Chapter Text
It all ended with a door.
One tucked between two arched windows, hidden in the back of our home. I suppose it wasn't very obvious at first - its faded paint was somewhat similar to the tapestry, and the sparse light made it easy to miss. All in all, it was unnoticeable on first glance.
But deep inside, I knew that the reason he'd not opened it until that dark day was not because he'd not seen it there. He'd avoided the corner behind the stairs - he'd searched the manor from top to bottom, but always turned around before going that way.
Yet he had finally done it, and on that fateful day, I found the door wide open. The yellow light of the sunset was pouring into the manor through its gaping mouth. The air had cooled down, and the draught made me shiver.
Just like him, I couldn't bring myself to pass through it at first. Its very sight made me feel unwell and dizzy, and I stood there, petrified and not knowing if I had the courage to enter the garden and see how everything I feared came true all at once.
But it didn't take long until I set myself in motion. With a heart pounding so heavily that it hurt, I took a step. My thoughts were a blur, and I fought for breath, yet still, I moved closer, closer to the light. Closer to the mouth that had swallowed him.
My eyes struggled to spot him at first. Overgrown and forgotten, the garden looked nothing like I remembered, and the contrast to my memories made me feel disoriented.
But there he was - kneeling in the dirt, eyes downcast, back turned on the house.
"Sherry..." I gasped his name, but I was scared to approach him at first. He was close to the pond, by the spot where Violet had drawn her last breath. Seeing him there made me feel sick.
He heard me call him - he raised his head and turned around to look at me. The grudge he'd held over the file seemed to be gone, but I had never wanted it back this much as I did in that moment. It had been replaced by a sorrow I couldn't bear to see.
This was my sign - I ran toward him. Without waiting, he jumped back to his feet, rushed towards me, too, and let himself fall into my arms. I could catch him just before he lost balance, and I clung to him with all I had.
The moment I felt him in my arms again, I stopped breathing. The world around us was falling apart, but I was allowed to hold him tight again, to feel his breath, to inhale his scent, and to revel in his warmth. I pressed him close to me, so that I could feel every heave of his chest, whispering his name again and burying my hand in his soft black hair.
Only quiet sobs left his mouth. I knew there was a lot on his mind, but for the time being, he needed comfort and someone to show him that, despite everything, he was loved - and always would be.
So I whispered to him, "It's okay," took his face in my hands, kissed his cheeks and his teary eyes a dozen times. I knew it wouldn't be enough, but what else could I give him? My love for him was everything I had, and I knew his pain was far too great for me to take away.
In an instant, his arms wrapped around my neck, and his lips blindly sought mine, but even as he kissed me deeply, the tears never stopped coming. I could taste them on his mouth and feel them on my skin as I tried to swallow his devastated sobs. They made him tremble, yet the moment I tried to pull away and check on him, his grip around me tightened.
"Not yet, Jon, I don't want to let you go yet," he breathed against my lips through tears, then pressed his mouth on mine so hard that it made him whimper.
He lingered like this for a while.
It was no kiss of love and desire, but a kiss of grief.
It didn't take a genius to understand its meaning, so once again, I pulled away, aiming to bring distance between us, and he finally let me go. I hadn't liked the way he'd clung to me so desperately - it had made my stomach drop.
Yet I couldn't form a question. In the end, I didn't need to.
"You know what has to be done." His voice broke, and he gasped for air, yet he still tried to wipe away the tears from his face.
I could only shake my head. "What does?"
Struggling to regain composure, he pronounced every word a little too clearly to make his conviction sound believable. "My mother is dead, and it is my fault. There is only one way to give her the justice she deserves." I wasn't sure what his intentions were in that moment, but I knew they weren't good. Trying to close the distance between us once again, I took a step forward and reached out for him, only to be pushed away.
"No." The shaking in his body was subsiding, and a mask was slipping over his face now, as if it could deceive me - me of all people! But it was enough to strengthen his resolve, to give wings to his decision. "I made you my accomplice and forced you to carry the burden of my crime for decades, while I forgot."
A bitter laugh came from him and made me swallow hard.
"No," I said, "I carried no burden, Sherlock, I knew you were a little child who never had any ill intentions. It was tragic, but no crime." What I left unsaid was that, albeit horrible, her death had been the only thing that had saved his life that day. I was happy he'd survived it.
But, perhaps, that knowledge was too much for him as well.
"A man died in prison for that crime, Jon. My good intentions bear no meaning. They cost Otto Richter his freedom and my mother - her life."
