Chapter Text
June 24th, 20XX
Years with my lover lead me to this deduction.
Picture this: Two pairs of footprints lead towards the rocky cliffside, a little blurry in the black soil due to the recent rain. There are bird prints scattered about, their imprints smudged as if they ran away in a hurry.
There are no footprints walking away from the cliff’s edge.
If you precariously lean over, you can see broken branches all the way down before disappearing into darkness.
What conclusion do you come to?
My throat was sore for days afterwards. In all the years I’ve yelled Sherlock’s name -- to call her away from danger, in frustration, to point something to her attention, even in moments of fear, thinking she was close to death or dying -- my voice always resulted in Sherlock coming towards me, alive, us going home, together, moving onto the next adventure.
But on that cliffside, everything was so silent.
I sat there for some time, my pants wet from the rain from earlier, staring out into the mountains in the distance as night fell around me. I turn, finally, and see a small envelope stuck in-between two rocks, with my name written clearly and plainly on the front in Sherlock’s neat handwriting. I can’t help myself. I tear into it unceremoniously.
Please understand that at first I wanted to keep this information to myself. These are the last words that Sherlock ever wrote, and especially to me. Thinking about me towards the last, I wanted to keep these words close to myself, never revealing the warm heart underneath the exterior.
But I want to show the world who she was, who she really was, in her own words. (A memory, her face, scrunched up, rolling her eyes, looking away from me, as she found some early drafts of my comics and telling me that I have made her out to be this hero that she is not, that I dramatize her, that I romanized her, that maybe no one writing about her is better than being written off as I have for her.)
So here is her letter, in full. I had it framed and it hangs above my bed now. I wake up to the sun reflecting in the glass every morning. I can hear her snorting now, sentiment.
[photocopy of the actual letter, in Sherlock’s own handwriting, which is neater and smaller than Jane’s]
Jane,
I write this small letter thanks to the courtesy of our Miss Moriarty, who awaits me nearer the cliffside. She has given me a quick glance at the ins and outs of her network, her work, her ability to avoid the police’s notice and my grasp, and, importantly, how she knew of us. Do not think I am morbid, Jane, when I say that I am delighted by her ways, her intelligence, her vocabulary. There is pleasure, also, in the knowledge that I will be able to rid not only us, but of the country, of a Jamie Moriarty. Despite this, regrettably, I fear that my future actions will cause my friends pain. In this moment, I think especially, Jane, of you. I could leave everything behind, if the result of such did not cause you pain. In our last moment together, let me confess that the letter from the innkeeper is a hoax, and that I sent you on a false errand, knowing that I may never see you again. I watched you go until I could no longer see your green coat, before turning and making my way back towards the mountains. In the event of my death, tell Lestrade and co. that I have collected all my notes on Moriarty, her colleagues, and her dealings in this world behind in my desk drawer, in a blue envelope, marked with, simply, her last name, so they make any final arrests that I cannot. Before we left New York, I left behind a detailed list to my sister detailing what should happen to my property after my death. To you, I leave behind all my notes for your stories, should you be so inspired (work really is the best defense against grief,) and enough money from my inheritance and insurance so that you may live in 221B for years to come, or elsewhere, if you should choose it. I want nothing more, my dear Jane, than for you to continue to live.
Believe me to be, my dear, to be sincerely yours.
Sherlock.
I do not know how much else there is to say, not really. I stayed with my legs hanging over the precipice for some time, until I could see the stars in the night sky unpolluted by light. I don’t remember walking back to the hotel, nor do I remember the exact details of my journey home. Back at Baker Street, I cried into Mr. Hudson’s shoulder and proceeded to let everyone who should know know. Lestrade and other friends that we have made along the way were grieved, as I was, but everyone surrounding me took time to make sure that I was ok and safe. (Truthfully, no one allowed me time to myself. They knew my depression after being discharged from the war and were afraid of a repeat performance. I am grateful for their strength when I had none, for I don’t know how else I could have managed it.)
As it turns out, Sherlock did leave 221B to me. She also left a large enough nest egg that I am able to stay in our old room, with my writing desk that her sister gave me for Christmas for a few years to come. It’s these little moments that show her heart to me. I do not have to move out of 221B and find lodgings, nor am I stuck in the same place as I was when I left the war.
True, I am surrounded by her things, but there is a small comfort in them. No more explosions in the kitchen, but I suppose my rubric for what is normal now is forever changed because I actually miss the small things that Sherlock would do that I could never predict, leaving me continuously on my toes.
