(no subject)
Title: “A More Glorious Dawn”
Characters: Sherlock/Lestrade, John Watson, Sally Donovan, Mycroft Holmes
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Word Count: c. 4,100
Spoilers: through “Reichenbach”
Warnings: Language, Mentions of Suicide; Angst; Grief
Betas: sidneysussex and canonisrelative
Summary: They found each other, and it was wonderful.
Notes: This story can be read as a standalone post-TRF fic, but it operates in the “All Right” ‘verse and directly follows “What You Leave Behind.” And, with this fic, I am bringing this ‘verse to a close for the time being. Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to read these stories. It's meant a lot.
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“A still more glorious dawn awaits - not a sunrise, but a galaxy rise.” - Carl Sagan
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In the future, Lestrade will wish he could say that there was something particular about that morning that spoke to the dark days to come. Something tremendous, like a vicious storm - anything that would have given him a blatant warning.
But he wakes to clear skies and a warm breeze filtering in through his window, which hints at the beginnings of a perfect June day. It’s several minutes after his alarm has gone off and he’s woken with a slight headache, but those are minor irritations. He stumbles through his routine and forgets his coffee; traffic is light, however, and he arrives early at the Yard.
The repercussions from yesterday’s failed arrest of Sherlock and John dog him throughout the morning, and things are tense between Lestrade and his team. He spends the beginning of his shift fielding calls from the higher-ups, and he taps the fingers of his left hand restlessly against his desk as irritated voices grate on his already-frayed nerves. It’s then that Lestrade realizes, in the absence of the usual click-click that accompanies this nervous tic of his, that he’s forgotten his ring.
----
He texts Sherlock later, because it’s Thursday and even with his career possibly going up in flames and the detective’s reputation sinking faster than either of them could have predicted, he still has Them.
Still on for dinner tonight?
Sherlock’s response is uncharacteristically slow. He must realize that dinner isn’t going to just be dinner this week and they’ll need to discuss the implications of his escaping arrest.
Will be late.
----
Lestrade curses under his breath when Donovan raps unexpectedly on his door late that morning. He’s not ready for another crisis, and he knows from the urgency of her knock that whatever news she is bringing him can’t be good.
“Come,” he calls, and she enters the room. She takes the time to close the door behind her, which is unusual, and her mobile is clutched in one hand. Her face is tight with apprehension when she finally looks at him. “What is it?”
“I’ve just had a call from John Watson,” she says. Her voice breaks on the last word.
“Oh?” Lestrade furrows his brow, weary exasperation taking hold. “Don’t suppose he and Sherlock are ready to turn themselves in?”
“Not exactly.” Donovan taps the mobile against her palm, and tiny lines of strain fan out from the corners of her eyes. “Sir, he wanted me to tell you - he thought it’d be best if I -”
“Out with it, Donovan. Don’t have all day,” Lestrade says impatiently.
Donovan draws a deep breath through her nose, and says, “He’s dead, sir. Holmes. Sherlock, he - there was an accident -”
“I’m really not in the mood for jokes right now,” Lestrade growls as ice floods his veins and the world around him tunnels, fading at the periphery until there is only Donovan. “It was one thing for you to go over my head -”
“It’s not a joke,” Donovan breaks in desperately, her eyes wide and her face drained. “He’s gone, sir. He took his own life.”
Lestrade’s stomach plummets. “He wouldn’t -”
“He did,” she insists, and then she says something else, but Lestrade doesn’t hear it over the rushing of blood in his ears.
----
He turns on the television and watches Sherlock die five times in the space of an hour. A passerby caught his jump on a mobile and the images are played over and over while solemn newscasters warn that the footage might not be suitable for all viewers. Lestrade finds himself imagining what the fall might have been like - Sherlock’s heart hammering out of control as he takes the final step and drops; the wind forcing the air from his lungs; the free-fall causing his stomach to bottom-out. The world spins and bile rises in the back of Lestrade’s throat. He sits down heavily on the floor of his office while a reporter takes her audience through Sherlock’s life story for the third time, repeating the details that the rest of the city now knows by heart.
