Epilogue: There are no endings, only new beginnings

They were still touching.

Afterwards they lay still on the floor in a tangle of cooling limbs, with a blanked John had pulled over them; bodies sated and minds at rest. John traced a finger slowly down Sherlock's chest; he followed all the little lines telling of great adventures and dire dangers. He could not help but to feel some trepidation, where would this take them? Could they handle it? For all his bold statements he feared that this would not be easy, but then things worth something seldom were.

Sherlock laid his hand over John's stilling it, "Will you tell me what happened?" The question was simple and undemanding, it was only a question and John was free to answer in whatever way he wanted.

He hesitated. It would be so easy to just be quiet, to not say anything; Sherlock wouldn't blame him. It would be wrong though, he wanted the other man to know he trusted him as much as Sherlock had faith in him and his troubled past.

He took a deep breath; he had known he needed to tell this story eventually; he just whished that it would be a million years into the distant future when the sun had turned into a brilliant giant on the brink of consuming the earth.

He tried to start,

"We were out on patrol, just a normal round; looking at one of these road building projects. One of those things that seemed to work fine without us. The Afghani built roads; found something that the community needed and they made it happen. Women carried rocks side by side with men. It was like one of those dream projects you tell your superiors about, and they tell the media for publicity."

John turned his head over and buried his nose in Sherlock's hair, closing his eyes for a second smelling sweat and soap and behind it that smell which was Sherlock's and only his. This was hard, but it was too late now, he had started and so had to finish, "I am sorry about how the war turned out. It was never meant to be like that. We would go in, save the day and get out and afterwards peace and happiness would swoop down on them as soon as the Talibans were gone. That was the plan. It seemed so easy on paper you know."

"Anyway I am stalling, me and Peter was out together on this scouting mission. Just in case anyone needed medical attention. What we found was..."

John looked at Sherlock, eyes almost begging for forgiveness, not that Sherlock could give it, or anyone really. Sherlock didn't offer it, far too clever for his own good John thought, this was just something he had to live with.

"...it was so much more, but at the time it was just one of those things. Things you see in war which when you are in it you just live through, because live through it is all you can do. These things which you have no control over happen to you and then you move on, you talk about the latest film and your family, because you have to continue living."

"The people living there have a thousand year old history, they had seen conquering armies come and go from Alexander the Great to Genghis Khan; everybody wanted a piece of that land. We are just one out of many in their lived experience, since the seventies they have been in constant war, they have seen the Russians, the Talibans and now us, A collaboration of so many nations that is impossible to know who is who."

"It was not us, it was never us after all, I mean media love to portray us as the heroes. But I never felt like a hero. We were just doing what we were told. I walked behind, patching people up. Children and adults alike, men and women, anyone hurt. All so they could go out and get shoot at again. Like a bad story stuck in a loop."

John was lost to his memory, face warm from the sun, eyes squinting in the glaring light.

"We found a grave; they had stumbled upon it during their road building. It was old but not so old that there were not people who should remember it. They tried to hide it, distract us so we would not find it, it was of an era long past anyway. They are practical in that way, maybe war made them like that, and who would it serve to bring these things up again. The people are already dead and nothing can bring them back."

"It was this large hole in the ground and it seemed unreal, I thought we were seeing things that we had all gotten sunstroke. The air was so dry, and it is such an unforgiving landscape, so hot. The air I sometimes dream about, it is so warm but you can't sweat when it is that arid. The feeling is very special, the dryness really gets to you, especially if you are from England where it always rain. It is hard to understand that rain can be such a blessing."

"The air hurts your membranes and dehydration was always a palpable risk. It was real though, the truest thing I ever saw. As I said, they tried to stop us, getting us away; they didn't want us to mess with this. Because this was their history, not ours."

"They wouldn't talk; I think they knew who had done it. But they are people trying to make life work. At some point when you have seen enough you just want to forget and move on. It doesn't matter if it was the Russians doing it or the Russians suffering, people had died."

He leaned his head back and closed his eyes, and Sherlock could see tears forming at the edges.

"Anyway, Peter grew absolutely rabid, the young officer in charge didn't know what to do, nothing in his training had prepared him for this, it was all madness. I tried to stop Peter but he wrestled the gun from one of the soldiers, none of us was prepared for it, and he shoot one of the Afghani men. He died instantly, nothing I could have done."

John saw the blood, as black as the insides of eyelids pooling out and seeping into the hard ground, darkening the sand, making it shine like obsidian.

"Peter calmed down after that, I think he realised what he had done. We returned to base and reported to our superiors. They were busy with more important things off course so Peter was sent home, the young officer relocated and the dead man's family compensated," he laughed bitterly, "We were told that it would be best not to mention this unfortunate affair again, after all it had nothing to do with us."

John quieted, he had suddenly put words to one of the many things which had hunted him for months, experiences that he still did not know what to do with or how to handle. Things slowly eating him up from the inside out.

Sherlock for once didn't know what to say, there were few things that mounted up to this.

He let his arms enclose John, putting his head in the nape of his neck breathing in the smell of John.

"I'm sorry for you, that you had to see that."

John laughed then, a contagious laugh of happiness that rippled through his entire body. Tension he had not known he had been carrying fell away and replacing it was something else, something new. What it was only time could tell.

-The End-

And so it ends, I hope you all enjoyed it. Many thanks to all of you following the story, reviewing and subscribing. Without you it would not exist and I am forever in your debt!

Much love to you all,

Naic