Seeing double

epilogue

Three months later

'Are you sure you're alright?'
'Yes, John! Stop fussing, will you!' I laugh as I push the last few shirts into my suitcase.  I fasten it and go over to the nightstand, pulling on my bracelets and looking at myself in the mirror.
My face looks so much more youthful, pink cheeks and soft lips, bright eyes and strands of hair growing on my forehead, the hair finally regrowing. 

I am alive. 

'I'm going to miss you, you know, Aves.' he says, wrapping his arms behind me and squeezing me tightly.
'I'm only moving five minutes away! I'll be here all the time, to spend time with Rosie and drink tea and discuss murder cases, it'll be ace.'
'God, I love you.' he smiles, planting a kiss on my head.  I am so overwhelmed with delight and love and gratitude, I got my brother back, and I got my family too.  Rosie who bounces around as is always laughing, Sherlock who pretends to hate me and everybody who isn't John, but I know there's a soft spot in there for me, really.  I got over my silly crush when I realized that somebody did love Sherlock and it wasn't me. 

The last few months were quiet, compared to what they were. It felt like some sort of closure, peace. Jim Moriarty, the man who has terrorised me, traumatised me, tortured me, was dead. Simply scattered remains in the ground.

Sherlock didn't speak for seven days after it happened. He couldn't comprehend what he'd done. None of us could, really. John relayed the years he'd spent playing cat-and-mouse with the man, the back and forth game of trying to outsmart each other. Maybe Sherlock had just grown tired, maybe his ego had gotten smaller or maybe this time, Moriarty had just gone too far.

I pick up the last box and scan over the bedroom I'm leaving behind.  It's only a small move, I'm not losing my brother the way I did when he went to war and I went to uni, but I'll miss him nonetheless.  He's my whole world. 

It's nice to think they all are. My family. My home. Time passed and Sherlock began to forgive me, I think. For not telling him. James had been the love of my life, but all he used me for was to extract information about John, he made me think he was the one for me, but had played with my feelings the way he played with us all, he tossed me aside when he was done, battered and discarded and with the threat to kill if I ever uttered a word. Years spent in fear, drowned in secrecy, were over. I could finally breathe.

I smile and put down one of the boxes, 'John? Go stick the kettle on, eh? We can have tea and biscuits before I go.'