...born on January 6, 1980, in the...
They cut away to the video once again. It doesn’t show the impact, but Lestrade’s imagination fills in that particular gap, too.
----
He identifies Sherlock’s body in the mid-afternoon.
The blood has been cleaned from his face but his eyes are still open; piercing even in death. Molly Hooper pulls back the sheet so that Sherlock is only exposed from the shoulders up, but it’s enough for Lestrade. He nods solemnly but grabs her wrist when she tries to cover the body again. The right side of Sherlock’s head has been crushed by the impact, though most of the damage has been hidden by his hair. His lips are blue and his skin is translucent, and Lestrade reaches out to brush a hand along his brow.
Molly stops him, gently, and says, “Are you sure you want to do that?”
She’s right, of course. He doesn’t want dead flesh to be the only thing his fingers can recall when he thinks of Sherlock. The last time they brushed across that face, Sherlock had been warm and breathing. The last time Lestrade’s lips had grazed his, Sherlock had been vibrant and teasing.
The last time Lestrade had laid eyes on him, Sherlock had been alive.
“Thank you,” he manages, and retreats from the room as Molly covers Sherlock’s body once again.
----
Sally drives him home and follows him up the steps to his flat. She waits in the living room while he showers and changes, going through the motions even as he runs into Sherlock’s things everywhere he turns (expensive shampoo; razor; half an experiment in the tub). When he finally comes back out, she’s standing by the mantel, looking at a framed write-up from one of Sherlock’s more prominent cases. It contains a picture of him in the deerstalker, which is the only reason Lestrade bothered keeping the article.
“You need to eat,” Sally decides, and he doesn’t protest because if she has a task, she can’t focus her attentions on him. What he needs to do is call John, whom he hasn’t heard from all day.
He picks up on the second ring with a relieved, “Greg.”
“John.” Lestrade is surprised at how steady the word comes out. “How’re you holding up?”
“Could ask the same of you.”
“You saw him -” Lestrade breaks off.
“Yeah.” John’s voice is weak. “I dunno why...”
“Me neither.”
“He never even alluded to it.” There is a rush of breath over the line, and John adds, “He wasn’t a fraud.”
“I know.” Lestrade passes a hand over his face. “Where are you staying tonight?”
“Sarah’s. You?”
“My place, but Sally’s here.”
“Good. That’s - ah - good, I guess.”
“Look, if you need anything...”
“Same to you.”
“Right.” Lestrade clears his throat; nods to himself. “Right, yeah. I’ll keep it in mind. Look, I’ll stop by tomorrow, and we can start working out... plans.”
They need a task; that much Lestrade recognizes. They’re too alike, and their shared pain is eased only slightly by the fact that they still have someone else who needs looking after. It’s not the same as Sherlock, but they’ll make do with what they have. It’s all they can do.
Lestrade offers an awkward goodbye, which is returned, and hangs up.
----
“I forgot my ring this morning.”
It’s the first thing Lestrade has said in close to an hour, and he can feel Sally start. He gives a laugh that’s mostly a whimper and adds, “First time in years I’ve gone without it. Should’ve known right there, I suppose.”
“How could you have?” she asks quietly. “No one saw this coming.”
“Bet you’re glad of it, eh?” He says this without malice - just a statement of fact. But her face crumples, and he looks away from her quickly.
“No,” Sally says. “No, of course not, how could you think -”
She breaks off and takes his hand.
“I thought he was involved,” she tells him softly. “I don’t regret what I did. But I am sorry he’s...”
She trails off.
“He wasn’t a fraud,” Lestrade mutters after a moment. “He was mad and brilliant and a prick, yes. But not a fraud. How could he think I -? And now he’s gone. Last words I said to him were during that damn arrest. Never got the chance to say goodbye. Never got to tell him that I -”
Lestrade stops and can’t bring himself to continue. Sally gets up and disappears into his bathroom. She returns a moment later and kneels in front of Lestrade again, taking his hand in hers. She holds up a ring - his ring, which he had left in a dish on the sink just that morning - and then places it in his palm, curling his fingers around it.
