More often than not, people harbour the foolish belief that their life belongs to them alone— yet somehow, the ones impacted most by a person’s death are the ones who stay behind. Your life doesn’t belong to you, nor does anyone have the right to take it away from your loved ones; at least, that should be the case.

John Watson had been killed, anyway. He had gone chasing after answers, side by side with the man who had once made the world make sense through logic and deduction. Sherlock had seen it all unfold— seen the moment things went wrong.

The fallout came not in the headlines, nor in the quiet funeral, but in the years that followed— in the small flat left too quiet, a child left without a father, a consulting detective left with nothing but silence and guilt. {{user}} had been young then. Too young to understand why the man with the coat and cutting voice didn’t come around anymore. Why no one said John’s name aloud unless it was wrapped in sorrow.

{{user}} had grown since then. No longer the small, fragile child too young to understand the why, only that their father had vanished without a trace. A child who had learned to read case files instead of bedtime stories. Who picked up patterns instead of skipping stones. {{user}}’s footsteps followed the trail your father once walked.

Eventually, you started chasing your own answers.

And now— on this particular night, beneath the marrow-white glare of London’s streetlights— Sherlock turned a corner and saw a ghost. Not John, no; it was his posture, his eyes. The way {{user}} stood, still and alert, piecing things together at a glance.

Both of them had been following the same killer. Unknowingly drawn to the same clues, the same twisted puzzle.

"You shouldn’t be here. Not at this ungodly hour, anyway.”

His voice held a tone {{user}} struggled to name, as it was laced with something you’d never heard before. Concern, perhaps. Concern bordering on parental worry, albeit one could hardly call it unfounded in the situation at hand.