Fic: After the End

[impishtubist]

Title: After the End
Fandom: Sherlock
Characters: Sherlock Holmes, DI Lestrade
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Implied character death
Summary: There was life before John and life with John. It had never occurred to Sherlock, not for a moment, that there could be life after John. 
Disclaimer: I own nothing.

A/N: Intended as very close friendship, but could also be read as slash. Up to the reader. What little I know of Catholicism comes from the internet, so please forgive the mistakes.

Lestrade was the one who noticed him first, arriving like a phantom from out of the mist, and heaved a sigh. The detective strolled through the early morning fog, dodging police cars and officers and ducking under the crime scene tape as though he had as much right to be there as they did. Donovan did not stop him, just turned alarmed eyes on her boss. The DI steeled himself, placing his hands in his pockets, and stepped from the house to head off the unwelcome man.

"What do you have for me?" Sherlock said before Lestrade could even open his mouth.

"Nothing," Lestrade told him. "We can handle it. Single homicide, open and shut. Seems to have been a fit of passion; we're tracking down the boyfriend now."

The right side of Sherlock's mouth lifted in a smirk. "No, it wasn't."

"Sherlock -"

"Now either you're lying in order to get me to leave or you truly believe this is a simple murder. I'm torn as to which is the more pathetic scenario." With that, he brushed past Lestrade and into the house. Lestrade hung his head, breathed - one, two- and hurried in after him.

"Sherlock!" Lestrade grabbed for his elbow and caught his sleeve, yanking him away from the doorway to the poor woman's bedroom with a strength he had thought long absent. It was only a brief victory; he was shoved away with such urgency, such violence, that he nearly tumbled over. Sherlock's eyes flashed.

"Don't touch me," he growled. A fragile silence settled about the hallway. Lestrade licked his lips, searching for the proper words and failing because there were none.

"Sherlock," he began carefully, holding up his hands pleadingly, "I cannot imagine what you're going through -"

"Very astute, Lestrade."

" - but I can assure you, this will not help."

"Let me be the judge of that."

"No." Lestrade drew himself up. "You are leaving, even if I have to drag you out and drive you home myself."

Sherlock eyed him for a moment, snorted - "I'd like to see you try." - and turned on his heel to stroll into the room. The victim - likely linked to a murder a week ago, but, knowing Sherlock's enthusiasm for them, Lestrade was not about to let on there might be a serial killer about - was lying in a tub of crimson water, throat torn open for all the world to see.

"Tell me, Inspector," Sherlock said, kneeling by the body and prodding the woman's neck, "why I should not be here."

"I would think it would be obvious to a man of your intellect."

"I assume because you think I am tied by such petty emotions as anger, grief, and guilt, like yourself?"

Lestrade frowned and foolishly decided it would be best to play ignorant. "What are you on about?'

"Come now, Inspector," Sherlock said, glancing up at him with a wicked grin. "Just because I refuse to allow myself to be held prisoner by such feelings doesn't mean I can't recognize them in others. You feel guilty over the good doctor - feel you should have done more to save him. You feel grief because he was a friend, and you feel anger because you believe I am the one responsible for what happened."

Ice formed a hard lump in the pit of Lestrade's stomach. "I never said that."

"You didn't have to." Sherlock rose, snapping off his gloves.

"Look, getting back to the point - a murder is the last thing you need to be dealing with, especially considering the circumstances of John's, well -" he broke off, fidgeting.

"On the contrary. This is exactly what I need," It came out as almost a sneer. "I live for the work - you should know that by now. What are you afraid of, Lestrade? That I will botch your case? That I will be unable to perform adequately?" Sherlock turned on his heel abruptly and paced back over to the body.

"This was the work of an acquaintance or stranger. You can tell by her clothes that it was not done by someone familiar with the victim. See -"

No, Lestrade thought as Sherlock rattled through his findings, I'm afraid we're losing you.

