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#3: 1903
London, England
The view from the Tower Bridge remained much the same.
London was dark, speckled with lights and signs of life through the night. The sun would begin its slow crawl above the horizon in just over an hour.
Not that he would see it this time.
The cold air was biting as it cut through him with a sharp gust. He shivered but did not flinch; his knuckles stretched white as he gripped the wood's edge tighter with one hand. He plucked his pocket watch with his other and glanced at the time.
4:42 AM.
The second hand ticked on, and the steady sound rang in his ears; his hand shook as he slipped it back into his blazer.
The wind whistled past him – his cheeks stung from the chill, blood rushing to his face.
He was confident of his deductions. The dreams that felt too real couldn’t have been just dreams. The streets of London were familiar and yet somehow new all at once. Even during the climb up, he knew how to avoid detection when he perched himself at the center of the bridge around 4 AM.
He had been here before, but it had simply been a lifetime ago.
Or several, even if his memories served correctly. People and places that he couldn’t have imagined on his own.
One always stood out.
One that haunts him.
“Bloody idiots,” he muttered as he tipped his head back.
He wondered idly if the stars were the same as the ones back then.
Did he know the names of them? The constellations that moved above them?
Did he remember them, too?
The pocket watch was flipped open again.
4:55 AM.
Instead of nestling it back in his pocket, he squeezed his hand around it; the bow of the pendant dug into his palm as he pushed himself to his feet. Another gust of wind billowed around him, whipping his hair against his cheeks.
He glanced at the watch again – for the last time.
4:57 AM.
“Right,” he said to himself, barely audible over the wind. He planted his feet as he tossed the watch over the edge of the bridge – he strained his eyes to follow its descent. He lost sight of it almost immediately but stared at the river below as he tried to make out the ripples in the water.
Another shudder ran down his spine in anticipation. His heart began to hammer within his chest, and his fingertips tingled as he flexed them.
“Won’t be long now, Liam.”
Thoughts flashed in his mind – a sad smile, a soft voice, a comforting warmth amidst the cold.
You’ve bested me, Sherly.
His heart raced wildly before it lurched with the fall.
The air knocked from his lungs, and the wind became harsh around him.
Sherlock Holmes fell once again, but this time, he was alone.
*
#4: 1916
Somme River, France
Sherlock jolted awake, breathless and covered in a sheen of sweat.
His heartbeat thundered at his temples. The ground was cool beneath him – dirt smeared on his forehead where he wiped it under his helmet.
“Holmes,” someone shouted from beside him. “Y’alright?”
He looked around as he gathered his bearings – he was awake in the trench with his comrades. Slowly, the sounds around them came back to him.
Artillery. Gunfire.
Distant screams.
“Aye!” Sherlock nodded. The sensations of his dream lingered; he shivered despite the heat of the late summer sun bearing down. He could hear the wind in his ears, but perhaps it was just the firing of weapons as shells shot past him.
“Was worried you were hit,” the other soldier said as he smacked Sherlock on the arm. “Can’t risk losin’ that brilliant mind of yours.”
Sherlock sat up and checked over himself hastily. As he floated back into his mind correctly, he began to register a throbbing, hot pain in his leg. A single pang grew into a tearing sensation as he shifted, and when he pressed into the spot tentatively, his hand came away red and wet.
One of the men around him shouted. “Fuck! Forster, grab medical, now – “
He stared at his hand. The blood gathered darkly in the creases of his palm, in the bends of his fingers — it was sticky.
Through the gunpowder and earth, the smell of iron filled his nose.
The soldier hustled back with another behind him. Sherlock recognized the cross on the helmet to signify medical personnel; the medic bowed his head as he rummaged in his pack.
“Is it just your leg?” The medic asked in a hoarse voice.
Hoarse, but familiar.
Calm in the face of danger. Unafraid of the answer.
“I — I think so,” Sherlock managed to say before his voice caught in his throat.
The medic lifted his head.
Round, warm eyes flickered over him. Tufts of blonde hair stuck out from under his helmet and clung to his skin with sweat.
He spoke, but Sherlock didn’t hear a word.
“John?” He choked out through sudden, uneven breaths.
His vision blurred with tears. He couldn’t believe it. Surely, he was delusional, if not from the pain, from the blood loss.
But — it was real.