“You found each other,” she murmurs, wrapping both of her hands around his one. “And you had all those years.”
“Yeah,” Lestrade says woodenly, because they could have had all the time in the world and it still wouldn’t have been enough. He pulls his hand gently from her grip and picks up his ring, turning it over, glancing at the oft-read inscription.
We found each other, and that is wonderful.
The weight settles into his hand; comfortable and familiar. Then it hits him that this is all he has left; that Sherlock is cooling on a slab in the morgue because death was a better option than trying to clear his name. All Lestrade has now is this piece of metal and memories that will fade with age.
“He didn’t trust me,” Lestrade whispers as Sally sits next to him once more. “He didn’t think I’d do everything in my power to clear his name. He thought - God, Sally, did he think I’d abandon him?”
Sally gives no response, but she puts an arm around his shoulders and stays until nightfall.
----
Lestrade wakes the next morning on the sofa, a blanket thrown over his still-clothed form and the remains of dinner sitting on a plate on the floor. He sits up, passes a hand over his face, and tries to draw breath into a too-tight chest. The grey light of dawn filters into the flat and he thinks, This is it.
The first day without Sherlock.
His ring is sitting in an unused ashtray on a nearby table. He picks it up, turns it over in his fingers, and then puts it back.
His hand feels strange and alien without the familiar weight, but he can’t bring himself to put it on.
----
The first time Lestrade sees Mycroft after Sherlock’s death, he cracks a fist across the other man’s face. Every word in the newspapers; every scathing interview; every disgrace that Sherlock has suffered is due to this man who has the gall to still call him brother.
“Why did you do that?” he bellows at Mycroft, seizing him by the front of his shirt. “Your own brother! Did you really resent him that much? He deserved better, after all he’s done for you!”
He shoves the uncharacteristically-silent man away and hisses, “I hope it was worth it.”
Lestrade is thankful that Mycroft’s men are escorting him away when the government official murmurs, “It was,” because going to jail for homicide on account of Mycroft Holmes is one fate he’d rather avoid.
----
The first time Lestrade sees John after Sherlock’s death, they’re at a pub in the middle of the afternoon. Lestrade knows how bad he appears, with his rumpled shirts and hollowed eyes. John looks worse.
“It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” Lestrade mutters into his glass at one point. He actually means, He wasn’t supposed to die before me.
“Be fair, though,” John says dully over the rim of his drink, and because living with Sherlock has affected him in more ways than he’s aware of, it’s Lestrade’s unvoiced thought that he answers. “Did you ever expect him to outlive you?”
----
They bury Sherlock on a brilliant afternoon in June. There are only six of them in attendance when really there should have been dozens. Hundreds. Lestrade finds that this bothers him more than the fact that Sherlock is now rotting six feet below the earth.
Sherlock’s headstone is bare save for his name; no one apart from them will ever know what he did for so many people, and no one else will know how much he was loved.
And when all except John have gone, Lestrade pulls a miniature spyglass out of his pocket and places it carefully on the headstone. John laughs until he is shuddering and tears wet his cheeks; Lestrade pulls him against his side until the tremors stop and John grows quiet once again.
----
The nights are the worst for Lestrade. He does everything he can to exhaust himself - reading until his eyes are sore and the words are blurry; going for late-night walks; slipping a hand into his waistband and stroking himself to completion; turning on the television and watching the flickering images until his brain can no longer process them. He works himself to the very end of his wick in the hopes that, when he finally gives up and crawls into bed, his brain won’t have the chance to focus on Sherlock before he drifts off. The time he spends in bed is the only part of his day where there is nothing to occupy his mind; where there is nothing to distract him from wondering where it all went wrong.
But the bed still holds Sherlock’s scent, that of chemicals and ink mixed with the sweet, incongruous smell of chamomile. Lestrade wakes each morning enveloped in it, and the sense-memory overpowers his brain in the first few seconds of his awareness so that, just for a moment, he believes he’s woken with Sherlock beside him. Then the crushing grief washes over him once again, and a beat after that reality sets in.