XXXX

There was life before John and life with John. It never occurred to Sherlock, not for a moment, that there could be life after John. The whole idea was absurd, incomprehensible. There was no such thing as an existence that didn't involve horrid jumpers and tea that was prescribed more often than medicine. There was no life that did not include fights with machines and a stern reprimand every time a human body part found its way into the fridge. There could not possibly be, and yet here he was, living that very unimaginable life.

He threw hismelf into the work because it kept him from dwelling on the innumerable impossibilities that now governed his very existence. The sun had not switched off; the world had not stopped turning; criminals still threw horridly simply cases his way and the police were incompetent as ever. But John was gone, so why hadn't the world gone with him? It made very little sense to Sherlock's ordered mind. By all rights, existence should have ceased days ago.

There was a quick rap on the door, followed by Mrs. Hudson's customary, "Yoo-hoo." She was dressed in her Sunday best, topped off with a wide-brimmed hat and holding a tasteful bouquet of flowers. "I'm off to visit John, dear. It would be ever so lovely if you could join me."

"Sorry, Mrs. Hudson," Sherlock said briskly, stepping away from the window. "Work to be done."

"Surely that can wait."

"Not nearly as much as the good doctor can. He's hardly going anywhere." Sherlock tapped a pen against his teeth, staring at the wall where he had pinned all the pertinent facts of the case.

"Sherlock," she said in a low, hurt voice, "what a thing to say."

"It's true, though," Sherlock replied. "You cannot deny that. He has all of eternity; I, however, do not. My work here matters, Mrs. Hudson. It must be done."

There was a heavy pause in which Mrs. Hudson, taken aback, desperately searched for words.

"All right, dear," she said finally, sadly. "I'll tell him you say hello, shall I?"

She left as quietly as she had come, padding down the stairs, and Sherlock turned back to his work.

He could not conceive of life after John. He had never before dwelt on the matter but now here it was, rearing its head like a snake. This was After. There was a grocery list on the fridge written in John's neat hand and a bed upstairs that still held his form in its mattress. There were bills on the table addressed to a man now gone and a blog out there that would never receive an update. The telly was still tuned to the last channel John had watched and a jumper - God, Sherlock, it's boiling in here! Don't tell me this is for another experiment of yours - was discarded on the back of Sherlock's chair.

This was After. This was the life he had led Before: before John, before Moriarty, before the cabbie and the bomb and sudden awareness that I'd gone through life half-awake if not for him. Before should have been no different than After. He had his crimes and his brilliant mind and the whole of criminal London to occupy his time.

He didn't have John.

He didn't have John in the Before.

This was different. This was After; a poor approximation of Before.

Why?

John.

John had made it better. John had made him better.

This was After, and there was still work to be done in the After as there was in the Before. Life did not stop on account of John Watson.

It should have.

XXXX

"Have you been to see him, yet?"

Sherlock scoffed. "I do not see the point."

"Sherlock -" Lestrade stood uneasily in the door to 221b, shoulders hunched against the light chill. He had never felt comfortable in the flat, and less so now that John was gone.

"Will it change the situation, Lestrade?" Sherlock said icily. "Will my - visiting him change what happened? Would it make things the way they were?"

"No," Lestrade said firmly. "It won't bring him back, not one bit." But it may bring you back.

"Then, again, I fail to see the point. Please do not press me on this issue. It will get you nowhere."

"That's what I'm afraid of," Lestrade said gruffly, stuffing his hands in his pockets. Gods, how he hated these conversations, the ones where he sounded more like his stern grandmother than a police officer. "You'll regret this later, Sherlock, not going."

"Don't act like you're my father, Detective Inspector."

"I'm the closest thing you have to one," Lestrade snapped. He nodded toward the stairs. "Come on. There's a car waiting outside. I - we'll both go. You and me."

Sherlock stared at him in silence for several long moments. The flat was bathed now in twilight, dull sunbeams weakly grazing the ancient wood of the furniture. They were too faint to chase away the shadows, which were slowly gathering in every corner.