"No..." I protested, shaking my head again, but what could I say to change his mind? Yet I knew I had to try. "Sherry, listen-"
"All things considered, it's good that you were severed from me." Another sob shook his frame as he forced an anguished smile. "You deserve a life that isn't tied to me, you deserve true freedom."
"What life without you? Sherlock, please, don't say this."
I stepped forward and grabbed him by his upper arms, opening my mouth to say something, and this time he didn't push me away - he raised his hands to cup my face instead.
"It is fortunate that you are here, standing before me as a man of flesh and blood. I've never believed in miracles, but I have finally come to see it as one." A few tears ran down his face again. "And it's a great relief that you will not be forced to bear the consequences with me - there is comfort in knowing that you will get to be free."
"What, Sherlock?" My heart raced. "What are you talking about?" I mirrored his gesture, holding his beautiful face in my hands and brushing away the tears with my thumbs, and I felt my vision cloud, too. "Sherry..."
"I have to repent. I have to go to the police and set it right."
"No...no!" Everything but this. I wrapped my arms around his frame, pressing him close to myself again, then pressing my forehead against his so that I could feel his breath on my face. "You can't. Please."
"It is decided. But you will find happiness again, Jon."
"No!" I let go and took a step back. It was sheer panic and helplessness that I felt - air wouldn't fill my lungs, and the world was becoming grey and foggy. But he did not falter - there was deep hurt in his eyes, and yet, I saw a flicker of relief in them too. It pierced my heart like a blade. "I am begging you, begging you, Sherlock, don't destroy yourself."
A deep sigh left his lips. "It will hurt at first, but you are strong enough to withstand it. I believe you might even come to realise that my decision was a blessing in disguise one day."
"How can you say this?" Tears were streaming down my face as well now. How could he even think I'd not shatter completely if he abandoned me - if he destroyed his own future and forced me to watch? "I know you don't believe it - you are deceiving yourself to make it easier."
"I knew it since the beginning - that this day would come. That I would have to let you go. I only didn't know how and why."
"It did not come. You are choosing it in this very moment," I choked, my nails digging deep into my palms.
Yet he only smiled bitterly, trying and failing yet again to wipe away all tears. "I am, I suppose. I would hate you to think that I don't love you-"
"No."
"-I do. Which is why I have to let you go, don't you.. don't you understand this?" He raised his voice in frustration, but I was feeling the same. Yet my strength - it was dwindling. "She was not the last person I killed, either, do you not understand what that makes me? Do you not see what I am?"
"This is the easy way out, and you are looking for reasons to justify it. A solution that's too neat for this mess. Yet you are choosing it over..."
Us.
"Don't do this. Please, Sherry, don't," I pleaded with him again, but he only shook his head ever so slightly.
I did not think I could ever recover if he walked away. The manor would become my prison as well. "You say you love me, but you've always hated yourself more. You have no love for yourself left, and it's making you blind and destructive!" I cried uncontrollably and hid my face in my palms, but I didn't think I could do this any longer - not after two weeks of grief and heartbreak.
And I had always known it would come to this, had I not? I did not believe I could change his mind with words, but I couldn't force him to stay and turn him into my prisoner either. In the end, it was a hopeless fight.
"I hope you forgive me one day, Jon," his voice broke, making me look at him again. However, seeing how devastated he was only made me recoil even more. Seeing the tenderness in his eyes angered me. Why did he look at me so lovingly when he was about to leave? He called it justice, but it was annihilation, and although he'd spun this tale of me finding happiness without him, he was destroying both of us at once.
"If you choose prison over your own future...over us... Then I don't think I ever could," I muttered. My words seemed to pain him, but he forced a stern face regardless.
"Perhaps... that's for the best. Then I shall respect your decision. Goodbye, Jon." With these words, he turned away, back towards the manor, but I couldn't let it happen just like that, so I walked up to him and took him by the hand.
"Please, don't go," I sobbed and clung to him with all I had. "Please, I'm begging you." Had I believed that falling on my knees would change his mind, I would have done so.
But instead of budging, he tore his hand away from mine.
"I have made up my mind," he said, harsher than before. "Jon. Please, don't make it any harder than it already is." Without another word, he picked up the pace again.
"I hope you know that I don't believe you!" I called after him, "And I know you don't believe any of it either! But once you've gone to them, you will not be able to take it back!" My words made him stop before he'd reached the threshold.
But before hope could take root in my heart again, he left.
As I watched him disappear into the darkness of Stonewood Manor, I thought that I was a coward. That I'd not done enough to prevent this or to stop him. I believed I should have fought him harder still. I suppose people often choose guilt over admitting they are at the mercy of someone else's will. He'd done it, too.
