Here is the epilogue to this fanfiction. Wow, it has been a long ride... Sometimes I thought I would never be able to write this story, but I did. And I'm so glad, I'm so glad I managed to finish this story. Because how ridiculous this even sound, this story have taught me a lot about things. About love and life. But lets not talk about that, let's just leave it as it is. I am very pleased with this epilogue and I hope you wonderful readers will like it too. I'm glad to say that I am thinking about a sequel, but I'm not sure if I will write it, since this story may be perfect as it is. Maybe it doesn't need a sequel. I don't know, only time will tell. In the mean time, you lovely readers can fantasize about how you'd like the potential sequel to be. I would love if you told me of your thoughts, but you don't have to if you don't want to, of course! I want to thank everyone that have read this story, without your encouragement; it would have not been possible. Thank you! May the Moon always watch over you. :) ~ erithwolf 27/5 - 2012
"Tim Sherlock Hamish Watson, come right here." John called out to his son as he sat down in the big double bed he had bought for some months ago. The child came running and jumped up in the bed on the left side of John while Astrid already was on his right side.
"Are you going to tell us the story about daddy today?" Tim asked with his green eyes glistening, cuddling close to John.
"Yes daddy, please do daddy!" a seven year old Astrid said, shaking and hugging John's arm to encourage him.
"I will tell you the story of Sherlock Holmes tonight, my children." John said softly, his heart filled to its extent with love as he reached out to the bedside table to pick up a children's book. In fact, it was a book he had made with his own hands. He had written every single page of it and drawn every picture, Mrs. Hudson and Mycroft had given him help though he had made the most of it by his own. It was a story about himself and his one, single year with Sherlock, but mostly, it was about Sherlock. John put the book on his lap and opened it carefully. Tim and Astrid cuddled closer to their father as he began telling the story.
"Once upon a time... There was a man named Sherlock Holmes. He moved around different countries with his elder brother Mycroft. Together, they made quite a particular combo – since the both of them had the ability to transform into the shape of a big, strong wolf..." he told them, pointing at Sweden on a hand-drawn map over Europe.
"Just like us daddy! Like me and Tim!" Astrid exclaimed and hugged his arm happily.
"Just like you, my dear sweethearts." John said softly before continuing with the story.
"- One day Mycroft told the young Sherlock that he had to go out and find someone to fall in love with..." John read from the book, showing a beautiful painting of the two brother Holmes in their wolf forms, peeking out from a grove.
"Why did he had to do that daddy?" Tim asked curiously, touching the painting with gentle strokes. John chuckled softly and ruffled his dark-brown, curly hair. He looked like a young Sherlock.
"You will know why later, let me continue sweetheart." he murmured to his child and Tim nodded for an answer, smiling brightly at John.
"The young Sherlock hesitated about traveling away, he didn't want to leave his elder brother, but Mycroft told him that he needed to, otherwise horrible things would happen... So the young Sherlock went home, back to England where he had been born and raised." John spoke, turning pages and showing his children a drawing of a seventeen year old Sherlock standing on a large boat with a bright smile on his lips. Astrid gasped at the sight of his dad and touched the image.
"Daddy..." she said sadly and hugged John's arm tighter to her small body. John turned page again and this time, it was a painting of Sherlock arriving at Big Ben dock which took over two pages.
"Sherlock arrived to Big Ben dock as planned and he began walking his way to a hotel which Mycroft had pointed out for him on a map. Although the young Sherlock wasn't very used to large cities so he got lost after some hours. He started to panic as soon as the sky got darker and eventually, he ran over a big street and scratched up his knee. He hid under a bridge..." John babbled, turning page and showing another drawing of Sherlock sitting under a bridge with his knee bleeding and cheeks stained by tears.
"Here..." John said. "- he met Mrs. Hudson. She took him home and helped him with his wound..." John told his children, showing an image of Mrs. Hudson and Sherlock sitting in the kitchen, laughing together. Mrs. Hudson was putting a patch over Sherlock's wound.