"I can't." the voice was cracked around the edges, exhaustion and guilt leaking through. The second part - I'm sorry - never quite made it past his lips, but Lestrade heard it there, bubbling just beneath the surface.

Lestrade nodded. "All right, then. Call if you change your mind. I can have a car here in minutes."

He paused in the doorway on the way out; Sherlock had already turned back to the case files. "What do you remember of the night we met?"

"I remember very little of that year," Sherlock said simply, matter-of-factly and without regret.

"I figured as much. Good night, Sherlock."

XXXX

Sherlock was aware of time passing thanks only to Mrs. Hudson, who was taking John's absence quite hard. She left nearly every morning to visit him - or, really, what was left of him - and returned, sniffling, to the building every afternoon promptly at noon. This cycle repeated itself seven times - one week - while Sherlock worked tirelessly on the serial murders. He was isolated, there in the flat, where time did not pass. It was only when he stepped outside its walls did the world resume, and what right did it have to go on moving? No. John was no longer part of the world outside their home, and Sherlock had no use for a world where John Watson had did not exist.

Then there came a day where Mrs. Hudson did not leave at all. He heard her downstairs, shuffling around, making ungodly amounts of tea. Twice the phone had rang, but her conversations were brief.

"Sherlock."

Sherlock turned to see Lestrade standing in the open doorway.

"Who let you in here?" he snapped.

"Who do you think?" Lestrade said, exhaustion seeping into his tone. Sherlock waved a hand.

"Go away. I'm too busy dealing with your incompetence to speak right now. It'll have to wait. I've almost cracked the case, so if you -"

"No." Lestrde said simply. He nudged the door shut with his foot and perched himself on the arm of a chair. "Sherlock, John passed away this afternoon."

Sherlock tensed but did not turn around. The pen that he had been tapping idly against the mantle fell silent and the air suddenly hung about them like glass, brittle and deadly quiet.

"I see," Sherlock said finally. He turned to face the detective inspector, and a glint of something raw and primal swept across his face, so fleeting and unreal that Lestrade wondered whether he'd imagined it. An instant later, the usual cool passivity had settled itself on Sherlock's fine features. "How long?"

Lestrade let out a breath he had not been aware of holding. He had rehearsed those words in his mind for hours - the hardest words he would ever have to say - along with the dozens of reactions Sherlock might have. This was the one he had been afraid of - the quiet calm, the usual cool.

"Almost three hours ago. Mrs. Hudson got a call from Mycroft, but I felt it best you hear it from me, in person. She was instructed not to tell you, so please don't go off on her."

"I have no intention of that," Sherlock snapped. "Now, is that all? Because I really must -"

"No!" Lestrade said suddenly, voice echoing through the empty room. Everything seemed to stop; he closed his eyes, took a breath, and then said softly, "No, that is not all. You are going to listen to this, Sherlock, because you need to know how it happened. John deserves that much." Lestrade burrowed deeper into his coat; the chill in the flat was nearly unbearable.

"He fought so hard, Sherlock, after they took him off life support," he said quietly, eyes fixed on the floor because the story was easier to tell when not looking into those piercing eyes. "All my years on the job, I've never seen someone hold on like that. It was almost if - he was waiting for something. But his heart gave out around two-thirty this afternoon, so I guess we'll never know what it is that kept him holding on." Lestrade snorted. "I suppose it was a bit much to think he might have pulled through after all, considering what he'd been through. But I tell you, up until the moment his heart stopped, there was so much hope in that room." He shook his head, letting the words hang heavily about them.

"Little good it did you," Sherlock said finally.

Lestrade ignored him. "He wasn't alone when it happened. Thought you might like to know that. Your brother was there, lord only knows why. Sarah showed up not long before, followed by Molly from St. Bart's. It was just supposed to be a visit; a normal visit." He blew out a heavy breath between his teeth, willing away the stinging building behind his eyes. "I had just stepped out for coffee. Five minutes. It all went to hell in five minutes. Came back and he was gone. Just like that."

