"We need to make a stop," Sherlock told his brother as they drove away from 221B.

Mycroft nodded. "I thought you might want to. Have you been there since—"

"No." Sherlock looked away, out the window.

Fingering the plastic bag and syringe in his pocket, Mycroft pursed his thin lips. "I thought not."

The two brothers rode in perfect silence the rest of the way to their destination, driven by one of Mycroft's many pad-footed, closed-mouth minions. When the sedan rolled to a smooth stop, Sherlock unfastened his seat belt and opened the door. He looked back at his brother.

"Mycroft—"

The elder Holmes held up a hand. "I'll wait here."

Sherlock nodded and shut the door, grateful for the privacy.

The cemetery was a quiet place, lush with recent rain and smelling faintly of the roses that grew in hedges down the sides of the path. Sherlock found himself strolling more than striding as he walked down the white gravel trail, savoring the peace of the place's silence. It was a different silence than that of their—his—flat.

Off to the left, he spotted the grave and stepped off the path and onto the thick lawn. The ground was soft and springy under his feet—his analytical mind offered up several theories as to why, exactly, old cemeteries had such good lawns, but he nudged those thoughts out of the way as he reached his destination.

He stopped, looking down at the small, easily-overlooked grave marker. It was brown stone, laying flush with the ground, with a simple brass plate reflecting the sunlight.

Captain John Hamish Watson, it read in plain block letters. Four words, two dates, and a dash in between—nothing else. No inscription proclaiming him Soldier, Doctor, Brother, Friend or offering shallow hope with a trite Safely Home. Sherlock could have asked Harry to let him include some sort of memorial—John Watson: Brilliant, Amazing, Fantastic, or John Watson: Blogger, or John Watson: Conductor of Light, or even John Watson: Friend.

But that would have been sentiment.

Then again, so was coming here.

With a glance around to make certain he was unobserved and alone, Sherlock thrust his hands deep into his coat pockets and sighed. He let his head hang down, but kept his eyes on the small headstone.

"I, ah…" he cleared his throat. "This is idiotic and unrealistic and I realize that, but I read an article that suggested…Anyway."

This was stupid. He was talking to a dead man—not even to a dead man, but to the rock that sat above the dead man's grave. But he had come this far, and Sherlock Holmes was never one to back down. He tried again, his voice low but clear.

"I told you once, John, that I wasn't a hero. I'm not a hero. I never wanted to be a hero, and you tried to make me into one anyway. But you were wrong." He glanced up at the sky, bright blue and clear above his head. "You were the real hero, John. I don't know why you did what you did, but I'm sure there was a reason. And painting you a suicidal killer contradicts all other evidence."

A bird flew into the branches of the ancient oak tree that stood over John's grave, and chirruped quizzically at Sherlock. He blinked slowly, and addressed his words to the small creature, as if it could somehow understand in John's place. "You were the best man—the best soldier, the best doctor, the best…The best friend I have ever known, and I will never believe that your friendship was a lie."

His shoulders slumped, with either relief or exhaustion or dejection or a combination of the three.

"I promise you this, John," he continued, biting out the words. "I will find Moriarty, and I will destroy him. After that…" he sighed. "I don't know."

He stood, silent for a moment, and then turned and started to walk away. But with a sudden about-face, he stabbed a finger imperiously at the gravestone and said, in a voice a bit louder, perhaps, than a truly emotionless man would have, "Just one more thing John—one more thing. Stop—stop this whole thing. Don't be dead. You always managed to surprise me, even when I thought I knew what to expect." He drew in a breath, and let it out in a long sigh.

"Surprise me one more time."

And he walked away. Behind him, the bird hopped to a lower branch, cocked it head, and darted away, a flash of feathers and bright eyes in the blue sky overhead. The dappled sunlight shone down through the leaves of the oak onto the brass nameplate that marked the final resting place of John H. Watson.

.

.

"If I could move," said a voice brimming with controlled venom, "I would track down your boss and decapitate him with his own umbrella."

