The Road Not Taken
Save My Soul - Eisley
Rising from the ashes /
Will you save my soul? /
You won't bury me /
You're the part that makes me whole.
Sherlock watched in an avid fascination as the thread was pulled through the final stitch in his shoulder. He had never been squeamish and his line of work only furthered his natural curiosity but it was rare that he got to see himself being pieced back together like a jigsaw. It was all that his self-appointed carer had done since they had met. Sherlock had been lost, his once black and white world or morals thrown into shades of grey, he had been broken in more than just physical measures.
"There, all finished." Lifting his gaze to his companion of nearly two years after a chance meeting on a Hamburg ferry, he to find his next target, they to visit the theatre, Sherlock reflected on how strange it was that of all people to help him it had been her.
"Thank you Kate." Slowly she moved away, clearing away the first aid kit that Sherlock had pinched from the back of someone's car as he had stumbled back to the alley where they had set up camp, courtesy of the homeless network. Kate cleaned away faster than normal, it was Sunday, she would head out soon to try and find the nearest church. Sherlock no longer knew where he stood on that either, he had been forced to come to terms with his own mortality more times in the last three years than in the rest of his lifetime, he no longer knew what he believed about life after death.
"All finished." Kate repeated, only this time a slight smile was gracing her worn features, spending her time with him had aged her. Sherlock knew she wasn't talking about the stitches.
"It's strange." He said after a long moment, still unused to expressing his feelings.
"In what way?" Sophie asked sitting opposite him, other plans disregarded her focus entirely on the man she had sworn to protect.
"I thought it would feel different, better, now that it's finished." Sherlock admitted, clasping his hands together, his only outward sign of anxiety.
"How does it feel?" Sherlock forced a weak smile, it was alarming how well Kate knew his moods, and she had never asked the wrong question.
"Empty." Bottomless, painful, emptiness.
"Because you feel you no longer have a purpose?"
"Partly," Sherlock paused here, knowing that the next words would only hurt, "partly because the only stable things in my world are no longer there."
"Those you were fighting for."
"Yes."
Comfortable silence settled around them as both mused on the words that now hung between them.
"You're scared they will reject you." Kate broke the moment, once again accurate as John's aim.
"They've moved on."
"There was an empty glass at the table Sherlock. We both know why." Sherlock dropped his head, Kate lifted it again, her hand gently cupping his face, and Sherlock's eyes swam with unshed tears. Only Kate got to see this side of him now.
"What do I do?" Desperation was clear in his tone, his pleading gaze begged for an answer. Kate reached over, took one of his hands in hers, squeezed.
"Come with me."
Lestrade had a slight hangover from John's engagement party, which his nursed as he read over the notes from Colonel Moran's capture and arrest. Turning his gaze to the stack of papers of his desk Lestrade sighed. For close to three years this had been happening, no fingerprints, no trace.
Scotland Yard's phantom little helper.
Despite some people's opinions Gregory Lestrade had reached his rank because he was smart and he saw things that others missed. Never to the extent of… Sherlock… but still, whilst others had their theories Lestrade saw the patterns. The closed cases were all linked by one thing, James Moriarty, who following Sherlock's… suicide… was proven to be a criminal linked to the deaths of Carl Powers, all of Sherlock's five pip cases, even the kidnapping of those children in the chocolate factory.
Someone had been hunting Moriarty's web, and they had been one step ahead of Mycroft and Lestrade every step of the way.
A knock on his office door interrupted his musings.
"Yes?" Wearily his raised his head, and abruptly found himself thrust into alertness when he found himself faced with an ashen-faced and shaking Sergeant Donovan.
"You need to see this sir."
Stood in the middle of the large room Lestrade strode into was a sight that made his legs go weak with shock and relief.
Forcefully gripping the hand of a shorter, brown-haired woman was a dead man with a mop of raven curls that had grown longer than Lestrade remembered. Blue-grey eyes, once so startling, looked lost as they fell upon his face and just as suddenly the strength seemed to go out of the ghost.
Trembling, Lestrade walked towards him, understandingly the woman, who he knew he would have to interrogate thoroughly later, back away, releasing her hand from the man's deathly grasp.
In the middle of the room, surrounded by surprised and frightened faces, Lestrade, torn between anger and joy, pulled Sherlock Holmes into a tight embrace. Although Sherlock flinched away from the unexpected contact, maybe he had expected to be punched, Sherlock quickly melted into the inspector's arms, gripping him back with renewed strength.
They clung to each other as though nothing else mattered.
Everything in Lestrade's world was immediately made complete. Everything except one.
"John." He gasped out into the dark wool of Sherlock's coat. He felt the other man tense.
"Please," Sherlock muttered pleadingly, "not now."
And Lestrade understood that no matter what Sherlock had gone through, his journey was far from complete.
Author's Note: I'm sort of flitting between this story and rewriting Putting Out The Flames, so I'm afraid updates might be a sparodic as the plot bunnies!
Also, if you've never heard of Eisley, go look them up, they're an alrmingly underrated band and no one seems to know they exist which makes me sad.
