The Emotional Children

XXXVIII

He didn't answer, and he could see she didn't need him to. His stomach was a bowl of cold porridge, and his head was swimming with nostalgic fluid. He was uselessly trying to silence every voice in his head that told him to express himself, to show her, to beg her...

He let go of her and sat in a chair in the corner of John's room. She softly fell from her place in the window, folding her arms across her chest and following him from a distance.

"I might ask you why you left," he said, his brow furrowing and his chest growing hot with the pains she had left him to bear alone: the unanswered questions, the abrupt departure, the uncertainty of her return, and the doubt of her...affections for him.

"For reasons you will thank me for," she replied.

"Eurus said the same."

"Eurus was right, Mr. Holmes," she said. "I'm not saying I'll never see you again...I'm only saying she was right."

"What has Eurus done? In this elaborate scheme, what has she done? Nothing! She's left me with a bundle of pointless words and thrown me out into the dark to unravel them."

He hadn't wanted to say all this, but the words were coming out of his mouth like vomit. His heart was pushing them up through his throat and there was nothing he could do to keep himself from releasing the stream of unrelenting agitation. He had to go on.

"What has Mycroft done? What have you done, for God's sake? Nothing! And what am I obligated to do? Everything! Why does everyone expect me to—to—to pick up the pieces of a puzzle and put them together? Everyone reminds me of last time. Moriarty wasn't even dead last time. I was too late last time. People died, last time!" he said, crouching forward and refusing to meet her gaze. He exhaled so laboriously that one would think his lungs had been fully emptied and were now shriveled up.

"People will die again if this is left to me!" he went on. "I—I—I am left with the unwanted evidence, the—the—the things no one can understand, the elaborate mysteries that people don't—don't care to investigate, and why? Why is it that I am always the one expected to make sense of it all?" he asked, throwing his hands dramatically in the air as the full realization of what he was up against settled on his weary head. Only one question pounded on his skull.

"What if I can't this time? What if none of this makes sense to me? What if this time—this time—Sherlock Holmes doesn't have the answer? Because I don't—I—I don't!"

His eyes were red and the burden he carried was weighing on his shoulders, pushing him forward and forcing him to stare at his feet. His head was banging madly, the energy slipping out of his grasp, and all he wanted was to sleep: to sleep forever.

But the frustration...oh, that goddamn frustration! It kept his eyes open at two in the morning. It kept him from the peace of sleep and the serenity of slumber. The daunting task kept his mind awake and never allowed him the refreshment of rest. This impossible riddle wouldn't let his brain sit down and stop dancing.

The road to St. Paul's is the road to hell.

The road to St. Paul's is the road to hell.

It was loud, unending, continually impossible. He had been to the cathedral so many times, looking for a room, or a number, or a symbol of something remotely relating to hell. He'd inspected the roads around the cathedral, the shops, the names...it didn't make any sense.

And it was maddening!

Irene's memory was standing over him now, running a delicate hand through his hair and laughing under her breath.