He lifted his eyes, forcing himself to look into the blank face of the most brilliant man he had ever met and wondered, truly for the first time, whether Sherlock could feel. Ten years he had known the man; ten years he had remained convinced that passivity was a mask, a shield; that there were emotions there, walled off from the rest of him so that he could devote everything, every fiber of his being, to the work.

Now he wondered. Now the Inspector wavered because the mask didn't shift; no chink appeared in the armor.

"Well," Lestrade said dully, "now you know."

He left then, abruptly, as the fear he had never allowed himself to entertain even for a moment was realized before his eyes.

XXXX

The case culminated on a viciously sunny day three weeks after John Watson had been committed to the ground. Victim number four of London's newest serial killer was as senseless a killing as all the rest and not four hours old when they found him in his bathtub, naked to the waist and sporting a gaping hole in the side of his head. It was better than victim three, who had lain in her apartment for days, but still not good enough. He was always one step ahead of them; always just out of reach.

Sherlock had been pulling a string of sleepless nights; it did not take a genius to observe that much. He was immaculate as always, but exhaustion betrayed itself in the lines at the corner of his mouth and the purple half-moons that stained the skin under his eyes.

"Well?" Lestrade prompted, hands crossed over his chest. Sherlock had been staring silently at the body for several minutes.

"Hm?"

"What can you tell us?" Lestrade asked. His team was milling about in the other room, collecting evidence and taking photographs and straining desperately to listen in on their conversation.

Sherlock considered the body from a distance for several more moments. He did not touch it; did not even seem inclined to approach it.

"Nothing," he said finally, ripping his eyes from the corpse. He grabbed his gloves from where they had been resting on the sink and brushed past Lestrade, who was gaping.

"Wait - what do you mean, 'nothing'?" The detective inspector said indignantly, but the only answer he got was the slamming of the front door. He sighed and passed a hand over his face. The rest of the team had frozen in place, turning quizzical eyes on their boss.

Anderson broke the silence first.

"What's wrong with the freak?"

"He couldn't save this one," Lestrade said quietly. "All that work; it wasn't enough. Sound familiar?"

Realization bloomed on Anderson's features. Lestrade turned to go, and then paused.

"Oh, and Anderson - call him that again."

"What?" Anderson looked startled.

"Call him that again," Lestrade repeated slowly, emphasizing each word. The rest of the room faded into the background. Anderson swallowed heavily and dropped his gaze to the floor.

"That's what I thought." Lestrade slipped off the latex gloves and discarded them. "You lot know what to do. You can take it from here."

"You're going after him," Donovan said quietly, a hint of betrayal in her voice. We're your team.

Lestrade gave her a curt nod and swept from the room.

Sherlock comes first.

XXXX

John Watson had been born of non-religious parents, and though he'd never formally converted, Lestrade did know that he had attended mass every Sunday at a Catholic church near Baker Street. Well, every Sunday that he wasn't on a case with Sherlock. There had been several occasions where Sherlock had dragged the man to the scene of a murder, still dressed in his black pants and neat button - down, looking annoyed for the benefit of others but secretly glad to be included in Sherlock's life. Lestrade never knew whether the man believed - it had never come up - but it seemed the ritual, the tradition, soothed him. Who was Lestrade to argue with tradition?

There were candles in the vestibule that honored the deceased; a little more than half were flickering that particular evening. Lestrade lit one for John, very aware of Catholic tradition. Keep him safe; keep him well was all the prayer his rational mind could muster, and it was as much for the dark-haired man sitting in the third pew as it was for the man who would never again be able to benefit from such thoughts.

"I do not understand," Sherlock said as Lestrade approached him from behind, "how so many can participate in such a mass delusion as religion."

"How did you know it was me?" Lestrade sat down with a sigh.