"Kittens!" Tim said loudly and pointed at the patch on Sherlock's knee.
"Yes, that's alright." John said softly and continued reading the story. He showed his children a drawing of Sherlock and Mrs. Hudson, standing in the kitchen; making pancakes. On the next pages, there was paintings of Sherlock speaking with Lestrade, getting the police job and when he told Mrs. Hudson about it when he came home.
"Nine years passed and Sherlock is now twenty six years old." John spoke, turning page and showing a drawing with Sherlock and Mrs. Hudson talking about how Sherlock needed to find a flatmate.
"That flatmate is you daddy, isn't it?" Tim said, giggling a little.
"It is yes..." John said, smiling as he remembered the first time he met Sherlock. "Anyway... While the now adult Sherlock was searching for a potential flatmate, me, myself had just woken up from a very scary dream." John said, showing them an image of him sitting straight up in his bed with his forehead glistening of sweat.
"What kind of dream, daddy?" Astrid asked, looking at him with big, grey eyes.
"A nightmare about my time in Afghanistan." John said, kissing her forehead before continuing with the story.
"When I had showered and dressed myself, I went to my appointment with my therapist, when the appointment was finished, I decided to go on a walk through Russell Square Gardens. There, I met my old friend Mike Stamford. We started talking about how I needed a flatmate, I said:
'Who would want to have me as a flatmate?' and he said that he had met someone asking just the same question. So me and Mike went to St. Bart's hospital and there was the first time I met Sherlock. I found him a bit weird at the beginning, but later on I started to like him even more..." John said a bit dreamily, showing them a drawing of him and Sherlock, - meeting the first time in the laboratory.
"Daddy is so good looking!" Tim said happily and stroke the drawing with his fingers. He had never met his second father.
"He sure is." John approved with a smile, turning page. "Later on - me and Sherlock went on a quite special case, it was on that case I got impressed by your father's ability to be able to notice things about people that a normal human don't notice..." John murmured, showing them a well-made drawing close-up of Sherlock with his magnifying glass. "Anyway, when we were finished with the case, we went to a restaurant and there was the first time I saw the wolf-side of your father. I asked him quite awkward questions, and stated clearly that I wasn't gay." John said, his cheeks flushing as he remembered his stupidity.
"But daddy, you are gay!" Astrid and Tim giggled in unison.
"I am. At least I am bisexual, which means that I like both men and women." John chuckled, stroking their hair before continuing reading. "Two months passed and I had decided to stay at 221B with Sherlock, in fact, I had grown rather close to your father. I shocked myself later by finding out that I had fallen in love with him. I had just been at the grocery store and Sherlock came walking towards me, asking what I wanted to eat. I told him that I didn't know and he immediately said that he wanted to have meat, which I had gotten tired of since we ate meat all the time back then. He is like you Timmy, he loved meat." John said, ruffling Tim's hair before continuing. "We started fighting about what we were going to eat and I went up to my room since I couldn't stand to be close to him any longer, I had been close to kiss him you see... Anyway, I lay myself on my bed and thought about your father's dark curls and suddenly, he sat right beside me with a slight worry on his face. Then, we started talking about different things and you see, your dad was not very good at knowing where boundaries went – he leaned down to me and put his hand on my frantically beating heart, asking me why it beat so fast. He already know the answer though, I was madly in love with him, we spent the rest of the evening with our hands clasped together..." John murmured, his voice getting thicker by the lump that had started to grow in his throat. He missed Sherlock so much. John showed them an image drawn 'from' John's eyes, Sherlock was looking into his eyes with his mysterious, blue/green eyes, then he turned the page and showed them paintings of them waking up the next day, and one drawing with John punching Sherlock and how he called Lestrade later. He told them how much he regretted that he had wounded Sherlock, but that he didn't know that the wolf,in fact had been Sherlock. He turned the pages and showed them different drawings of him