“Yes,” the medic told him slowly. “I’m Dr. John Watson. I’m here to help you.”
Sherlock should have flinched from the way John forcibly adjusted him, how John cut his trousers from the knee nearly to the top of the leg to expose the wound better. Not once did he look at the shrapnel embedded in his thigh — instead, he watched John’s expression with acute attention. He recognized the furrow of John’s brow, how he frowned deeply at the amount of blood that soaked the fabric surrounding the wound, but most of all, he recognized the words that John exclaimed in the next instant.
“By Jove, you poor fellow!”
Sherlock was ashamed of the sob that racked his body.
He was ashamed because, when John glanced back up to meet his gaze, there was not an ounce of recognition there.
A dozen memories of John’s exact words ran through Sherlock’s mind.
It was apparent that none did for John.
“You’ll be quite alright, Holmes,” John assured him, eyes flitting to the surname stitched on Sherlock’s breast pocket. He fished for something in his pocket and pressed it into Sherlock’s non-bloody hand — a thick strip of leather. “Bite down. This will hurt.”
It already does, Sherlock wanted to tell him.
Instead, he did as he was told.
He bit down, and when the first fragment was pulled from his flesh, he screamed.
*
Two years later, he met John again at the Queen’s Army Hospital in London.
“Mr. Holmes! It’s so good to see you,” John greeted him with a firm handshake. Sherlock could hear the unspoken still alive at the end of his sentence — a sentiment true for any soldier who survived the Somme.
“Likewise.” Sherlock’s smile was genuine, though it didn’t reach his eyes.
He sat on the edge of the exam table and allowed John to run through his check-up. The whole process was routine, sterile — none of John’s smart quips or exasperated expressions surfaced when he poked and prodded.
Not until he had Sherlock lower his trousers to peer at the gnarled scar on his thigh. The disapproval then appeared clearly across John’s face. “May not look pretty, but it seems healed well enough.”
Sherlock snorted at the comment despite John’s serious tone. “Suppose I can’t ask for more than well enough.”
“Is there anything you do want to ask for, Mr. Holmes?” John countered without missing a beat.
As he pulled up his trousers, Sherlock pretended to consider the question before he blurted out, “Drugs.”
The old John — his John — would have given him a stern look and rolled his eyes at the request. He always knew not to indulge Sherlock in his vices, no matter how much it may have helped ease the burden of brilliance.
However, this John did not give the same refusal. He twisted for his bag on the counter to search for a prescription pad, already reaching when Sherlock found his voice.
“Ah, actually — you don’t have to — “
Sherlock stammered pathetically. He was at a loss; he hadn’t thought that John would humor him at all. To lift his gaze and meet John’s, who offered his best professional smile, was enough to carve out what was left of Sherlock’s heart.
He felt sick to his stomach.
John’s expression softened with pity. “That bad?”
“It wasn’t always.” Sherlock wanted to vomit, but he spoke calmly instead. Quietly, even.
Another thought entered his mind that he promptly shoved away — one he couldn’t bear to process the possibility of.
Meanwhile, John was slow with his movements as he produced his prescription pad, already writing something at the top as he asked again, gently, “Do you know what might help, or do you prefer a recommendation?”
A slew of drugs could have been offered, and it wouldn’t be enough. It wouldn’t be enough until he knew John remembered him because if John remembered him, then he could cling to hope that one day Liam would remember him.
But if John didn't, and Liam never would —
“Opium,” he blurted out, unable to continue that thought. Refused to continue it. “Yeah. That should be fine. Worked before.”
A part of him — a much larger part of him than he’d ever admit — wished hopelessly that John would drop the act and laugh at the bold request. In their day, opium dens were easy enough to come by if one knew where to look. Recently, it was an increasingly common coping method for men who went to France during the War.
John seemed aware of this without asking.
His silence as he wrote the prescription was the final crack in Sherlock’s dam; a flood of tears escaped him, and he crumbled.
A careful, comforting hand settled on his shoulder.
“If you ever fancy a pint Friday evenings, you can find me at Harrison’s Pub down the road,” John offered, much to Sherlock’s shock.
He could almost see a glimpse of his John in the tired smile shown his way.
John shrugged and gave a friendly squeeze of his shoulder.
“Us Tommies need to stick together, yeah? No one else quite gets it.”
