My apologies for the extreme delay in posting this final chapter. The Reichenbach Fall thoroughly messed with my writing brain for several weeks. Thanks for your patience.

Content warning: violence, guns, gunshot, murder, blood, gore, reference to suicidal ideation, disturbing imagery

Three years, six continents, and thousands of miles After, he waits. He crouches in the darkness of Moran's hideout, a quiet cabin in the Ardennes, plain shingles, worn wood. For one week, he watched him: finding the silent footpaths, tracking his routine, walking like an unshootable shadow, finally slipping inside when Moran left for his nightly card game.

Alone in the empty house, he waits like Michaelangelo's David, muscles coiled, eyes narrowed, hand clenched around his pistol. He expands his senses out into the night, listening for the minute noises of his prey: rustle of grass on camouflage fatigues / scrape of boots against the ground / size nine feet, strong arches / thin but muscular, six feet tall / unsteady gait, slightly inebriated.

As Moran approaches, he slowly wills his mind to a halt, silencing the grinding of the gears, down to the flow of blood through his heart. The seconds stretch out like spun glass, so thin they threaten to crack around him.

Moran stumbles in as the moon rises, shrugging off his field jacket before flicking on the light. His face is cool and tanned, thin curls tangled around his face, dark eyes soft with drink. "You." A small snort of breath, a spark of surprise.

"Yes." The Browning is heavy in his hands, his back straight and tall as he stands.

"You killed my master." His voice, hard as tempered steel. "You've been destroying me, inch by inch. You killed my friend." The steel slowly turns bright with fire, his eyes sharpening like a blade on a whetstone.

Moran's thin body bristles, muscles rippling under his army surplus t-shirt like a tiger arching its back, making itself bigger. "You clever, cunning, fucking bastard. You took him away from me. I gave up everything for him, you know that? I followed him for years. The only friend I had, the only man worth following." He takes a small step forward, hands clenched at his sides.

His finger twitches around the trigger, tightening a hair's breadth as he watches Moran, the sniper's anger bleeding from his chest. He stares at Moran's hardened, lined face, his eyes flaring like rockets, voice soft even sheathed in steel, his hands worn and steady, and his eyes suddenly transform from burnt umber to a muddy, sapphire blue, his hair shifting from ruddy brown to silver dishwater, three wrinkles appearing in his forehead, his mouth thin and wry—

The soldier's eyes burn red in the white room, voice growing louder. "You bastard, Jim left me behind to find you, to play with you, always you. He left me when it mattered the most to be with you, and I want to make you suffer, you killed him, you killed me—"

—and all of his acrid anger coalesces like a nebula into a white star of hatred, with all the fury and loathing of a dog on fire, howling at the man who set the flames, John's words screaming in his ears—you killed him, you killed me, John's voice like a raging forest fire, John's mouth ready to tear him apart, and John rears up, rushing at him, roaring—

(put the dog out of its misery)

The room explodes with lightning as he pulls the trigger, Moran's mouth shattering apart, bits of grey splattering on the hardwood. The gun thunders into silence, echoing off the walls. There is only the creaking of the floorboards, the scrape of tree branch against the window, the rustle of his clothes against his skin.

He stares down at Moran's body, no longer cloaked in oatmeal and silver. Dappled with scars, he lies pale against the bare floor, blood haloing his head, his open eyes a pair of dusty marbles.

Slowly, a thin tremor shakes up his spine, rising through his limbs until it reaches his hands, still gripping the pistol. His fingers vibrate, first slow, then faster, until they are almost a blur. His knees fold under him, shattering like rickety table legs. The last shred of paper armor dissolves from his flesh down to the bones underneath. The gun falls at his side, his arm limp as a rag doll's, his body like an android with no programming.

Kneeling at the edge of Moran's body, lines of blood roll toward him, pink and grey flotsam floating downstream, staining his knees dark. He sways back and forth, rolling clockwise, then counterclockwise, floating like the unbalanced notes of a violin, the tuning before something beautiful is played.

He stares at his trembling hands, sheets of pain shedding like snakeskin, slipping through his fingers. Without a sound, he begins to cry, thin tears sliding down his cheeks, dropping from his chin and mixing with the blood on the floor, the taste of blood fading from his lips, the cold fire in his heart snuffed out, until the metal walls of his soul are washed clean.

He restarts his own heart, pushing life through his capillaries, pins and needles pricking through his body. His pink, wet lungs swell with breaths as full as the ocean, instead of his old, shallow gasps.

