Valiant {Book Two of the Incandescent Trilogy}

Chapter One: So It Begins

The Watson siblings, however, did agree on one other point.

None of it seemed real.

Amelia cleared her throat, and began again. "Hey, Sherlock." she repeated. "It's been a while hasn't it?"

As usual, she didn't get a reply; the only response was the unnerving silence of the graveyard, the air so grim that not even the birds dared to sing. The wind barely rustled the leaves, and when it did, it sounded like the whispers of the graveyard's inhabitants, murmuring about the memory of life, and of the ones they had left behind.

The youngest of the Watson children ducked her head down, hair hiding her face. "I think," she said to Sherlock's grave, wetting her lips. "That no matter how much it pains me, I've got to move on. So, I've uh..."

She could hear somebody crying. She glanced back over her shoulder to see a family of three, a woman, and her two daughters, sobbing over a freshly dug grave. Amelia winced visibly, and looked away.

"So, I've started looking round again." Amelia finished. "And-and I know I'm not going to meet someone like you ever again, cause God, I don't think the world could handle two of you." She laughed, voice shaking. "And you know that I will never forget you, but I can't become a spinster, right? That isn't what you'd have wanted." Amelia realised she was crying again. She thought they had all dried up by now. "I just... I just don't know if I can do this, Sher. Please, I need you right now. Just please."

A twig snapped, echoing in the almost-silence. Amelia heart leapt, and took her feet with it, and she violently spun around, almost expecting Sherlock to be standing there, with his Belstaff around his shoulders, and his hands in his pockets with his signature smirk on his lips.

"Don't be absurd," he would say, "I never left. If you were clever enough you'd know that I'd never leave you."

But instead, Amelia was left with empty air, no sign of Sherlock in sight. She rubbed at the silvery lines on her arm. "You idiot." Amelia muttered to herself as she turned back to the grave. "He's dead. You saw him being buried."

Her words didn't keep stop her from hoping, though.

"Right," Amelia laughed again. It sounded hollow, and she knew she wasn't convincing anyone, much less herself. "So, that's that, then. It's time for me to move on again. Or maybe I'll move to a small little village, and become an old hag, tending to bees." She laughed again, and this time, it didn't sound forced. "And maybe I'll tell the village children stories of when I solved crimes with the great Sherlock Holmes, yeah?"

She touched the top of his gravestone, giving it a small pat-she wasn't sure if it was meant to reassure herself, or to console what was left of the consulting detective. Then, with a heavy sigh, she turned, and walked away, but as she reached the gates of the graveyard, she could've sworn that she heard someone call her name.

And that person, sounded very much like Sherlock Holmes.

♠

Amelia ran her finger around the rim of her glass, a laugh bubbling up from somewhere deep within her stomach. Somehow, Amelia had found herself brushing her hair back in a tight up do, dressing up in a form-fitting black dress, with a pair of deadly black stilettos to match-the shoe kind, although she did have a knife in her purse, just in case.

After all, Amelia Laura Watson-Holmes was on a date.

Molly had set her friend up with someone from university, who she assured Amelia that she had known for several years, and would not be the next Moriarty. Amelia had laughed awkwardly in response, much to the concern of the doctor of St. Bart's Hospital.