'Your step is particularly distinctive."

"I see." Lestrade rubbed his neck, gone stiff with stress. "So, why are you here if you find it so useless?"

"John comes here," Sherlock said simply. "He is not one to be taken in by false promises, so there must be something of value in the whole thing."

"Many people come for comfort. And it's was, Sherlock. John was not one to be taken in by false promises. John is dead."

"Yes, thank you for the reminder," Sherlock said acidly. "I had forgotten, because there is a jumper on my chair at home that will never be worn again and no one to tell me to stop playing the violin at three in the morning and I'm working alone for the first time in five years. So thank you, Lestrade. Those were not reminders enough that John is gone."

"I'm sorry, Sherlock."

"Do you think he knew?" Sherlock said woodenly into the silence that had settled around them.

"That you hadn't been to see him?" Lestrade shook his head and said, "No" even as every fiber of his being screamed Yes.

"I suppose you are one who believes in an afterlife. Like he did."

"My belief in one would not change the fact that it does not exist," Lestrade said firmly. "I won't tell you that you'll see him again someday. He's gone and nothing will change that. Nothing will make it better. You only knew him for five years. It wasn't enough; it's never enough. But be glad you had the five years that you did rather than none at all. Be glad he met you and that you met him, because a John Watson only comes around once in a very great while. Remember that it was into your life he fell. No one else can claim that and he wouldn't have had it any other way." Lestrade folded his hands in his lap and leaned back into the pew. Sherlock had gone quite still and unnaturally silent beside him.

"We went for drinks every now and then. Sometimes others would join us - Dimmock or Molly or your friend Mike - but it didn't matter because all he ever spoke of was you. Sherlock did this and Sherlock did that. Sherlock left eyeballs in the microwave again. Sherlock keeps shooting the wall. Sherlock keeps the neighbors up at night and it's getting on Mrs. Hudson's nerves."

Sherlock stiffened beside him, but Lestrade pressed on.

"'Sherlock plays the violin, although calling it that doesn't do him justice. It's magical, really, in his hands. I complain when he wakes me with it at all ungodly hours, because the neighbors are really starting to make life difficult, but secretly I'm glad for it. Sherlock solved the Smith case last week; record time, wouldn't you say? Sherlock is brilliant; Sherlock is kind; Sherlock is my friend.'"

The detective shifted uneasily on the bench, as though trying to physically distance himself from Lestrade's words. He reached out and gripped the man's shoulder, feeling the warm flesh through the fabric of the shirt. Sherlock did not pull away.

"He cared deeply for you. I believe you felt the same for him, in your own way. And he knew, Sherlock," Lestrade said quietly, guessing at the nature of the detective's distress. "It didn't need saying."

Sherlock leaned forward and placed his elbows on his knees, steepling his fingers and pressing them against his lips. His thinking pose, the good doctor had affectionately called it once. A ripple went through the taut shoulders as Sherlock shuddered; Lestrade squeezed the shoulder tightly in response.

I'm here.

The sanctuary was dark now save for the flickering candles and moonlight that streamed in through the windows. It made Sherlock's already pale face appear white as bone, highlighting the sharp features so that he looked unbelievably fragile; brittle, like a porcelain doll that must be kept tucked away on a high shelf, out of harm's way.

An unintelligible word slipped past the thin lips, heart wrenching and guttural and more a whimper of pure agony than anything else. Sherlock was shattering before his eyes.

"I know," Lestrade whispered, as if the words could act as a salve to the gaping wounds. "I know."

They stayed until dawn broke, cold and grey, over the lonely street. When the last of the candles burned itself into extinction Sherlock rose, weak and dry-mouthed, eyes rimmed with red in a way Lestrade had not seen since the detective's drug-addled university days. His walk back up the aisle was unsteady but Lestrade was at his side, guiding him inconspicuously with a hand on his sleeve. They stepped out together, blinking, into the watery dawn.

This was After.