There was no one in the room with him, but John knew that someone was keeping watch from the other side of the "mirror" that hung on the wall. He lay, swathed in bandages and with one leg suspended from above in a thick white cast, practically tied to the hospital bed with IVs and monitors strapped to every inch of his body. He had missed an entire two months of his own life, apparently, kept in a drug-induced comatose state until the internal injuries he had sustained healed. When he woke, he was here. The room didn't look like a hospital room—it looked like a private bedroom. Where, he had no idea—there were no windows.

The only view of the outside world he possessed was the large television mounted on the wall across from his bed. He stared up at the screen, blinking back tears that were part meds, part anger, part pain, and part relief. He had heard Sherlock's entire speech, fed through a hidden camera and mic in the tree above his "grave".

"He should know," John continued, shifting his gaze to stare at the mirror. If looks could kill…

The pine-colored door slid open and Mycroft's pretty assistant glided in, a chart in her hand. She ignored him, examining the various beeping bits of machinery hooked up to his aching body.

"Sherlock should know," John repeated. "You're lying to him."

She shook her head without looking up. "If Sherlock knew—if anyone else knew—Moriarty would know. And that would put Sherlock Holmes and the entirety of London at risk."

John shifted under the pale-yellow sheets, muttering curses under his breath. "You knew he was going to do all this," he accused. "Your boss—Mycroft. He knew."

She shrugged. "Of course we did. We watch men like Jim Moriarty."

"And you let it happen anyway."

"Yes."

That was all. No excuses, no explanations, no reasons. Just a simple affirmation.

He clenched his fist, then slowly and deliberately, finger by finger, relaxed it. "How," he asked, his voice quieter, "How am I alive?"

For the first time, she looked up at him, and shot him one of those meaningless smiles she seemed to have perfected. "We aren't completely inhuman, Doctor Watson. Long-term goals or no, we wouldn't have let him murder you."

"Great, that explains you—but I mean the logistics. I don't remember anything after pushing the button. What happened?"

She set the clipboard on top of one of the machines. "We infiltrated Moriarty's supply lines."

"You mean, you provided…"

"The "bomb" he thought he was strapping to you was actually cleverly disguised armor. Only for the torso, unfortunately, but we hoped for the best."

"But the mill…it really did blow up."

"Yes. We planted our own explosives, strategically placed around the building to make it seem as if, indeed, his plan had worked. A suitable corpse was procured to "prove" your death, and…" She shrugged. "Here we are."

He had worked out part of the explanation himself, actually. It was obvious that the vest strapped to his chest hadn't detonated—no one survived that. "Moriarty wanted Sherlock destroyed," he mused, half to himself. "He was using me—and you were using him."

She nodded, and examined her fingernails critically. "We couldn't let him launch an attack on the Underground, but we had to keep him from actually killing you. So we stacked the deck in our favor and made everyone happy—we gave him the perfect ammunition for his scheme," she said. "At any rate, we did the best we could. You're alive, aren't you?"

John let his eyes travel over his white-swathed limbs to the tubes dripping precious liquids into his bloodstream and higher still to the now-empty view of his own grave. Sherlock was long out of sight. John wondered when—if ever—he would see his friend again.

"Alive," he sighed. "Yeah…I guess I am."

.

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FIN.

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A/N: Well, folks, this is the end. Well, sort of. As I promised, I'll be working on some oneshots showcasing the in-between lives of John and Sherlock, which will come up in "real time" until the BBC folks give me a reunion to reflect. :) The oneshots will be collectively titled "Time of Echoes" and will probably start posting (not in a particularly regular fashion) sometime in the next week. Do tell me what you think of this, and I hope "Echoes" turns out to be as fun as "Dark Mirror" has been.

Thanks to everyone who followed and/or reviewed. Keep Believing!

PS: My current favorite person, My-Lonely-Angel on DeviantArt, has made an absolutely amazing piece of fanart for this story. You can find it here: my-lonely-angel. deviantart #/ d5gvled. And check out her other stuff too - she's pretty amazing. :)