A light hand on his head, brushing back his hair very gently, the faintest touch of fingertips only.

"Mum?" Sherlock asked, his voice thick with sleep and disbelief.

"Hello, darling," she said, and a pair of warm lips pressed gently on his forehead for a moment.

"What are you doing here?"

It was dark and he couldn't see her, but that didn't seem important or strange. He was on the sofa, had been sleeping. It was dark because it was night, of course. Such early nights in the winter.

Winter?

Wasn't it summer?

He shook that off – irrelevant.

The blankets were all tangled about his legs and ankles and his arms were cold, but he wasn't uncomfortable. Her fingers brushed his hair off his forehead again, carefully, lovingly, and he felt suddenly safe and an odd, incomprehensible feeling that he'd been upset about something recently, something about her, for no reason.

He relaxed, because there were no reasons to be upset, upset was for Mycroft. He earned it so much more.

"I came to visit," she said.

"But why?"

She didn't reply, leaning over again in the darkness, he could hear the faint rustling of her clothing, feel her breath on his skin. She kissed him again, lightly, on the forehead, and Sherlock closed his eyes and smiled.

He awoke suddenly, sharply, paralyzed, half caught in the covers, half caught in John's arms, and there was a moment of imbalance that he fought to understand but also to deny, eyes wide in the darkness, barely making out John's form next to him, feeling the warmth of his husband's body next to him, but also feeling – so very clearly – the lingering but fading feeling of his mother's lips on his forehead.

No, Sherlock thought. No.

He managed a breath, nearly a gasp, then felt as though someone had punched him in the stomach and curled up against the sensation, screwing his eyes shut, trying to fight the shock, the adrenalin, the twisting in his lungs and chest that left him fighting for air, tense and rigid, trying not to move or breathe too hard, too fast, so as not to wake John, biting his lip against the scream that built in his mind, that demanded release from his throat.

She had been right there.

It had been a dream.

He balled a hand into a fist in one of the pillows, trying to displace the shock, the anger, the hurt, the confusion, the instinct to do something, anything, to shout, to curse, to fling something, because it would wake John and accomplish nothing, nothing.

It wasn't real, he told himself. Wasn't real.

He could still feel her lips on his forehead, her hand brushing his hair.

Her voice, in the darkness.

No, please stop.

He lay still, forcibly still, painfully still, barely daring to breathe, sucking in oxygen through clenched teeth, shallow breaths only, listening, listening hard to hear if he'd woken John, but his husband's breathing was deep and slow, so his heartbeat must be too, unlike Sherlock's, which was fast, too fast, making it hurt, hard to breathe, because it was taking up too much room in his chest, pressing on his lungs, suffocating him.

He managed to dislodge himself from John with only the faintest of sleepy protests while the doctor rolled onto his back with a sigh and a puff of pillows, and went into the living room, in the darkness, the lights from the city outside enough, just enough, to see by, and he knew the flat by heart, where all of his possessions were, but not his violin, no, although its ghost still lay on the coffee table when he didn't think about it, and he wished he could go back in time and do it all over again, only harder, more, that he could take the hammer to everything, to the memories, to the dreams, to force it all to leave him alone.

Stop it, stop it, he told himself. This is pointless.

He scrubbed the heel of his hand against his forehead until it hurt, then didn't stop, trying to erase the remembered sensation, but it was in his mind, not on his skin, his mind that he had trained so well to obey him and now wouldn't, that ran amok with dreams he didn't want, that would give him no peace, even when he slept for god's sake and he didn't believe in any god, so why was he appealing to it? What was he appealing to? There was nothing, nothing out there, only what had happened, which was done, over with, could not be changed and he wondered what sort of force was needed to break a granite slab in a cemetery in Buckinghamshire and thought a sledge hammer but could he wield it, was he strong enough?

No, not strong enough. Not strong enough to go and not strong enough to carry through even if he made it there.

He dropped his head, pressing his hands against the back of his neck, digging his fingers into his skin, which felt good, good, strands of his hair catching between his fingers, pulling lightly.

Stop it, this is nonsense. She's dead.

He stood fast, tilting his head back, covering his face with his hands, biting his lip against a cry, a curse, so as not to wake John. He paced, raking his fingers through his hair, once, a second time, again and again until the motion started bothering him, reminding him of the dream and he glared at the coffee table, where the violin had been destroyed, died, and felt like kicking it, but he was barefoot and would only hurt himself and then have to wake John.

You need to stop! he told himself forcefully, growling, a low sound that wouldn't disturb the doctor, who was used to Sherlock's nocturnal habits, working, although working was so hard, useless now, and what about that stupid woman who had the gall to kill her own mother, as if it didn't matter, and Sherlock wanted to go down to the cells to yell at her, to ask her what she'd been thinking, but no, she hadn't been thinking, because people didn't think, it was always the problem and if he could just stop thinking now, there could be some silence, some blessed silence and he could escape it, only for a moment.