Sherlock nodded slowly. “Not truly, no.”
Maybe John was right after all.
*
Sherlock gave in.
He began a new routine on Friday evenings: he had a pint with John at Harrison’s Pub, found his way back home, smoked his opium, and knocked out.
John’s friendship was cautiously casual. They talked about superficial topics and never dug too deep. The furthest they ventured was John divulging about a girl he was sweet on – a baker named Lucy, with fair hair and fiery spirit.
She sounded much like Mary, but Sherlock never said anything of it.
In return, for the first time that he could remember, Sherlock talked about Liam.
As far as John knew, Liam was simply an old friend that Sherlock lost touch with before the war. A brilliant man and a mathematician, but one also shared Sherlock’s love for mysteries. A good man who would reach his goals to their end at the cost of everything.
“He sounds like a good friend,” John remarked once.
Sherlock stared at his pint, which was half-empty and lukewarm. “He understood me better than anyone else.”
“People like that are rare.”
“Aye,” Sherlock agreed. “Men like him are.”
John only hummed in response.
They sat in silence after that.
*
Opium was different than he remembered.
Stronger. More potent.
The high was the same, though.
Sherlock sought the full-body numbness that the drug offered. He crawled into bed, inhaled his lot, and drifted off at the edge of the mattress.
Before the haze of smoke could lull him into unconsciousness, he heard a soft voice.
Liam. Always Liam.
Sometimes, he chastised Sherlock. Sometimes, he goaded him.
Most often, though, it was those sad words repeated in Sherlock’s head, over and over.
I’m a fool.
Sherlock wanted to argue – that title belongs to me, Liam.
He was foolish for every passing day that he hoped to run into Liam in any way. He strained his ears on the streets to hear that voice out loud and scanned crowds for light hair and vermillion eyes.
He hated the disappointment that weighed on him each Friday night when he would return home, having spoken endlessly about a man who was little more than a ghost nowadays.
Above all, Sherlock was a fool for burying Liam in his dreams. He smothered them – his memories – with a numbing sleep.
Sherlock no longer heard Liam at night. He no longer tried to recall how it felt when his hand encircled Liam’s wrist above the Thames when he caught him for a fleeting moment.
And every morning that followed, he woke up alone and hollowed out.
*
Sherlock was 24 in June of 1921.
He survived the Great War – the trenches in the Somme, the bloody fields in France – years of opium use that he pushed the limits of, all to end up in a shitty hospital cot with a fever.
At least John was here.
He grew his mustache out again, the terrible thing; he didn’t look how Sherlock remembered him, which he even said as much.
“You don’t look like yourself,” Sherlock insisted, swatting at John’s hand. “You’re different.”
“I’m the same I’ve always been,” John said patiently, reaching for Sherlock and touching his forehead. His frown deepened as he adjusted his fingers, but Sherlock could barely focus on his expression when the touch was like fire against his already burning skin.
“Tell me, John,” he groaned. “Spit it out.”
John grabbed a rag in the basin beside the cot and wrung it out. “You’re sick, Sherlock.” He folded the rag and gently placed it on Sherlock’s forehead – it was damp and cool but hardly a relief.
“There’s more,” Sherlock asserted. “It’s June. I’m 24. It’s – what time is it?”
“You’re – what?”
“The time.” His pulse was pounding in his temples, his body ached. He yanked the rag off of his head and threw it weakly. “It’s late, innit?”
John glanced at the clock on the bedside table. “It’s nearly three in the morning. Why does it matter that you’re 24?”
“Because I’m dying.”
The silence that hung in the air between them was deafening. Sherlock stared at John through glassy eyes, blinking profusely as he tried to focus his vision. John’s optimism finally fell away, and the guilt that took its place was harrowing. Sherlock’s stomach was already in knots, but seeing the confirmation of his suspicions only solidified his dread.
Everything hurt. His skin tingled all over with pin-pricks of heat. He weakly shifted every few seconds – the ache at each joint seeped into his bones and rattled him from the inside out. He wanted to cry – to sob – but his eyes stung because they were dry.
“Right?” Sherlock asked hoarsely. “I am, aren’t I?”
John sighed heavily. For once, he looked openly defeated as he nodded once. “Yes, Sherlock. I don’t know why – you should have taken to the medicine, but nothing worked.”
