Kairi looked on approvingly at her cupcakes. She let them cool overnight and the strawberry buttercream frosting was a perfect consistency for decoration after some hours in the fridge. She swirled on the frosting with a shaky hand, but they ended up looking pretty good. It all looked the same once you shoved the whole thing in your mouth anyway.
She took one out and inspected it closely, she believed it was the prettiest one and so she reached into the nearby junk drawer and pulled out a singular birthday candle. She plopped it into the middle of the cupcake and gave it a satisfied nod. Placing it gently on one of her nicer ceramic plates, she sighed heavily before brushing her hands on her pants and making her way up to 221B.
The place was empty now. With Sherlock gone and John and Molly officially engaged, John had decided to work full-time and he and Molly could afford a very nice flat not too far from Baker Street - but just far enough for it to seem a hassle for people to show up unexpectedly.
She let herself inside the familiar flat, since it was never locked, and tried desperately not to cry while she took in her other home. It was her birthday, she shouldn't be sad, but it was also his birthday and she missed him very much. She looked around and sighed, everything looked the same: completely a mess and untouched, like some sort of sad relic of a time before. Well, except the kitchen. It took a while, and possibly a hazmat team, to discover and clean out the terrifying mess of Sherlock Holmes' experiments, but since no one would be living there and Kairi had no desire to spend extra time in 221B — especially with body parts — it all needed to be disposed of. A little smile graced her lips when she thought of how upset he would be to hear of it.
She knew he would be back, he had told her so, but a year was a long time. Who knows what could have happened? Who knows who he would be when he returned? He left changed and he could come back a completely different person. She forced herself to put the cupcake on the table next to his chair and she collapsed in it, with tears brimming in her eyes.
Her thoughts centered on how it could have affected him, how things were so drastically different and painful before he'd gone. Perhaps, while he was away, he decided that loving Kairi was too much of a hassle, too much of a hindrance for this life he led. He was practically a hero, cape and all, and she was a weakness, a blundering mess of a person.
She closed her eyes, fighting against the negative thoughts, pushing herself to focus on the fact that when Sherlock returned, even if he didn't have feelings for her, that it would not be the end. Her life did not hinge upon Sherlock Holmes and if he wanted to be properly removed from her life then she would do so with aplomb. She loved him desperately, but he would not be the end of her. Moran sure as hell wasn't and Sherlock could do no worse to her. No person ever could. She shook her head and wiped away her tears.
For the last year, she had done this on major holidays or anniversaries of importance, she'd make something for him and leave it in the now empty fridge. Today was his birthday too, so she'd leave a cupcake with a single candle. In the next week it would be gone, either by John or Mycroft or Molly or Lestrade or Ms. Hudson, it would be gone.
She always liked to pretend that it was him though.
She swore that he'd been in and out, only when she was not around, keeping his promise to give her space. She hated him for it, but she loved him as well. It was what she needed and she was grateful. The last year had been difficult enough with horrible nightmares only to be assuaged by timely hallucinations of men in long coats or the smell of cigarettes and old books wafting from a shop, she didn't need him close by throwing a wrench in her progress. She needed to get established on her own, feel okay inside her own skin, without Sherlock. What a bore it all was.
