Work Text:
“Look, he's dead. I'm sorry. Tried to help him. But the only difference between him and Tyus Wilcox is that he was an imbecile, and Tyus Wilcox is not.”
She was fuming now, and rummaged through the drawers, looking for something. When she found it she closed the drawer with a loud thud, and threw the notebook on the table.
“Shinwell wrote this. It's a confession to Jameel's murder. He wanted me to give it to the police after SBK was brought down. He wasn't getting away with anything! If you can't see the difference between him and Tyus Wilcox…”
With that, Watson walked past him, heading upstairs.
Sherlock stood frozen.
The echo of her footsteps faded, but the silence she left behind roared in his ears.
He’d failed her. Again.
He kept breaking promises. Kept breaking her. And now, he’d let her face Shinwell’s memorial alone.
Regardless of his reservations towards the man, she’d asked him to go with her. He said yes.
He should’ve been there for her.
“Watson…” he said softly, to the empty stairwell.
He pressed his fingers to his brow, breath hitching as a spike of pain lanced through his temple and into his left eye.
But worse, far worse, was the ache he couldn’t soothe: the weight of what he’d said to her; what he’d done.
He stood in the corridor for what felt like forever, mind caught in a whirlwind of tangled thoughts.
He didn’t hear the shower running. Didn’t hear her footsteps returning.
Not until she was standing right in front of him, hair damp, wrapped in pyjamas and slippers.
Usually, she would’ve said something. A jab about him still standing in the exact same spot, or sometimes an inquisitive question, “Are you alright?” to make sure he was.
This time, she didn't.
She brushed past him without a word, like he wasn’t even there, like she didn’t see him. Like she didn’t want to.
And he couldn’t take it.
“Watson…”
“No,” she snapped, voice tight with restrained fury. “I don’t want to hear it. I’m making tea, and then I’m going to bed.”
She walked through the landing, headed for the kitchen, and something twisted painfully in his chest.
He… he was losing her. And he couldn’t let that happen.
Not her.
“Watson… please.”
The word came out small, fragile, even to his ears. Maybe that’s what made her stop; his voice, or just the fact that he’d said it at all.
She froze before reaching the door. He swallowed hard, blinking against the sting in his eyes.
She didn’t turn. Just stood there, spine straight, arms stiff at her side.
The silence stretched.
His eyes misted, and he lowered his gaze, his hands curling uselessly at his sides. One opened, closed.
When he finally spoke, his voice was thin and raspy. Careful.
“I know my behaviour has been… appalling,” he said. “Please know that I’m sorry.”
“Are you?”
She turned sharply, her voice clipped, brittle.
“Because I don’t know if I can trust you anymore.”
The words hit like a bullet — not metaphorical, but real. Hot metal tearing through the centre of his chest.
His breath hitched. His knees buckled slightly, and he took one step back.
Trust.
The one thing that had always tethered them. Quietly, fiercely. Through lies, danger, and disappearances. Through the worst of who he was.
Gone.
He looked at her, really looked, and saw none of the warmth that had once anchored him. No light in her eyes.
Just the flat, dull ache of exhaustion. Of someone who had finally stopped hoping.
And something inside him cracked.
Not just from guilt or shame, but from the recognition . This was the moment he had spent years fighting to avoid.
Not when she argued. Not when she was angry.
But this.
This silence. This look.
The quiet surrender of someone who no longer believed in him.
Some people might’ve said you were a lost cause once…
That conversation, her voice full of conviction, came flooding back. And with it, the answer he’d given. Well, I may still be. And now, he knew it was true.
He had failed. Not as a detective. Not even as a partner.
But as a friend she could trust.
And with that failure, he had lost the only thing, the only one that mattered.
A raw, involuntary sound tore from his throat, half gasp, half sob.
He staggered back, pressing a trembling hand to his chest as if it could hold him together. But the pain was already breaking him open.
The shaking started in his fingers. Then spread. His throat burned. His vision blurred.
He was crying before he even knew he’d begun, tears tracking silently down his face, soaking into his collar.
His body folded inward, unable to stand tall beneath the weight. His breath came in shallow bursts, like a man suffocating. Shame and grief twisted like wire inside him, sharp and merciless.
He dropped his head. Shoulders hunched. Hands shaking. He couldn’t look at her. Couldn’t bear to see the final confirmation in her eyes.
But something shifted. He felt it, like a change in air pressure. The faint intake of her breath. A hesitation.
Then, two quiet steps forward.
Measured. Hesitant.
“I have been your friend, Sherlock. For years, I’ve stood by your side. We’ve weathered storms together.”
Her voice had changed, no longer cold, just… broken. Softer, like something had cracked open in her, too.
His head dropped. Shoulders caved in. The weight of it — the shame, the grief, the guilt — it folded him.
“This one time, I needed you. And you weren’t there.”
She was right. He hadn’t been there. He’d failed her. Not just this once, but in the one way that mattered most.
And the pain it caused, that was the one thing he could never forgive himself for.
“I’m… sorry,” he whispered, voice cracking.
He dared to look up, squinting at Watson through tear-stricken eyes. He bit the inside of his cheek, desperately trying to form words that wouldn’t come.
She took one more step. Now standing directly in front of him.
There was something in her eyes. Beneath the pain, the exhaustion, the anger — something else.
Not forgiveness. Not yet. But something quieter. Something like willingness.
“I know something’s been wrong,” she said, voice low. “For a while now. I trusted you'd tell me when you were ready, not push me away. Not disappear when I needed you.”
Her voice caught on the last word.
“You know I would’ve helped, Sherlock. That’s all I’ve ever wanted, to be there for you.”
She wasn’t asking him to explain. She wasn’t demanding anything. Just… offering .