“It’s time – like that night – “ Sherlock mumbled. He looked past John to watch the door; it remained shut, as it had mostly been for the last few hours. A nurse would occasionally pop in to check with John if any help was needed, but Sherlock refused them.
He refused anyone else because even if John didn’t remember, he was here.
And Liam –
“Do you think he’s still out there?”
Sherlock’s question came out little more than a whisper as he stared at the door. He remembered a hazy dream where the door opened, and in walked Liam – in his hat and coat, looking so harrowed and exhausted but alive and there – and a small part of Sherlock desperately clung to the slimmest chance that it would happen again.
Sherlock survived so much – too much – to never see him. To never hear that voice again.
Walk through that door, Liam.
A hand came to rest on Sherlock’s. His eyes slid to John’s.
John’s hand was remarkably weathered, but his touch was gentle. Far gentler than he ever was with Sherlock before.
He spoke, and his voice wavered just like his fingers trembled, curling around Sherlock’s.
“I think that it’s time to let him go, old friend.”
Sherlock balked, torn between shaking his head and pushing John away.
He did neither and instead squeezed John’s hand with what strength he had left. Tears pooled and burned as they spilled over, mixing with his sweat that gathered in the crook of his shoulders.
Everything was hot and hurt and Liam wasn’t there and realistically, John wasn’t, either. It was John, but Sherlock’s John wouldn’t have suggested that he let go of Liam – he understood that Sherlock and Liam were unique, that they were two halves of a whole, that William James Moriarty was so much more than just another ghost to forget.
But that John wasn’t here.
It was another John who saw the horrors of the War alongside Sherlock, saved his life, and was with him now. Sherlock tried to take a meager comfort in that fact.
He was here.
Sherlock cried and heaved and ached pathetically in the cot. The time stretched, but he couldn’t lift his head to peer at the clock.
He held onto John with what used to be a fierce grip; only a weak curl of his fingers remained. John didn’t pull back to wipe his palm or coax Sherlock’s hand apart except to replace the damp rag on his head or check his vitals.
When the clock neared 5 AM, the night had dragged on endlessly. Sherlock’s gaze flickered between John and the door.
Right up until the end, he cradled that hope beside his slowing heart and curled around it.
He had to be out there.
Sherlock could only hope that he had someone that let him hold his hand in the dark, too.
*
#11: 1940
Sherlock learned to write down his memories as they came.
He was never far from paper – be it a notepad in his trousers, a pocket-sized notebook in his breast pocket, or scrap paper hidden in a drawer in his flat. He had an array of annotations in old notes that would notice recurring items that detailed time and events, others pointing toward Liam and where he could possibly be.
He sought after Liam relentlessly.
Sherlock knew that he was a man possessed. He hopped from job to job, indulging his vices from cocaine to opium, alternating between his single-minded determination and drowning out his dreams and nightmares alike.
Liam was out there. He had to be.
Sherlock broadened his search to include others – the other Moriarty brothers, Miss Hudson, Irene Adler – but nothing bore fruit.
Even John, the anomaly of one lifetime, was little more than a ghost.
Sherlock didn’t realize how lonely it was until he didn’t have John, even if it was a John that did not remember.
*
#?: 1953
It wasn’t his time.
Sherlock knew that it wasn’t his time. He knew this because he had taken more than enough drugs to kill a man not tethered to death, and yet he still woke up on the vinyl floor of his kitchen.
The window was open. Midday sun poured in and bathed Sherlock in heat, warming his clammy skin.
“Fuck,” he muttered as he rolled onto his back, away from his pipe that was still within arm’s reach.
He hated it: this never-ending existence, chasing after the memory of a man whose voice echoed in his head.
Catch me if you can, Mr. Holmes.
Despite his efforts, Sherlock always found himself alone in the end.
*
2023
He stopped counting.
He was close to giving up altogether, but it was pointless. Whether or not he continued his search for Liam — a man whose face he began to question in his mind — he lived on regardless.
So, even if he didn’t know exactly how many times he traced his footsteps, trace them he did.
Sherlock tried to recall every encounter with Liam; scarce as they already were, they had grown foggy. His memories lacked the sharper details at the edges; Liam remained, but everything in the periphery had washed away.
He tried to lead a normal life as a result, but it proved difficult. He perpetually had a foot in the present and the other in the past, and he never quite knew how to straddle a line.