when he was searching after Sherlock. He told them that he had no idea where Sherlock had been kidnapped or by whom, but that he was very relieved when Sherlock finally came home. The rest of the book was pretty much just drawings; drawings of Sherlock and John dancing around the bonfire, drawings of Moriarty, drawings of Astrid and Sherlock, drawings of Astrid and John, of Sherlock alone in both of his wolf form and as a human, of Mycroft and Sherlock, of Molly, Anderson and the servants. On the very last page of the book, there was a real photography of the wolf pack with Molly, Anderson, Mycroft, John, Mrs. Hudson, Astrid and Sherlock smiling to the camera. Sherlock and John was standing in the middle with Astrid in between them, Mycroft stood behind Sherlock with his hand on his younger brother's shoulder while Anderson was standing on the right side of Mycroft with his arm curled around Molly's waist. Mrs. Hudson was standing on the right side of Sherlock. The bonfire loomed behind them. Everyone was smiling joyfully without any worry on their faces. Everyone was happy. John started crying silently when he saw the picture. He gave it a gentle stroke with his index finger, remembering the second it was taken. It was almost as he could smell the fire from the bonfire.
"Oh daddy, please don't cry..." Astrid whispered softly and kissed his right cheek.
"No daddy, don't cry! We are still here with you." Tim said, kissing his left cheek.
"I know dear ones... But I miss your father so much... I wish he could be here with us." John whispered, tears kept stream down his cheeks as he touched the photography, drawing his index finger over Sherlock's forever frozen smiling face. Astrid and Tim put their hands over John's hand.
"We are here with you daddy... Always." Astrid said, her eyes misty by the tears.
"Always..." Tim added, looking at his father. John sobbed out, more tears streaming down his cheeks, though a slight smile formed on his lips.
"I'm always here for you too..." John said, his voice thick. He put his hands around Astrid's head, kissed her cheeks then turned around to do the same to Tim.
"Now, go to the bathroom and brush your teeth..." John said to his children while trying to dry his tears with his arm sleeve. Astrid and Tim nodded obediently, they got up from the bed and went to the bathroom. John raised himself with the book still open and went out to the balcony Anderson had built to him a year after Sherlock death. He sat down at the small, white, Greek-like table and put the book on top of it with his eyes resting at the photography. He touched Sherlock's face, tears dripping down on the paper pages.
"I wish you were here... I wish you could sit here in front of me..." John thought sorrowfully, his heart hurting painfully. He sobbed more, burying his face in his hands, crying even more and almost screaming by the pain, while his heart tore to pieces million pieces over and over again inside his chest.
"But John... I am here." the well-known, mysterious voice of Sherlock whispered inside John's mind. John jerked by the sudden sound and madly turned around, looking all over for Sherlock - but the man was nowhere to be found.
"Sherlock?" he whispered, his senses going into a high drive. Something very warm was put over his shoulder, John stared at his shoulder but nothing was there.
"That's it. I need medication." John thought, shaking his head.
"No. You are perfect the way you are John. Stay this way. Stay as who you are. Never let yourself down." Sherlock's voice whispered inside John's mind, John jerked again and tears flooded down his cheeks. His mind really was playing a dumb trick on him right now. Then suddenly, something warm curled around his upper-body and John thought he had gone mad for real.
"It is not a trick John. I am here with you, and I will stay with you forever." Sherlock's voice echoed, the warmth giving him tight hug before something very warm pressed itself against John's heart before vanishing completely. John stroked the still warm place on his chest with his hand and stared at the photography in front of him. Sherlock had a tiny but still visible, white halo around his head and the light from the halo spread out from Sherlock into a small, glowing string that had connected itself to John's heart. John frowned for a second, but then his face relaxed and he smiled through his tears. Sherlock had really been here, and he would stay with him, always - maybe not in person, but in spirit. Forever.
The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen, nor touched ... but are felt in the heart.