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No one ever told him how cold space was. A brittle, whip-sharp cold that pierced his thick armour and wrapped itself around his mechanics and clever electronics, clinging and insidious. The fiery heat of the sun was an ever-shrinking memory at his back as he hurtled onwards away from Earth, away from the comfort and security of everything he had ever know and into the absolute zero temperatures of space. He had no choice. He was the best, the only one who could do this job. He knew that, revelled in his superiority, in his uniqueness, but still the cold invaded and violated him.
No one ever told him how dark space was, absolute and terrifying. It wasn’t just space. He could collect samples and analyse data with astounding efficiency but he hadn’t been made for sight. Space was dark, what was the point? He was designed to observe but never to see. Sherloc didn’t mind that. It was what he was built for after all; all brain and no heart. He didn’t need the context; it would just get in the way of what mattered, the work. It was very important work after all. But still the darkness clung to him. Unable to see, his imagination ran wild, rampant with nightmares and an irrational terror.
No one ever told him how lonely space was. There was nothing. And there would be nothing for a very long while. Even when he finally landed on Mars, and there was no guarantee that he would survive his descent, he was destined to be alone. Images of a fiery collision, smouldering in his own wreckage flickered, like static, through his mind. His electronic synapses recoiled in horror. Sherloc tried not to care, because caring was a disadvantage, especially in space, but he was so very alone, trundling blindly through the cosmos on a mission that would consume his lifetime.
Except that he wasn’t, he realised. He had never been alone. He wasn’t sure when it had happened but slowly the hostile darkness had softened and calmed around him. Watson was right there at his side. With him, Sherloc could see, the pinprick light of burning suns, the even fainter planetary glow of his final destination… their final destination. The blackness was bearable with Watson there because it meant he wasn’t alone after all. Sherloc felt a gentle warmth emanate from where Watson hummed and whirred at his side, pleasant and optimistic. And without really doing anything at all, simply being, he chased away the suffocating tendrils of the cold and dark, keeping Sherloc safe from his blackest of thoughts. It was only a little while later that Sherloc realised, with a start, that he needed Watson, that he would not survive without him.
And in the end it was just the two of them, forging new ground, making history and going down in it. They would be remembered forever, immortalised. Just the two of them against the rest of the world, well against the rest of the Universe really.