John never came back to him. No one else did, either.
Once again, Sherlock was alone.
He had no friends on campus — he was a graduate student who paid for onsite housing but made no effort to socialize. He couldn’t quite commit to a career, but he knew how to excel academically, and it would carry him long enough until his inevitable death in the summer.
He remembered the date and time, even if everything else was unclear. He knew Liam penned a letter, and the words made Sherlock nauseous with emotion, though the words no longer came to mind. He knew that he had met his first end in the Thames, and the water was as unforgiving as it was cold, but he couldn’t recall how he climbed up the unfinished bridge without detection.
He was made of memories but lacked another half to share them with.
*
He returned to his room near the end of June to find a black envelope taped to the door.
Nothing was written on the outside of it, but it was indeed sealed.
The contents consisted of only a single ticket to a one-night cruise: an exhibition of an old ship whose name Sherlock did not recognize.
The Noahtic.
The voyage would occur the following night.
Sherlock glanced at his calendar on the wall with a frown. Something flickered in his chest — something familiar, but painful.
Something that he didn’t dare entertain any longer.
He huffed out a sigh and turned the ticket around in his fingers. He checked the envelope again.
Nothing.
Sighing, he dropped both into the waste basket next to his desk.
No point in chasing after shadows.
*
2023
The Noahtic was a magnificent ship.
Each detail was well-preserved, with modern updates carefully masked with appropriately antique fixtures. To the untrained eye, it was merely a gorgeously decorated passenger ship with grand accommodations.
For him, it was a time capsule he never imagined returning to.
He traced his steps along the cocktail room floor — the taps of his heels provided a steady beat that his heart failed to match.
Nerves heated his blood; he felt flush under the collar of his dress shirt. It wasn’t quite the same as back then, but he did his best with what he had in his closet.
He reached the structure near the center of the room and stopped.
Marble steps.
He lifted his head and drank in the sight.
The staircase was stunning. The stone was smooth and hardly weathered, clearly well-kept over time. The gold accents along the railing shone from fresh polish; light reflected off of it and the statue fixed atop the pillar.
The spiral of the stairs begged for attention most of all.
He felt it then — the hairs on the back of his neck stood up, and fear coiled taut in his chest.
Would he remember?
His instinct was to shut his eyes, but he took a deep breath and slowly slid his gaze sideways.
In his peripheral vision, there he stood: long limbs and sharp angles, though visibly stiff with anxiety. His face was the same, though — fair skin, cobalt eyes, lips dry from being chewed, and his fringe curled messily at his temples.
Do you remember me?
They stood side-by-side now with the hesitant approach, too far apart to touch but close enough to speak softly.
And one of them did — but not until a hand carded through his fringe idly.
“It’s a hell of a staircase, innit?”
William smiled as his heart all but leaped into his throat as he tipped his chin in a nod. “It’s the perfect example of the golden ratio.”
In William’s worst dreams, the culmination of lifetimes’ worth of fear results in rejection — be it a refusal to recognize William or the inability to. He held his breath and watched his words process in that brilliant mind.
Stormy blues brightened, and William had to blink to keep his eyes dry.
“I’ve been looking for a friend that would think so.”
Even his voice was the same — the same cockney accent, the same baritone, the same lilt in his words.
All the same.
He had to remember. He had to.
“It seems that you’ve finally caught me then, Sherly,” William managed to say as he clung to his composure.
Sherlock Holmes broke into a teary smile, and then he threw his head back as he barked out a laugh.
*
Once the initial tears slipped from their eyes, they retreated to Sherlock’s room to speak freely. The walk was silent — no small talk was made, but William didn’t mind since the few minutes allowed him to collect his thoughts.
The door opened and shut with a creak of the hinge and a quiet click. William’s gaze instinctively swept over the room to take stock of details, and he noticed how remarkably untouched the room was.
There wasn’t a bag propped open anywhere, nor any possessions that could be Sherlock’s.
“You came empty-handed,” he blurted out.
Sherlock stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Made the most sense.”
William clearly read between the lines: Sherlock had deduced the circumstances of each life down to the date and time of the end.
The same age, same date, same time.
Over and over again.
Sherlock cleared his throat uncomfortably and gestured to the bed. “Care to sit?”