I'd wanted to run after him, beg him to stay over and over again until he agreed, but my body wouldn't let me. Frozen in my spot, I remained in the garden, my legs refusing to take a single step. After some time, after I'd cried all my tears and prayed to all deities to intervene and received no reply, I was left empty.
I knew I had lost - that there was no point in fighting anymore. In the end, it was not a decision I could make for him - it was not my right. I had not been wise enough, perceptive enough, to change the course of things.
That, too, is one of the downsides of being a real person - it takes strength to keep on moving, but there was nothing left in me. There had once been a fire blazing, but it was extinguished now. The world became a dim, barren place.
Like in a daze, I must have sat down on the bench at some point, stared at our initials we'd carved into its surface as kids until they were burned into my mind and spaced out until it was already night.
Time stood still for me from the moment he left - my world had ended right there and then. Hearing Mycroft's voice after some time and seeing him approach me in the dark perplexed me, but I couldn't, for the love of me, force myself to respond to whatever questions left his mouth.
What was the point of them all? He seemed to be animated by all this, but I no longer saw a reason to speak to him. Or anyone, for that matter. Did he not see that it was too late? Eventually, he must have left the garden without getting any sort of reaction out of me, aside from a couple of brief words that I no longer remember.
Neither do I remember getting back inside, but I must have done so at some point.
The manor, the small bed in Mycroft's old room, the dark corridors, and the lights I never turned on anymore - they became my new, empty world. A prison meant to sustain a vessel I no longer needed. From time to time, people I did not know would enter that forgotten, haunted place and try to engage with me, but I couldn't make myself understand what they wanted. They seemed to know my name, and I supposed they had been sent by someone, but in the end, it did not matter.
I wasn't starving - there was always something to be found in the kitchen whenever I'd become hungry enough to force myself to get up, but I didn't care enough to question how it had ended up there. Same for other necessities - they simply appeared wherever I needed them.
Days, weeks, perhaps months passed like this. I couldn't tell. I was not living, only functioning, biding my time, waiting. My life had become too hollow to enjoy, so I saw my existence as a punishment I had to endure.
Above all, I wished I could turn back time - to find my way back to my old self that could retreat, enter a decade-long slumber on a whim, and not feel a thing anymore. I'd never known or appreciated the freedom I'd had, and now it was gone.
I saw Mycroft once more during that time. Illuminated by the light of the window in his old room, I couldn't see his face clearly.
"Sherlock will be leaving Cordona for good," he said to me. He was to be exiled, but at least he would be free. In the end, neither of us would get what we wanted - the irony of life. I suppose I felt some relief, even though it barely registered. "The ship sails tomorrow morning. It would be unwise if you decided to follow him. A relationship like yours would ruin him in England."
I'd not spoken in so long that I felt rusty when I forced the words out between two drags of my cigarette. "I'm not planning on following him. Hope that helps you sleep better at night."
Why would I? He'd left me behind, even gone as far as to ask the police not to let me visit him in his cell - turned my own ill-considered words about not being able to forgive him against me, even though he should have known me better. He'd cut me off like a festering limb and not looked back. I saw no meaning in forcing myself into his life anymore. He'd made his choice, and he had not chosen me.
Mycroft studied me for some time, then added, "Good. He will start a new life in England. He will recover, eventually. We will all put this unpleasant chapter behind us."
"You will," I whispered. I would not.
Putting out my cigarette in the ashtray, I got up from the chair. My head was getting way too heavy - I couldn't form a coherent thought. Having lain down on my bed and turned my back on him, I didn't feel like talking anymore, so after a brief moment of silence, he headed towards the door.
Yet, he stopped before leaving to say, "I need a pair of eyes on the island while I'm gone. Once you've gotten over this, I have work for you." He didn't wait for a response before he disappeared. I did not consider his words at all at first. For the time being, I did not care enough to think about my future.
I wish I could tell you that I rushed to the harbour in the morning, sneaked onto the ship, and found my way back to Sherlock.
But by the time I'd arrived there - not to follow him but to see him one last time - the ship was long gone. The schedule had changed that morning, but I was partially to blame as well. I'd simply not found the strength to leave the manor earlier.
In the end, it was for the best.
Or so I tried to believe as I sat on a cold rock by the shore, watching the sunrise paint the waves golden. It was winter already, and I hadn't left the manor in so long that the season change and the tiny snowflakes shocked me greatly. The year 1880 was coming to an end, and I'd not even dressed properly for winter. Somewhere along the way, I'd lost myself entirely. If I had even been there to begin with.
But as I finally found my way back to the manor, I still made sure to lock the front door behind myself.
Lest someone decide to bother me again.