Slowly, he digs down to the bottom of his self, scraping away the layers of broken glass and blood and grime, until he reaches a small strongbox. He opens it, carefully lifting out a single word, unspoken for three years—"John."

The syllable echoes and shimmers, filling the room with light. "John. John. John. John." An open oh of a name in his baritone mouth, swirled and thick like the sweetest of honeys. "Dʒɑ́n." He says his name over and over, the word streaming from his lips like water, easy and liquid, until his voice gives out.

It's finished.
SH

(My real initials. The letters look so strange: a snake and a ladder, side by side. These brittle, broken bird's legs, these twigs holding up my heart. When did they become like cotton or clay?)

Are you injured?
M

(I have burned all the kindling now. There is nothing left for me, now that they are all dead. Will you still want me like this, John? Hollowed out, bones cracking from weariness, muscles thrown on the fire like cordwood? I don't remember how to be human anymore. The beast has eaten me alive.)

No.

(I want to go home. Place. Land. Flat. Residence. Hearth. Lodgings. You have lodged yourself in my heart like a knife I can't remove without killing myself. Abode. Domicile. House. Nest. Let me curl up inside your wool wrappings and earthy tea bags. Dwelling. Stay. Remains. Cremains. Re-mains.)

A recovery team will be there in two hours. I will accompany them. Remain at your present position.

(I used to run beside you, through the moonlight. You used to like to watch us run. Your body warm next to mine, your breath like sweet almonds, your eyes sparkling like mint and lemons. I think it was called joy.)

Understood. John?

(I should stay away. It would be better. I would be dead and nothing would change and you would remember all of me the way you needed to, and I would never have to reveal this shame to you like a tattoo carved across my chest. You would never see the scars the monster left, bites in the shape of my own teeth.)

He is alive.

(I don't deserve to remember you, after everything I've done. But I've waited so long. So long.)

Tell me everything.

The brothers sit in Moran's kitchen, at a hardwood table gouged and pitted with age. Mycroft's team flurries around them, removing Moran's body, tearing into every nook and cranny to find any last vestiges of useful information, like vultures stripping a carcass clean.

He watches Mycroft, suited and sharp, marking the changes of age: traces of new wrinkles around his lips, a smattering of grey hairs near his temple. For a moment, he is envious of his brother's internal organs, his eyes that watched over John, his mouth that spoke to John After, his eardrum that felt John's voice against it. He wants to cut them from his brother's body and eat them, taste the memories of John he could not have.

On the table between them sits a thick accordion file, the edge marked with a plain, white label and black, block letters: J.H.W. Silently, Mycroft slides the file across to him, his hands unblemished and uncalloused. A minute tremor slips through his fingers as he draws his hands back.

His long, pale fingers undo the clasp, tripping over the thin thread. He opens the file, sheaves of glossy, grainy, black-and-white CCTV photos spilling out over his gaunt hands:

John, one year After, thinner than a lathe, a withered twig threatening to crack in half. John, leaden bags under his eyes, weighing down his whole face, wrinkles deep enough to carry all the world's sorrow. John, standing with Stamford at Bart's, staring up at the sharp, narrow edge of the building as if he wanted to slice his wrists upon it.

John, two years After, his trembling hand gripping his sterile, silver cane, the handle worn down with age. John, his all-grey hair, no sun-dappled warmth, his whole body washed out as if rinsed again and again in his tears. John, his clothes pulled tight around his taut body, threadbare at the cuffs and collars, the trace of shaving foam under his ear.

John, three years After, his body stiff and rickety and creaking like a rusted tin man in need of oil. John, hobbling out of his beige, tiny bedsit, the front door plain and brown instead of the glossy darkness of Baker Street. John, his hands full of shopping, the bag too light, only soup and tea and honey inside, not enough food to sustain a man who wants to live.

John alone. John alone. John alone.

The world narrows down to the furious pulse of his heart, exploding suddenly against his chest. His brain wrenches, fractures apart into jagged shards, every bone in his body breaking at once. The bright, thick, red pain smashes his face apart, three years' worth of punches hitting him in a single blow.

He hears the distant, dark whir of Mycroft's voice: did all I could do / under my surveillance / he rejected my help / impossible to reveal the truth. The letters fall to gibberish in his ears.