William agreed and joined Sherlock at the edge of the mattress, only able to relax once Sherlock’s shoulders lowered. They turned partially toward one another, with Sherlock propping a thigh onto the bed, foot dangling over the edge.
“Do you remember everything?” Sherlock asked bluntly in an uncharacteristically quiet voice.
“Yes.” William didn’t miss a beat, though the same couldn’t be said for his heart. “Do you?”
The hesitation was apparent: Sherlock licked his lips but couldn’t tear his gaze away when he spoke. “Not everything. The important things are there, but the fine details — and everything around it — are faded. I think…” He paused with his brow furrowed, connecting the dots in his brilliant mind. “I think I used to remember. But the more I lived — the more lives I lived — the more I lost.”
William’s chest tightened painfully; he tried to inhale sharply, but it whistled in his chest, stuttering. A litany of questions sprung into his head, and all begged to be asked.
He plucked one to the forefront of his mind. “Will you tell me about the first that you remember? After we… After us?”
Sherlock seemed somewhat prepared for this question. His answer came easily, and the conversation flowed the same.
They shifted to face one another properly on the bed but quickly discarded their shoes. Sherlock crossed his legs when William folded his underneath, listening raptly to Sherlock regale his first journey into suspecting something was amiss. As Sherlock explained his deduction process, he realized that he had missed Sherlock terribly.
He always knew that he was half of a whole without Sherlock, but the way he felt when his heart sang and his body buzzed as Sherlock talked was ethereal. He almost felt high as he listened to Sherlock; he shrugged off his jacket at some point because he felt warm under his collar and his heart wouldn’t stop pounding.
Far too much time had passed. William’s lower back began to ache from sitting without support, but he ignored it and focused on Sherlock, who had turned the questions around.
It was William’s turn to tell an abridged story of his time after — he remembered every moment of every life in agonizing detail, down to the misery he felt when he failed to find Sherlock and the crippling loneliness at each death.
He tried not to make this explicitly apparent, but the frown that pulled at Sherlock’s thin lips was more than enough to convey that he knew.
At some point, they had shifted higher up the bed, laying side-by-side as they talked. William pulled his bowtie loose and tossed it aside to be more comfortable, and Sherlock’s shirt came untucked from his trousers. He looked disheveled with his wrinkled shirt and open collar, clavicles exposed and bare just as they always were before. His ponytail had begun to loosen and framed his face messily, but he made no move to fix it.
William tried to distract himself and stir the conversation away from himself.
“Did you ever encounter anyone else?”
He could immediately see that this was not the right question to ask; Sherlock’s expression pinched with melancholy, and he tried and failed to mask it all in a matter of seconds.
“John,” Sherlock said in a low voice. “He saved my life in the Somme. He — He was with me at the end a few years after, that time. Didn’t remember a thing. Not even me.”
William’s jaw fell slack in horror, though he couldn’t place what seemed worse: the pair living through the Battle of the Somme or John not remembering Sherlock through the end of Sherlock’s life.
“I’m not sure what to be more shocked at,” he said sheepishly. “I can’t speak to either. I’ve heard and read about the battles in France, but to have someone there who you know but they don’t know you…”
He trailed off, unsure of how to comfort Sherlock.
Sherlock recovered with what was clearly practiced ease with a smile. “I made it through it, didn’t I?”
William’s heart twisted this way and that, tears suddenly springing to his eyes. “You did. We did.”
He knew he should have checked on the time, but he didn’t want to know this time. He didn’t want to count the minutes that remained.
He kept his gaze on Sherlock’s.
“Ah, Liam — “ Sherlock reached for William's hand across the small distance between them. “No need for that now. You found me this time.”
Sherlock’s skin was softer than William remembered; he looked at their hands and how they differed. Sherlock’s hand wasn’t weathered from years of chemistry experiments. His knuckles weren’t scarred over from boxing. His fingertips were free of calluses that were built with violin strings. His hand was not the same, but as he toyed with William’s fingers, loosely threading them together, there was a familiarity that transcended time.
In another life, this same hand had grabbed William’s in an attempt to save him.
“What if,” William found himself breathless as he said, “next time, you don’t?”
Sherlock’s teeth clicked as he clenched his jaw.
“What if,” William tried to fight the urge to cry — he never was a crier — “What if this is the only time?”
