Title: Making the Connection
Summary: Sherlock is travelling around the globe to free the world of Moriarty's accomplices when he receives a letter. Post-Reichenbach, prompt: Worry
Disclaimer: Everything belongs to Moffat, Gatiss & SACD.
A/N: The prompt came from the incredible floppybelly (whose "Oneword prompts: Sherlock" you should definitely check out, it's amazing!). If I am not prompted in the reviews I will go on to write to the prompts of oneword(dot)com
The thickly padded envelope was sealed with green sealing wax. The return address always changed but the wax and the seal stayed the same.
Sherlock was in Germany at the moment, trying to follow the lead that Mycroft had given him earlier this week. He was staying in the hometown of the Rottweiler; unfortunately his stay coincided with an annual festivity in the honor of said breed. The constant barking as well as the many dogs he encountered in the city centre reminded him of the Baskerville case that he had solved with John.
The lead he was following led him from Zürich to Rottweil and his next stop would be Lima, Peru, and before that he had spent two weeks in Japan. He had to hand it to Moriarty: He sure knew how to cover his tracks properly. It had been three-hundred and sixty-nine days now since Sherlock had first started untangling Moriarty's web and he was far from done. This also meant that he had rarely gotten bored during the past year. Mycroft and Lestrade were working on digging up leads, which they would then pass on to Sherlock to investigate further. So the only time he had to be bored was when he tied up a loose end before the two 'secretly dating' men could come up with the next lead.
He was leaving first thing tomorrow morning. The only reason he was still there was that he had wanted to wait for the letter to arrive.
He had thanked the innkeeper when he handed him the letter and went upstairs to his quiet, way too sunny room. His German was a bit rusty, he had used his French and Spanish a lot more in recent years, but it was enough to get by and most people were only too eager to test their English skills on an actual Englishman. A Swabian innkeeper attempting to speak English was even worse than John trying to play the violin.
He locked the door carefully behind him and drew the curtains closed before he sat down on the bed, his back leaning against the cool wall.
It had been fifteen days since he last received a letter from one of Mycroft's minions. With a well practiced slide of his index finger he opened the green wax seal and tore out the thin piece of paper first. The little, straight handwriting of his brother told him in concise words what John had been doing for the last fifteen days, how much he had worked, where he went when he left the house and who had come to visit him. On the backside of the paper it was noted that Mrs Hudson and DI Lestrade- Sherlock snorted at Mycroft using the detective's title and last name – were both well. The bit that interested him in particular was the mention of the new inscription on his gravestone. John always had good taste when he wasn't picking out clothing.
Then Sherlock put the letter aside and reached inside the padded envelope again. He opened the plastic sachet that he retrieved from the protective bag; inside it he found eighteen pebbles, all of them retelling him the story he already knew from Mycroft's letter, retracing John's steps through London where he had gathered the little stones on his way.
After inspecting each of the pebbles he got up and went over to his little suitcase, which was propped open on the desk. He took a jar out of the bag, unscrewed the lid, removed the balled up cloth from the top and let the fourteen pebbles slide inside the jar, where they quickly mingled with the other three-hundred and thirty-two pieces of gravel.
He was aware that John sometimes visited his graveside more than once a day and sometimes not at all for a few days. He knew that the anniversary of his jump would be hard on John, but visiting his grave eighteen times in fifteen days seemed a lot, even if he took all facts under advisement.
There it was again, the damned familiar sentiment that had put him into this position in the first place: he was worried about John Watson.