My therapist told me during our first meeting after Afghanistan that I need to get things out. That things will be less cluttered that way, less confusing, less compacted in my head. In a strange way she was right. Writing up our cases have not only provided me the opportunity to tell everyone how fucking brilliant she was, and how thankful I am that such a powerful force chose me to go on adventures with her, share space with her, be the friend she “most thoroughly relied on,” but also gave me the benefit of writing past nightmares, past sleepless nights, through depressive episodes offset from my PTSD. To fall in love again.
I did romanticize you, a bit in my writing, in my personal notes, to my dates who would watch me curiously before we got together, and to Lestrade who knew you and smiled at my affection, in the beginning. Do not think that I romanticized you because I saw you as a powerful force, something extra human above the rest of us. Nor did I consider myself this small creature just basking in your light (although, I did feel more powerful just by association.) In those small moments I saw who you really were. When you would walk over to me and ask where the first aid kit was because you cut open your fingers with the scalpels you left in the kitchen cupboard next to the tea bags. You, playing the violin at 3 (three!!) in the morning despite the fact that you and I hadn’t slept in days. You, forgetting to eat and nearly collapsing because you are human , you idiot, you have to sleep and eat and rest like the rest of us. (There is no strength to be found in the denial of your basic needs.) In the bickering moments with your sister, Lestrade, Mr. Hudson. In the glee you had in seemingly normal things, like the perfect poached egg, or pressing your face into the warmth of our freshly dried clothing. Being uncharacteristically clumsy and knocking something over just for the pretense of examining the carpet on a case. Laughing with Lestrade when “The Woman” beat Gregson and her colleagues. The anguish of your bipolar disorder. The rare moments when I could see what would trigger you out of your depression and your smile when I applied them in the future. Your small smiles at me when I get deductions correct, things other people who never listened to you, or who don’t know you and your methods, wouldn’t have seen. I put you in your place, when you needed it, in a way that no other person has done, and it was for the benefit of the both of us. Please know that I realized this earlier on, and realized the brilliant, but rather mad, woman you were. And I loved you for it regardless, through it all.
Saying this, however, in all the years we spent together, I am cognizant of the fact we never talked about some things -- important things. Hard things. So I’m left here still, in 221B, with memories, and I have made a list of things that I should have said before but never did. Things that might have changed everything or would have just made everything better, us stronger, an unstoppable team, together.
An incomplete list:
- I remember the look in your eyes when that man shot me. You looked so pained and I don’t know what you saw in that moment, but when you tore open the denim near my thigh to check to see if the bullet came close to anything vital, you’ve never sounded so thankful in your life that everything was exactly as it should be. I knew you loved me then. I knew something else, too.
- Your lack of knowledge about the war and the politics around it were so refreshing. It was a nice change of pace after having people wince and giving long winded monologues about my injury and the injustices of war to my face under the guise of being compassionate.
- I knew about your slipper stash, you idiot.
- I’d give anything to hear you play Dmitri Shostakovich’s Waltz No2 again. Anything.
- I wish I told you what I saw during our experience with the Devil’s foot.
I don’t blame you. You defeated the woman who was a massive undercurrent to the crime plaguing the United States. You’re no longer here but I feel your presence everywhere. From women walking down the streets outside our apartment window, laughing (lipstick half licked off, eyes crinkling), children screaming in the park (laughter, not born out of fear, not mocking, not in pain). There is comfort in knowing that the people we have helped are out there and living. [A week after you died, Henrietta Baskerville and Beryl Stapleton set a wedding invitation, to the both of us, for this following June, along with a small letter, detailing thanks for solving the mystery (Henrietta), and for making Baskerville a safe place for everyone again (Beryl.)] Believe me when I say that who you were and what you have sacrificed have saved us all without thinking I’m being dramatic and romantic again.
It was us against the world. Until it wasn’t. And now the world seems too bright and too loud and I’m having nightmares again. I listen to violin music because I will never be graceful enough to play and never come close to your skill built over years of practice. Even though it is the only thing that can manage to draw me to sleep lately, the sound produced by my shitty speakers will never come close to sound like the real thing in the tired hours of the morning. (I should have found a way to record you, some way, besides the early recording earlier in my blog that I published. It was creepy and left me skeeved out and I almost deleted it multiple times but now you’re not here to play for me and I’m allowing myself to listen to it on repeat because you’re not here to play for me during opportune hours, nor tease me for it.)
I’m going to upload it here, again, so I don’t have to continually go back and search for it: [Sherlock1.mp3.]
No woman is an island unto herself. You were the wisest and bravest woman I've ever had the pleasuring of knowing. I love you.
Sincerely yours, Jane Watson