“Mr. Holmes, there is a guest for you at the door. They said they’ve just come from the seaport.”

The butler’s calm voice broke the stillness of the room. He stood poised at the house of Mycroft Holmes’ office—an office more silent than ever these days. Mycroft didn’t look up from the newspapers spread before him like artifacts from a fallen era.

“Let them in.”

He knew who it was. Only one figure would come now—not to disturb, but to mourn. After all, who would come to him these days, for work or save to offer condolences?

Three months had passed since the curtain fell on the grand opera that had reshaped the soul of Britain. The Lord of Crime—William James Moriarty, brother’s greatest adversary, perhaps his greatest equal—had disappeared. And with him, Sherlock Holmes.

The city, once carved up by class and blood, now breathed peace. Albert Moriarty—the eldest had surrendered to jail. With dignity, without resistance, Louis Moriarty had stepped from the shadows of his brothers assuming a quiet role in MI6 under Mycroft’s guidance. No longer a rebel, but a guardian of balance, a keeper of fragile peace and with him, the Moriarties and Holmeses carried the wight of the Empire’s sins in the dark.

The Moriarties had been consumed by their cause and lost their youth and their bond. But the Holmeses—what remained of them? Only Mycroft.

Mycroft had accepted Sherlock’s choice—He knew him better than anyone, that's why he didn't stop him. He had announced Sherlock’s death himself. No body founded. No farewell. Just myth and an Empire that demanded composure. The funeral was dignified, befitting the world’s greatest detective, but beneath the surface, a private grief roared, vast and bottomless.

In the weeks that followed, Mycroft buried himself deeper into his work, avoiding visiting 221B Baker flat. His cigarette count multiplied. He cloaked himself in work until exhaustion claimed him each night. He fortified his solitude with higher walls, colder glances, and the kind of relentless duty that left no room for mourning.

His grief festered beneath layers of decorum, precise diction, and state secrets. It hollowed him slowly. And now, at the door, came a ghost. Not a specter of the dead—but of what remained alive.