The fingers linked with his curled in a reassuring squeeze. When William didn’t reciprocate right away, Sherlock did so again to elicit a response of some sort.
Encouraged, William tightened his hold and tugged gently, then checked the time.
4:42 AM.
He hadn’t realized just how much time had passed as they talked.
Suddenly, he felt everything hone in on this moment — on Sherlock’s fingers intertwined with his, how his heart hammered recklessly.
“I thought I saw you once.” The words fell from his lips abruptly, and he couldn’t swallow them back down with the emotion that welled up and spilled over. “In the Christmas markets in London. I was walking, and I thought I saw you pass me by — your hair, or what I thought was your hair, in the corner of my eye — but when I turned around, you were gone. I searched high and low, and I scoured any resources I could find for your name. Nothing came of it. It was like you fell through my fingers.”
Sherlock’s expression softened as he offered a half-smile. “I don’t remember going to any Christmas markets as an adult. At least, not this go of it.”
“I — “ William choked on the lump in his throat. “I don’t want to let you go all over again.”
“Then don’t. I’m right here, Liam.”
If only it were so simple. William wanted to point out that the numbers were not on their side. The barely-there click of the second hand on the nightstand clock was proof of that.
He didn’t check the time again.
“Sherly,” William murmured, afraid that he would lose his nerve entirely if he spoke too loud. “There’s something that I would like to do. Something I didn’t do back then, and I don’t want to regret not acting now.”
Sherlock’s eyes widened — his cobalt irises were slim as his pupils dilated, and his lips pressed into a line in an attempt to hide his surprise.
William squeezed his hand and used his other to push himself up slightly, and he inched across the space between. As he leaned in, he watched Sherlock’s face as realization hit him; William spotted the beginning of a smile and the warmth of a blush before his own eyes fluttered shut.
His heart was racing like it had when he saw Sherlock jump from the Tower Bridge after him. Behind his eyelids, color exploded into his vision.
He felt himself come alive.
He kissed Sherlock.
Sherlock’s lips were dry, but a quick tongue darted out to wet them and brushed William’s in turn. William rested their hands on Sherlock’s chest; under them, he felt the way Sherlock’s heartbeat matched his own. Sherlock’s other hand threaded through his hair and rested at the back of his head.
Their position felt familiar because it was.
Sherlock held him as they fell into the Thames — but now, William was safe in his arms and felt more at home than he ever had before.
The clock ticked.
5:00 AM.
For the first time since the fall, William wasn’t alone in the end.
*
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*
1882
New York City, United States of America
William James Moriarty woke up in a room he didn’t recognize.
It was midday, and he was alone.
The last thing he remembered was Sherlock. And then —
Nothing.
His vision was uneven; he touched his left eye and found the surrounding skin raised, though it was also less sensitive to touch. He did his best to look himself over as he sat up in bed — a difficult task in itself — and he had discovered the scars on his chest when the door to the room opened.
A woman in a white dress gasped as she ran through an array of emotions: shock, elation, and worry until she shook herself.
“Mr. Antrim!” She exclaimed in a distinct American accent. “You’re awake! Let me fetch the doctor right away — ”
William’s head spun as he tried to put the pieces together.
*
Once the gaps were filled in — the stark ones, at least — William ventured to the roof. The nurse permitted him to do so once she saw that he could walk with the cane and so long as she helped him up the stairs. He was winded when they reached the top floor, but the reward was worth it.
He sat on the bench and soaked in the heat of the autumn sun. The air was clear, and the linens hung on the lines rolled and lightly whipped with the occasional wind gusts.
He waited because he knew it would not be in vain.
The breeze was gentle as it kissed his cheeks and blew his hair back from his face.
Absently, he wondered if he should have checked the time — he was told that his visitors came at the same time each day, but he didn’t think to see how long he would have to wait.
Luckily, it wouldn’t be long.
He heard the door open behind the bench and laundry lines. An audible sigh of relief followed.
A deep ache twinged in his chest; he felt as if he had waited a dozen lifetimes for this moment. For them to meet again, no longer with the mask of the Lord of Crime and the Great Detective, but simply as William and Sherlock.
As Liam and Sherly.
When he turned his head, their gazes met, and his heart fluttered to life.
They had nothing but time now because Sherlock was here.