Sorry, I lied! Because you're all absolutely fantastic, here's a bonus scene. This will be the last one, I promise...And so, here we are.

WHAT HAPPENED AFTERWARDS?

III: I'M HERE

William Sherlock Scott Holmes

He stands.

He watches.

He waits.

He loves from afar.

Sherlock Holmes is a battered man, but he is not broken. Not yet, anyway. He has gone through so much in the two years since he satisfied Newton in his plunge to the pavement. Being beaten up in Serbia and then talking his way out of it was one. Another was nearly getting a phone call through to John from a dirty public phone in America before being chased by some members of a gang. Yet another was pretending to be drowned in a pool at an opulent hotel somewhere in Asia. (He's deleted exactly where, it's not that important anymore.)

But now he is about to go through the toughest thing he's faced since Moriarty.

He slowly peers out from behind the neatly trimmed hedge.

The Honey estate is as pristine and warm as the day he was first taken to it. The red bricks gleam in the afternoon sun, the rosebushes have burst into a riot of color he can't help but grudgingly admire.

From this standpoint he can just see the infamous shed where Jennifer Honey held her abusive aunt at gunpoint (even though the gun wasn't really loaded). He remembered that case. Sherlock had forgotten the pistol in his pocket. And the demure schoolteacher had observed a discrepancy in his coat and acted accordingly.

All the more reason, he reflects with a shake of his head, not to underestimate anyone.

As he watches the house, the front door opens. Quickly, he whisks his head back behind the hedge, reddening slightly at his close brush with discovery. Immediately, he feels embarrassed. To any and all passersby, he probably looks like some starstruck lovebird waiting for his lady. Taking up a more defensive stance, he peers around the hedge again.

To his satisfaction, Matilda is the person who has chosen to come to the porch.

Sherlock compares this new data on the sort-of niece he's befriended to old data he's stored away in his Mind Palace. Indeed, things have changed. She's much taller than the last time he saw her, solemnly standing at a grave with her family, tears silently falling over the corpse everyone believes to be his. She's also managed to cut her hair short. It looks much better this way: she doesn't look so much like an innocent little girl anymore.

His niece (Sherlock still has a hard time referring to her as that since he's never really had much of a familial attachment to children before) carefully scans the exterior of the house. Sherlock feels a sense of pride spring up. She isn't just seeing anymore, she is now observing.

Uncle Sherlock, what's the difference between a person like me and a person like you?

You don't really observe, Matilda. Rather, you just see it outright.

Really? I don't think of it that way.

What do you mean?

Er...I just meant that...if I can "see it outright" as you've said, then how can we know that I'm not unconsciously deducing it in the process? I know I'm not using indirect reasoning, because that would mean that I'm always making temporary assumptions that are the complete opposite of what I want to prove. Like...maybe for example I would say that...er…"the Trunchbull is a kind person". I don't do that. So I'm probably using deductive reasoning. Like you, Uncle Sherlock. And that means I'm mentally going through a process of reasoning through statements and facts, and even prior knowledge. I'm taking clues from the subject's surroundings and using them to help create a description of what has happened to or with the subject. But the thing is, I might not be aware of the fact that I'm piecing together evidence to formulate a conclusion. What do you think?

Probable. Would you like me to do what I do and then see if you can explain how I did it?

Like you did when Mum and I first came to you? Sure.

Alright. You're a geometry student. Simple one. Can you try to find how I got that?

My definitions of the types of reasoning were in the geometric sense. Am I right?

You've hit the nail on the head, actually. See? That's evidence, Matilda. So it is probable that you're unconsciously gathering evidence to corroborate your theories.

Sherlock felt rather proud of Matilda, a feeling he hadn't really experienced before. He hadn't had an apprentice or intern, but Matilda was damn close to one.

Matilda is on the porch swing. Sherlock can see she's brought out the book he wrote, the book he signed, scribbled a note in, and handed to her at the door. Just before he and John left.

He remembers her promise to her, said quietly in a back closet of Bart's into an earpiece, Molly Hooper standing guard above him as he did so. You will be the first to know.

He wants to approach her and fulfill the promise. But first, he has to make sure nobody is watching. After all, a man coming back from the dead doesn't often happen where Matilda lives.

He looks around, recalling the bouncy friend Matilda let into the house. Thankfully, she wasn't around and Sherlock could begin making his way to his niece.

He quietly steps up to the gate. Just before he makes to push it open, his knee suddenly feels weak. It's been put through a lot of pressure from his beating-up session in Serbia, and he's not too surprised that his body had decided to protest in this way. Instead of entering the grounds of the Honey estate, he instead clings to the gate, clutching it tightly as if it were a lifeline.

Matilda opens the book in front of him. She stares at the note in the front cover for a few seconds before looking up at him and wiping at her eyes absentmindedly.

After taking a look at the gate again, she wipes her eyes once more and Sherlock knows he has been seen.

Matilda lays her book aside and gets up.

Sherlock takes this as a consent for him to enter and pushes open the gate. With each labored step he breathes heavily. He has been thrown around rather mercilessly in the two years since he'd left London. The beating in Serbia had truly pushed him over some boundary line.

"Uncle Sherlock," Matilda calls out from her post.

Sherlock stops to address her. "Matilda," he nods coolly.

Matilda jumps off the porch like a small child and dashes over to him.

Words fail Sherlock at how much his niece has grown, and he tries his best to express it. "Dear me, you've grown," he murmured, looking her up and down.

Matilda moves forward and gives him a classic Matilda hug, burying her face in his Belstaff like the day that sniper killed the Trunchbull.

Ever so softly, he can hear her mumble into his chest, "I'm making my own Mind Palace."

The sense of pride fills Sherlock's chest again. "Just like me, I see," he observes proudly.

Matilda grabs him by the hand, obviously leading him to the house.

Step by step, they make it to the front porch, Sherlock using every ounce of his will to put one foot in front of the other. He wishes he hadn't taken walking for granted so much, but he knows he can get better...all in good time.

At the door, Matilda stops him, opens the door, yells for her mum and John and an unfamiliar name he hasn't heard: Mary.

A door slams from inside and Sherlock knows that he might face hell from John and Jennifer, and there would be a newcomer to the cast of characters he's familiarized himself with, but he's home and that's all that counts, really.

Matilda turns to him again, and with a gentle smile, watches Sherlock's face pull into an expression of joy on its own accord: Sherlock can feel it and he does nothing to stop the joy spreading through his whole body. Because he's no machine. He's a (sort-of) uncle and he has a niece, and friends. What a word that is: friends! It's a word that Sherlock will be more willing to think about.

Matilda looks at him, joy filling her face too. And she smiles, face glowing like it's lit by a candle, calling out to travelers like Sherlock, lost in the night for so long before being called home.

"Come inside...come inside, and welcome!"

So that was Sherlock's perspective on the last chapter!

Credit to Maia's and my good friend "Jeanne" aka Bubbles, to whom I attribute the final piece of dialogue. It's her line in the play I was just in, and I inadvertently memorized it after weeks of full cast rehearsals...ha.

Thanks again, everyone! Hope you enjoyed! I know I did… :)

Look out for more stories from me!