An opening. A hand was held out in the dark.
From the corner of his eye, he saw her hand, hovering in the space between them, until it made contact with his wet cheek. A low whimper escaped him, breaking the little resolve he still had.
Losing the battle and accepting defeat, he lowered his head until his forehead touched Watson’s shoulder. He stood there, trying to keep his breathing under control, as he felt tears descend down his cheeks.
But when he felt Watson’s warm hand on his back, when he felt the tiniest of pulls towards her, that was all he could take.
He wrapped his arms around her middle, almost clutching at her, as a sob broke through his lips. His eyes closed, and he let himself be held as he cried. Something had finally broken inside him. He had no energy left to hold it together.
He sobbed and cried, clutching the hem of her pyjamas, desperate not to collapse under the weight of everything cracking inside him. His face pressed into the curve of her neck, breath hitching against her skin as tears soaked into her collar. She smelled like soap, like her . Like safety.
Like the home he was terrified he’d already lost.
His mind should have been cataloguing, observing, deducing, but it was scattered, like the pieces of a shattered glass. Thoughts slipped through his fingers like smoke. And the more he tried to catch them, the more they refused him.
His memories had gaps, jagged ones. Events he knew should be there were missing, or jumbled, or out of sequence. His mind, the thing that had always steadied him, served him, defined him… it was faltering. Betraying him.
And that thought, the terror of it, slammed into his chest harder than Watson’s words had.
“Sherlock, hey... shhh…” he heard her say, distant, as though from behind a glass wall.
The tone had shifted, no longer cold, not sharp or bitter.
Just soft.
Just worried.
That made something in him crack wide open.
A broken, low sound left him.
Not quite a sob, not quite a plea, just a raw noise scraped from somewhere deep. His arms tightened around her, clutching like she might disappear if he let go. His fingers dug into the fabric of her nightclothes, needing the texture, the proof of her presence. His legs trembled.
He couldn’t think, couldn’t reason. He couldn’t be what she needed.
And worse, he couldn’t trust his own mind.
“I don’t know what’s happening to me,” he finally rasped, voice barely audible against her skin. “It’s like… It’s like I’m slipping. And I can’t… I can’t hold on.”
He felt her breath hitch at that, just slightly. She didn’t pull away. If anything, her hand on his back grew steadier.
But it wasn’t enough. The words kept coming, torn from the deepest place in him, raw and frightened.
“I forgot,” he choked out. “I forgot the service. I told you I would be there. I promised. And I—” His voice cracked. “I didn’t even realise I’d forgotten until you said it. It’s not that I didn’t care. I cared. About you, what it meant to you. You needed me there, and I just—”
His voice faltered. He couldn’t stop shaking now.
A fine tremor had taken over his hands, and he clung to her like a drowning man. The shame was suffocating.
He stopped himself, biting down hard on his lower lip enough to draw blood, the metallic taste hitting his senses, trying to regain some semblance of control. But his voice wouldn’t obey him; it trembled with every syllable, too full of emotion that he could no longer suppress.
“You’re the only thing… the only person who—” he whispered, aware his sentences didn't make sense, “I can’t...”
He pulled back just enough to look at her, not quite meeting her eyes, afraid of what he might see there. His vision blurred from tears, her expression swimming into view and out again. His breath stuttered in his chest.
He was trembling.
He could feel it, this time — a deep, uncontainable shudder that worked its way through his limbs, making his hands clumsy where they clutched at her nightclothes. His breath came in short, rasping pulls. Tears wet her collar, shame pricking at him with every blink, every sob he hadn’t been able to silence.
Her breath caught again — sharper, this time. Like something inside her wavered.
And for the first time since he’d fallen into her arms, her hand moved not out of habit, but choice.
A small shift — her palm sliding from his back to his nape, fingers threading gently through his hair. Her fingers were warm, delicate.
They grounded him.
Her jaw clenched like she might say something else, but it never came.
What broke through instead was something quieter. Something unravelling in her, too.
And then, softly, so softly he almost thought he imagined it, she spoke.
“You could’ve come to me, you know.”
The words were quiet. But not cold. Not anymore. There was grief in them — yes — but also the first flicker of something else.
Her arms tightened around him as if she could press the thought away, undo it with touch.
“We’re partners, Sherlock. Friends. You never have to hide from me. Never.” Her voice caught, thick with emotion. “Not even this.”
It undid something in him.
Not with force, not a sharp break, but like a knot pulled loose from the centre. Unravelling, slow and quiet.
He clenched his eyes shut and pulled her in, emotions washing over him like a tidal wave.
Not even this.
That was what she’d said.
Not even this sob-wracked, humiliated version of him. Not even the part of him that had failed her, that had broken his word, that had run and hidden from her.
And still, she stayed.
Not because she didn’t see.
But because now — she did.
All of it.
He had no words left. None that could matter more than what had already passed between them. The silence held, not hollow, but full.
She shifted slightly, her hand resting again at the back of his neck. Still holding him. Still steady.
“I’m still mad,” she said at last, her voice quiet — raw. “But that doesn’t mean I’ll leave.”
Her thumb brushed a tear from his cheek, featherlight. He closed his eyes momentarily, the caress on his skin, the palpable affection almost too much to bear.
“You matter too much for that.”
Sherlock exhaled, a trembling, uneven breath that felt like something breaking open in his chest.
There it was.
Not forgiveness, not yet. But something just as rare. A choice. A beginning.
Her hand cupped his cheek with aching tenderness, and he leaned into it. This time knowing, in his bones, she’d catch him.
And for the first time in what felt like years, he let himself lean into it.
Just for a moment.
Just long enough to believe she meant it.