away the information about Mary's friends. Suddenly his eyes brightened and his hands shoot up in an exciting gesture.
"Ah, right!"
A little bit too excited. I raised my eyebrows.
"You have no idea who she is, don't you?"
His exciting expression disappeared immediately and was replaced with a dull and uninterested look. He shrugged his shoulders.
"No, I don't."
I rolled my eyes at him before continuing to read the latest text from my fiancée.
"Mary says that we should have a stag night."
I laughed at even the thought of how it sounded.
"Stag night?" Sherlock asked.
"Same thing as a hen party but for the groom." I answered, pointing at me. When getting another text from Mary, I turned my attention to my phone instead. Hah, they were going to dance ballet after lunch and then go shooting with some antique bow and arrow. Mary, who was insecure about throwing dart arrows at the local pub.
"So what do people do during this 'stag night' thing?" Sherlock asked me after a moment of silence even though I paid little attention to him.
"Well... You get out, drink, having a great time with your mates really."
"And this is a... wedding tradition?"
Something about the tone in his voice made me feel suspicious and I looked up from the screen. I could, partly to my surprise and mostly to my horror, read in Sherlock's eyes that he had already started to come up with a set of plans that was way out of everything that was familiar to him.
"Sherlock, you don't have to..."
"No, it's fine. If it's a wedding tradition, it should be included. I am the best man at this wedding and I want to do this the... right way."
I eyed him sceptically.
"You're sure?"
"Of course I'm sure. Why wouldn't I be?"
"Because you are you."
"And you made me your best man. What does that tell you about yourself?"
I raised my eyebrows at this but couldn't really say that he wasn't right. Maybe it did say something about me? I smiled and quite unexpectedly, I actually began to feel a bit excited about the whole thing.
"Okay. I'm in, but let's keep it small. Just you and I will be fine."
"Sure?"
"Yeah, sounds good to me."
"And we're supposed to drink?"
"Yeah, that's mostly the point." I answered as I tried to send Mary another text. Sherlock began to tap frantically on his phone.
"Says here that having themes for the night is not unusual."
"Yeah, fine, do whatever you want. Just no strippers!"
"Why in the world would there be strippers, John!?"
For a moment we stared at each other, probably both with equally astonished looks on our faces. In the end, I couldn't hold my face together anymore and I broke into laughter while shaking my head.
"You know what? I really don't know."
I could not for the world stop snickering after this and Sherlock frowned at me again in response.
"What?"
"No, it's just... Me being out on a stag night... With you."
We continued to stare at each other, both obviously unsure what to say about that but then Sherlock smiled and soon we were both laughing together, like many times before. Thinking about it afterwards, I should have realised right there and then that this was the most terrible idea we had ever come up with. Me and Sherlock, really me and Sherlock, going out to drink together... What were we thinking?!
"I still want to know the details about the case before Gregson calls." I said as our laughter died out.
"Ah, it actually starts to be the most promising one in weeks!" Sherlock exclaimed and in a second he seemed to have forgotten everything that just had happened and had settled down again by his computer.
"I'll get some coffee." I said. "You want some?"
"Black, two sugars."
"Yeah, I haven't forgotten."
I think I didn't entirely imagine that I saw the corner of his mouth turn up slightly at my response.
I was about to enter the kitchen when I stopped in the doorway and looked back at my friend who was staring intently at the screen in front of him. The fire was back in his eyes. Sherlock Holmes was back and maybe that was for the best. Still, I knew that I would not forget again that in the end, behind the up turned collar, the piercing grey eyes and the mind palace, the best man I had ever known was only human, whether he wanted to or not. In the end, I think we all have a past that we need to process if we don't want it to define us.
"Sherlock... What you said about the sunrise..."
"Mm."
"Did you ever admire it?"
Sherlock Holmes sat completely motionless for a moment. He then turned around to face the brilliant light rays again, shining at him through the window. His face seemed to relax against its warmth and he closed his eyes. The answer to my question was almost a whisper.
"Every day..."
AUTHOR'S FINAL NOTE
Okay, so this fic is basically me doing up with what I thought was a big problem about The Empty Hearse. The Reichenbach Fall was a horrible and emotional trauma for John but as it seemed on screen also for Sherlock, not to forget us viewers. Of course some of it wasn't real (like Sherlock not actually jumping to his death) but in The Empty Hearse they kind of implied that everything was an act. For me, they joked too much about the whole thing in that episode, almost making fun of John's pain and I wasn't really on to that. Sherlock also really acted like a complete dickhead towards John, even more than before and especially on the train. Because I believe that Sherlock's emotional reactions on the roof were mostly real, that neglected much of the traumatic experience that The Reichenbach Fall was, especially for me as a viewer. What I then figured is that it must have been some reason for it, a.k.a that he hated how he reacted to the whole thing, that he became "human". I'll be happy to discuss this further if someone is interested in this discussion. What do you believe?
Puh! So how did this turn out? My goal is always to write as close to canon as possible so your feedback is invaluable! I also wanted this chapter to not be so strait forward and instead get the readers to think and discuss with themselves what it all mean, more like a philosophical discussion. Once again I want to thank everyone who has followed this story and I hope that you take a look at my other stories, spread the word about this one and will follow my upcoming works. THANK YOU!
Over and out!
/ BMRH