He will never again wake with Sherlock at his side.
It was an infrequent occurrence while Sherlock was alive, disinterested as he was in human contact in general and sex in particular. But now that Lestrade knows, really knows, that it will never happen again - that thought lands like a blow.
He washes his blankets the day after Sherlock’s burial, purging the bed of his partner forever.
And late that night, wrapped in the fresh-cotton smell of his laundered bedding, Lestrade finally allows himself to weep.
---
He returns to the Yard and weathers the fallout as best as he can, which turns out not to be very well at all. He is suspended, and there’s an inquiry, and from there the signs are obvious but he still sees it through to its inevitable conclusion - his dismissal. He’s made an example for the rest to see.
This is what happens when you put your trust in a madman.
No, Lestrade thinks later. No, this is what happens when a good man puts his trust in me.
John returns to the surgery and throws himself into the work. Mycroft Holmes finds a position for Lestrade, which he can’t talk about the few times he meets up with John for a drink but that doesn’t matter, because neither of them are keen on talking about Mycroft anyway. They both know that he’s the reason for Sherlock’s disgrace, but Lestrade can’t afford to turn away the help. He’s a proud man, yes, but he also needs to survive.
Someone needs to be there for John.
----
It takes three weeks for Lestrade to work up the courage to finally collect Sherlock’s personal effects from Molly. There isn’t much - his scarf and coat were heavily bloodstained and had to be disposed of, which left only his watch (a gift from Lestrade for his thirtieth birthday) and his mobile (retrieved from the roof after his body had been recovered). Lestrade wraps the watch in one of Sherlock’s handkerchiefs and places it in his bedside table.
He sits on the bed for a while with Sherlock’s mobile in his hand, feeling its weight, brushing light fingertips over the keys that are worn from frequent use. Sherlock’s fingerprints are still on the screen; Lestrade is careful not to smudge them. He turns on the mobile and scrolls through its contents for a while, reading the occasional text until his eyes sting and his vision blurs.
And then Lestrade runs across his own text conversations with Sherlock, and notices that there are two that were typed but never sent. His breathing stutters and a tiny whimper sneaks its way past his lips as he makes the mistake of glancing at the time-stamp.
10:17, that awful June morning.
Sherlock hit the ground at 10:20.
You always wanted me to be a good man. But I never needed to be one, because I had you.
Thank you, Greg.
----
John still texts Sherlock.
Lestrade never turns the mobile off and always keeps it charged, because the calls from those who have stumbled on Sherlock’s website allow him to believe, fleetingly, that Sherlock has simply stepped out for a minute and is bound to return. But then the mobile starts getting texts, and when Lestrade picks it up he notices that they’re from a very familiar number.
He never opens these messages and at one point John, in a moment of limited sobriety, admits that he still sends them to Sherlock because each time a text goes through it feels like the dead man is still around.
Lestrade nods, assuring John in quiet tones that it’s more than fine.
He doesn’t mention that he does the same.
----
Lestrade’s niece turns ten on a terrifically hot day late in the summer, and he makes the two-hour drive to his sister’s in order to mark the occasion. He hasn’t seen either of them since March, as he had refused any and all help from Jody when she heard about Sherlock’s death. He doesn’t function well when people try to coddle him; his sister has learned that the hard way.
Marissa greets him with an enthusiastic hug and a smile that doesn’t quite light her chocolate eyes. She had only met Sherlock a handful of times in her short life, but Jody confided in Lestrade that when she broke the news of his death, Marissa cried bitterly for hours.
She had last seen Sherlock two Christmases ago, but the detective had been recovering from cracked ribs at the time and had spent the majority of the holiday on painkillers and asleep in Lestrade’s bed. That hadn’t stopped Marissa from visiting him when she had grown tired of her parents and uncle. When they had come looking for her hours later, they found her napping with Sherlock, her head nestled in the crook of his arm.
Lestrade still has the photograph of that moment tucked away in his wallet.
The party lasts for the rest of the afternoon, and for most of it Lestrade catches only glimpses of Marissa as she plays with her friends. He takes refuge in talking with distant relatives who never knew about Sherlock, which allows him to slip easily into the role of a man who never had anything to lose.