The seething, sad fury centers in his gut, panic throwing itself against his ribs, screaming like a wild banshee, his mind spinning into a fever pitch:

(he is the one with the strong roots for both of us, I'm just the meretricious leaves, I cut my roots away, but I was the one who was supposed to wither and die, not him, he is stronger than I could possibly imagine, what poison did I put in his soil, what did I do wrong, what happened, he couldn't live without you, you idiot, you saw but you did not observe, you pushed him off the roof yourself and he's falling and hasn't hit bottom yet, he's been falling for years and you could have caught him all this time but your hands were too busy killing to catch him, how can I go back to the man I've killed, how could he possibly forgive me—)

The bitter taste of bile rolls at the back of his throat, shivers coating his skin in a fine sheen of ice. Tears slip into the sides of his eyes, shattering his fragile irises, slicing down his face. He covers his twisted mouth with his sleeve, pressing back a scraping scream. An almost-whine tears from him, something like a choke, a breath of air trapped at the bottom of his lungs for three years, stale and festering, the force of it cracking his body apart, the air filled with the sharpness of ozone after lightning striking the earth. Fire sparks through his veins, the golden threads of his heart pulling against every piece of his body: I can't live without you anymore it's all done John I'm coming—

Mind spinning in circles, he staggers up from the table and rushes out into the night, stumbling through the underbrush, his booted feet slipping on patches of wet moss and thick mud. The moon is an ashen smudge in the sky, bruised with clouds, slipping over and under the stars. The trees are jagged shadows, their bark like razor blades.

He hears Mycroft shouting after him into the darkness. His breath drops from him like heavy stones, the sound amplified by the silence and flung out into the woods. A gangly tree root snags his foot, wrenching his right ankle, and he falls, all of his weight landing soundly on his shoulder as he bites down a cry so hard he nearly splits his lip, his hands torn open on the rough rocks.

The red pain shoots through him like Morse code, dashes and dots darting from his ankle to his shoulder to his palms, studded with mud and gravel. He tries to stand, pushing his wounded hands against the rocks, but his ankle buckles underneath him, ligaments tearing in a double helix of pain.

Shuddering from shock, he kneels and vomits into the grass, bringing up nothing but spit and the last vestiges of the tea he drank two days ago. He collapses in the rotting dark, his mouth full of the taste of decay, his body growing cold. Ants and slugs emerge from their disturbed holes, burrowing underneath him and leaving wet trails on his skin.

His body quivers, taut neck craning toward the sky. The moon is framed like a jewel between the broken trees, the branches clawing at the disc of dishwater light. Tears run over his gaunt cheekbones into his ears, muffling the sounds of the forest.

The wind, cool and sweet against his skin, rustles through the trees, an echo of an echo of a voice caressing his ear, calling him by a name he has almost forgotten.

sherlock. come back. just for me. please.

His limbs sink deeper into the earth, his eyes glazed over with moonlight, blown wide and still, as he whispers into the night.

"John. Please. Wait for me."

Slowly, he crawls out of the earth and rises to his feet, his clothes smudged with dirt, errant leaves stuck in his black hair. He staggers through the pain, grabbing onto trees as he limps through the dark, leaving soft smudges of blood on the trunks, glowing crimson in the starlight, the echo of John's hand in his as he runs for their lives.

AN: Thanks to the amazing Mirith Griffin for her beta critique and unflagging support; the brilliant Kathrina (BehindTintedGlass) for graciously letting me explore her Moran-morphing-into-John idea, and for the language for parts of Moran's dialogue; and BehindTintedGlass, Supernining, lappeldu-vide, and bfnp on their songs of fear and desperation, the soundtrack to several parts of this chapter. Thanks also to my friends on Tumblr who sent their positive writing vibes as I wrestled with, as SongstersMiscellany called it, my kraken!chapter.

And, thanks to all of you for reading, commenting, recommending, bookmarking, and being such wonderful, patient readers. If you've been holding off on commenting until this last chapter, please don't hesitate to share your thoughts—I'd love to hear what you think! This story will continue in Sherlock and John's reunion story, After Love (coming soon).

The "like a tattoo" line references the Sade song of the same name. The title references a line from Florence + the Machine's "Howl" (thanks to Kathrina for this song). Some of Moran's dialogue is drawn from lines from ACD's The Empty House, as well as an unpublished fic co-written with BehindTintedGlass. The phonetic spelling of John's name is a nod to Mirith Griffin's amazing fic Control, Alt, Delete. The contents of John's shopping bag references MarieLikesToDraw's beautiful Reichenbach reunion painting, "3 years.", and her description of John's shopping ("milk, honey, tea, and noodle soup").