Notes: I am so sorry for the long time you had to wait. Here it is, the final chapter.
There are still two graves without names on them, and now that we are no longer busy with healing, I commit myself to them completely.
Well, as completely as you can as a family father with a healthy sex life and a toddler that somehow learnt how to walk overnight and parents that demand your attention. Which means that it takes quite a lot of time to find out who is resting there. But that is fine, really, because what is slowing me down is enriching my life enormously.
And in the end, and with a little help from John and Mummy, it is done. All sailors are identified.
There is a celebration, of course. The mayor is there and the island's chronicler's son (who will never be called "the island's chronicler" because he cannot fill his father's shoes but is the only one on Amrum who does not know that) and the local press (which also means the chronicler's son) and the chronicler's son's photographer with his girlfriend and some tourists. Students from the island's primary school do something that loosely resembles making music.
And there is my family of course.
Emmi lightens up the mood by squealing at all the wrong moments and Daddy slips away unnoticed only to tell the chronicler's son about little Sherlock's pirate adventures. Incredible how much you can loathe the ones you love.
There also are some relatives of the identified sailors. Naturally there is lots of weeping and hugging and being moved. I ignore the weeping and endure the hugging but cannot help being moved myself. They are happy because of something I've done.
John is standing right by my side the whole evening (which enables Emmi on his arm to drool over my shirt because she is teething). The chronicler's son's photographer makes a wonderful shot of the three of us in which it is plain to see how happy we are (despite the drool on my shirt) because we are really happy.
It has been quite a while since I caused that much publicity. And only now do I realize how much I missed it.
"I think it is time to go home," I tell John that night when our bodies are pressed closely together.
He is quiet for a while. Then he whispers, "Do you know what date it is today?"
Of course not. Why would I?
When I don't answer, he places his hand softly on my curls. "Tomorrow is the 27th of May."
The day of Mycroft's death.
John keeps on caressing my hair and is quiet so I can think. Somehow, I have always assumed that I would not go to Mycroft's grave because it is nothing but a storage place for his dead body and has nothing to do with what was lost the day Mary killed him. I try to calculate if I could make it to London in time. Maybe if I take the ferry to Sylt and then hire a plane …
But what then? Have the plane take me to London so I cannot go to the graveyard? That sounds ridiculous, even to my ears. But not going to the graveyard while still on Amrum does not make any sense. It would be as ineffective as being petulant while temporarily mute. Nobody will notice. I don't know what to do.
John keeps stroking my hair while I tell him. Then he thinks. Then he strokes my cheek. "Why don't you visit Baker Street in your mind palace tomorrow?" he suggests finally. "That way, Inner Mycroft will see that you are not visiting his grave at all."
No wonder I love him that much.
On the next morning, I leave before Emmi wakes up. It is a sunny day and it will surely be warm later on but right now the air is still cold. The soft morning sunlight falls onto the sea, the dunes look surreal in the misty morning glow. The sky is more yellow and red than blue, and one star is still to be seen.
I sit down on my favourite bench, the one where I opened up the letters to our older selves months ago. It seems like a lifetime ago. I close my eyes, tune out the waves and the birds and will up the sound of London early morning traffic, muffled by the old walls of Baker Street.
When I open my eyes inside my mind palace, I am still sitting on that bench on Amrum. Before me on the table, there is a steaming mug filled with hot chocolate. Inner Mycroft is sitting on the other side, watching me with interest.
"My, my," he says, "am I really gone for a year now? Time flies when you are dead!"
I want to answer something clever but nothing comes to my mind. Instead, I feel a lump in my throat forming. I have to swallow down a tear.
He looks at me, then sips his chocolate. "Drink, or it will cool down too much."
As a child, I have always made a fuss over drinking the chocolate at exactly the right moment, not too hot and not too cold. Of course he remembers. Only now do I realize that my feet are bare.
The drink tastes sweet and rich. I need a while before I can look at Inner Mycroft again. "I miss you," I say then, watching the low waves instead of him. There is so much more I should possibly say but nothing else is equally important.
"Have you forgiven yourself?" he wants to know. No, he does not want to know. He knows. He wants me to say it loud.
"What happened will stay with me until I die," I repeat after a while, "but yes, I have forgiven myself."
He smiles. "I know," he informs me, with the trace of an arrogant smile on his lips. Funny how much I love him like that.
The beach in front of me becomes translucent for a moment. The idea of Baker Street can be guessed but remains vague and unreal.
"It is time to go home, don't you think?" he almost whispers.
Yes. It is time to go home.
In the end, it takes us nearly a week to prepare for the journey home. It is kind of silly, Daddy remarks more than once (twenty-six times actually), to leave now that summer is almost there but there is no seriousness in his words. He is right, nevertheless.
"We will come back", John tells me when we are hugging in the garden just before we have to leave for the ferry.
We went on what John called a goodbye stroll the day before, with Emmi in her pushing chair, visiting some places he wants to keep in his memory.
The graveyard of the homeless has got its new sign just the other day. "Graveyard of the Resting Souls" it is called now. There is a little plate explaining about me and what I did.
We went to the Vogelkoje and to the bench where John was sitting after not boarding the ferry. At the plate that shows you in which direction London lies, John kissed me, long and wet. We even stopped for a last glass of whisky at the Blaue Maus while Emmi was sleeping in her pushing chair.
When we are on the ferry, I delete how we got there. My final memory of Amrum will be John and Emmi and me in the garden of our old house, hugging.
And then suddenly we are really standing in front of 221b.
It feels strange, familiar and new at the same time. Mrs Hudson has had the door painted three months ago in the same colour it was before, and Speedy's has reacted to the slight decrease in income by an increase of annoyingly red adverts.
There is traffic noise and the cab is taking my parents away and people nearly walking into us and Emmi watching the pigeons with interest and the memory of "He's straightened the knocker." and "Ah, Mr Holmes." "Sherlock, please." and we really should go inside now.
John takes the lead, Emmi on his arms. He opens the door and waits for me to go in. "I always go in after you," he says quietly.
"Only to take a close look at my arse," I joke.
"Aaaasss", Emi answers.
"Exactly," John answers too.
I smile and cross the threshold. Soon Mrs Hudson will shower us with care before we will be alone on the stairs. We will go upstairs and be welcomed by the smell of home. We will need time to erase the painful memories of giving up and smashing violins and heartbreak. It will take a while but in the end we will replace them with memories of the first client we will accept again and sex on the kitchen table for the first time and scaring Emmi's first boyfriend away by deducing he smoked weed just an hour ago.
But that will happen later. Maybe not exactly like that.
Now, I take one step, and then another, and then I am inside. John follows me, as he always does.
We made it home.
Notes: I want to thank everybody who read, commented, gave kudos, or just enjoyed reading Not Broken. Most of all I want to thank the best betas in the world. This would not be the same without you. 3