Later, when the guests have finally gone, Lestrade pulls Marissa aside.
“He wanted you to have this,” he tells her quietly, knowing that Jody is listening from the kitchen even though she’s pretending to be focused on the dishes, and he hands Marissa the gift Sherlock had chosen for her months ago. Her lips fade into a thin line and the corner of her mouth twitches, but she keeps herself under control as she carefully peels back the blue paper.
And Lestrade realizes that he’s been going about this all backwards when moments later he’s cradling his niece in his arms, his shoulder quickly growing damp from where her face is pressed into the fabric of his shirt. Anger’s supposed to come before acceptance, isn’t it, and usually Sherlock’s the one getting things wrong; doing it all out of order. But Sherlock’s gone now, which is why Marissa has been reduced to a sobbing mess on her birthday and why John couldn’t set foot in Baker Street for weeks after the suicide and why Mrs. Hudson sets a fourth place at the table for their Sunday brunches, even though they know the dishes will go unused.
Dammit, Sherlock, couldn’t you see that you were loved?
“I miss him,” Marissa whispers brokenly.
“Yeah,” Lestrade murmurs, burying his face in her hair. “Yeah, so do I, sweetheart.”
----
And yet, somewhere between Lestrade’s late nights in his new office and John’s dedication to his work and the Sunday brunches with Mrs. Hudson, they realize they’re moving on.
There are things they can do now that they couldn’t before - John moves back to Baker Street; Lestrade can hear Sherlock’s name without it feeling like a punch to the gut.
There are things they can’t do - John doesn’t throw out Sherlock’s scientific equipment; Lestrade still can’t wear the ring.
But they’re healing. They’re not whole, and there’s a Sherlock-shaped scar down the middle of their lives, but each breath is a little easier than the one before; each day without Sherlock feels less and less like a punishment.
Each dawn is a little more bearable than the last.
----
One day, Lestrade gets into his car and drives. His subconscious takes him out of the city that Sherlock loved so dearly and into the unknown; he travels on roads he’s never seen and isn’t sure how he’s going to get back, but none of that matters right now because all he knows is that he needs to go. The ring sits in his pocket, a weight he’s all-too-conscious of even though its presence is barely noticeable.
He finds himself in the South Downs under the floating leaves of the yew trees later that afternoon. The rest of his day is marked only by the passage of the sun through the trees, scattering dappled-green light across his body while a thousand bees drone in his ears and he holds the ring clenched tightly in his fist.
The night that follows is warm and clear, and through the leaves he catches sight of the stars. He closes his eyes and breathes; the air is heavy with the scent of damp earth and chamomile. There is a flash, sudden and blinding, of Sherlock stretched out on the ground beside him.
What are you doing?
“Waiting,” Lestrade whispers.
What for?
For you, he wants to say, but he recognizes that as absurd and says, “For tomorrow,” instead.
The ring is warm to the touch from having been held locked in his fist for so long. Lestrade unfolds his fingers and traces the circular indentation, angry and red, that has been left behind on his palm from the bite of the metal. Gently, he plucks the delicate object from his hand and holds it between two fingers, eyes drawn to the words he hasn’t read since the day Sherlock fell.
“Yeah,” he murmurs thickly to Sherlock’s inscription, rubbing the pad of his thumb over the worn letters. “Yeah, it was. The best.”
And then, finally, he slips the ring back onto his hand, fitting the warm metal over the thin band of white that encircles his finger. The breeze of dawn stirs the hairs on the back of his neck, teasing, so light and playful that for a moment he can close his eyes and pretend that the whistling of the wind in his ears is Sherlock’s huff of exasperation.
Sentiment.
From high above his head, gorgeous and delicate and fleeting, comes the cry of the morning bird.
It’s a new day.
----
Final Notes: The inscription on the inside of Lestrade’s ring was inspired by this quote from Ann Druyan. The story behind the ring can be found in Part Five of “Nor the Years Condemn.”
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Previous Story: “What You Leave Behind”
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