She's dead, dead, he argued with himself. That is silence. Take it.

Dead, yes, and it wasn't so hard a word, four letters, so compact, used all the time.

"John, my phone's dead. Where's my charger?"

"John, aren't you watering the plants? This one's nearly dead."

"John, these batteries are shot. Where do you keep the dead ones? And the new ones?"

Ah yes, dead for things. So easy to say. No finality there when batteries could be replaced, recharged, and new plants could be purchased without any consideration because who cared about plants, they felt nothing and their deaths were unremarkable at best.

And not dead.

There were people, he had no idea how many, who were not dead because of Sibyl. Lungs, heart, kidneys, liver, all of it, any of it that could be used and now people were walking about out there not dead because she was dead.

He was in the kitchen, leaning against the fridge, cold metal on his forehead, eyes screwed shut, not crying, no, he was not going to cry, not going to give into it, that was childish, unnecessary, pointless, ridiculous.

Why? he wanted to scream, pressing an open palm against the metal, the vibration from the motor humming against his skin. Why why why? Why did she have to die? Why her? Why this? Why didn't he find her sooner? Where was he? Why was he never home, why wasn't he home that day, why was she alone in the bedroom, where was he, where were the staff, why? Why didn't they resuscitate her, why didn't they try? Why didn't it work?

He sucked in a breath, closing his head into a fist and pressing it against his temple. Then he was pushing himself away from the fridge, out of the kitchen, out of the flat, on the steps, quietly without thinking, because of John, because of Mrs. Hudson, but it wasn't cold, even though he was in his pyjamas and bare feet and suddenly missed the additional warmth from John's body and wanted to go back upstairs but he was sitting on one of the bottom steps now and didn't want to move, either. He curled up, unaware that it was uncomfortable.

He had his phone.

Odd. But no, he'd left it on the kitchen counter, because Lestrade kept bloody calling to see if he was all right, of course he was all right, of course he wasn't all right, it was such a stupid question, but now he had it and was not about to call the DI, who thankfully wasn't calling him in the middle of the night, at least not right now. He would again, Sherlock knew. And Sherlock would ignore it, for as long as it took, because he didn't need the questions, he needed the cases, but not like the case he'd just had and what had that woman been thinking anyway? Who cared about the money, who cared? It was not worth killing for. Not worth dying for.

He had his phone unlocked and was calling a number before he realized he was doing so, and didn't want to, but didn't want to stop, either, because he doubted it would give him any comfort, but maybe that was fine right now, too.

"Sherlock?"

"Mycroft."

"Are you all right?"

"Are you?"

Silence on the other end. Sherlock shifted, drawing his legs up, the edge of the step pressing into his back, uncomfortable, but he scarcely cared. He closed his eyes.

"You're in Edinburgh."

More silence, for a moment.

"Yes."

"You're always quieter on the phone there, especially at night, because you're not working and you don't want to disturb Angela or David."

No response, but none was needed. He was right.

"And you're on the stairs. You're not being quiet, so you're not worried about waking John, so you're not in the flat."

Sherlock didn't bother to reply. His brother was right, too.

He said nothing, and nor did Mycroft, but it seemed not at all like their normal silences, impatience meeting irritation, trying to dance around one another, Mycroft trying to get something done, Sherlock trying to avoid doing something for him.

This was shared. John didn't understand, not really. Not the same way. Mycroft didn't understand, either, but almost. They'd lost the same thing. Not lost, no. That presumed the possibility of finding. Not misplaced like a set of keys. Not lost through inattention, dropped or forgotten for someone else to discover.

Dead.

He scrubbed at his face again, keeping a sigh to himself, shifting, leaning against the wall, right shoulder pressing into the wood, resting his head against the hard surface, just beneath the banister, holding the phone to his left ear.

Silence.

For once, silence. This was what he wanted, this silence, without having to say anything, without having to fight to keep things from being said, quelling the anger, loosening the hold on the lungs, for now, he knew it was just for now, and it would come back but it didn't matter right now and he was absurdly grateful that he could breathe, as though this were some sort of miraculous thing, not something he did all of the time without thinking, instinctively, his body meeting the needs it required to keep itself going.

To stay alive.

He squeezed his eyes shut hard and pushed that thought away.

There was nothing to say, why talk uselessly about it, talk endlessly, try to resolve something that had no resolution because it was already over, complete, unchanging? He was glad Mycroft was in Edinburgh, not in London, no need to see him, to have one of the ubiquitous black cars come around, and he was not being carted off in his pyjamas to meet with his brother anyway. The distance was better, it made it possible to talk without talking at all, made it possible to want this contact with his brother, because he could leave it, walk away without moving, whenever he chose.

They stayed in silence on the line until Sherlock fell asleep, slumped on the stairs, phone slipping from the loosening grasp of his fingers, clattering gently onto the step below him, and Mycroft rang off and called another number and John came down a few minutes later, all familiar warmth and touch and smell, to get him.