A/N: Hello darlings. The Epilogue. I was going to put it up when I got home last night, but the lackluster response to chapter five and the fact that I got home really late from watching Dr Strange after work, I just didn't feel up to it.

But this is it. Final part. A lot fluffy and a little sexy.

Thank you for all the lovely comments and favorites along the way. It made me really happy inside to see all the love this story got. Thanks again to indomitable Old Ping Hai, who helped me through when I got discouraged and Sidheman, whose brain I picked ruthlessly when I got stuck. You both are amazing and I adore you to pieces.

John and Sherlock were curled up on the sofa in their new digs on Baker Street about a month after the incident at Appledore. Mrs Hudson was happy to have them, she even gave them a deal on the rent after the favor Sherlock had done for her with the whole Moriarty affair.

"Did you ever find out how Mike was paying for things when we went out, or why no one said anything when the two of you were being driven around in your car?" John asked, snuggling closer to Sherlock.

"Hmm...?" Sherlock murmured. "Oh, yes. Apparently it was the combination of a couple things, people being idiots, and people thinking I'm an eccentric."

"The first one I get, the second one, you'll have to explain to me," John said.

"When they would 'pick up' Mike, what they were really doing is going to both flats to pick me up. They'd pull up to Mike's address, wait 15 minutes and then come to my flat. When I'd be talking to him in the car, the driver assumed I was talking to myself or on the phone with my assistant. They just chalked it up to me being crazy."

They nuzzled for a moment. "All right, I can tell that you really want to tell me how he paid for things," John muttered. "So go on, impress me."

"Mike did work for the BBC, just never as an assistant. He was actually in the set dressing department. He had started working there part time, and then when he started making more money doing that, he quit being a doctor. He has, had a BBC expense account card.

"He mostly kept himself so when he died, most people weren't aware he had done so. Then when I started saying that Mike was my assistant, they assumed that's where he'd gone. Those that did know he'd passed, thought it was another Mike Stamford."

"So, he was charging the BBC for everything he was doing?"

Sherlock giggled. "Yep!"

John laughed. "Well, good on Mike."

They sat cuddling for a moment. "I hope you don't mind, but I checked into your ghosts," Sherlock remarked casually.

John chuckled. "It's something that I should have done. But when I got home and the ghosts were just everywhere, if I started on one, it would snowball into this...thing."

"I understand," Sherlock agreed. "I only checked into two. Your soldier ghost and the girl in your old flat."

"Start with the girl," John suggested.

"Katie Dodd, age twenty-one. University of London student. Apparently there is a flaw in the shower door. If you keep the hot water on too long, the metal door seals itself shut."

"Well, that would explain why she would only show up when I would shower. But I don't recall her being naked, if that's how she died," John replied.

"Mike appeared to be wearing different clothes every time I saw him. Perhaps she merely changed her appearance every time for you," Sherlock said.

"True, Bertie, my first ghost, did the same," John remarked. "So how did she die?"

"The police assumed it was due to her merely slipping while trying to open the door," he said.

"But?" John pressed.

"The angle was all wrong. To have hit her head where her wound was she would have had to fallen from a height. Now, there is a gap between the top of the door and the ceiling..."

"So she was trying to climb out and fell hitting her head?" John supposed.

"Yes, she probably survived the fall, but bleeding out on the floor of the shower, there was no one to come see if she was okay until days later. Sad, really." Sherlock sniffed. "Not that she'll be a problem for anyone else."

"Did you dispel her?" John asked concerned. "The last time you did that, you fainted and were on bedrest for days. Are you okay? Do you need to lie down?"

"Relax, John, I'm fine," Sherlock assured the anxious doctor. "Last time it was two malevolent spirits, one right after the other. This was simply sending someone home who didn't know how to do so on her own."

John kissed Sherlock on the lips. "You did good."

Sherlock smiled and kissed John back.

"I adore you," John murmured.

"I know."

"So tell me about Bertie," John said as he straddled Sherlock's hips and sat on his lap.

Sherlock grabbed John's thighs to steady him. "Are you aware you had an ancestor who fought in the Second Anglo-Afghan war?"

"My great, great grandfather, I believe," John replied. "Why?"

"Did you know he had two brothers?" Sherlock asked, gazing up at his lover.

"Two? Really?" John asked. "I mean everyone in the family knows about John and Harry. It's through great, great granduncle Harry that alcoholism runs rampant in my family. But you say there was a third Watson brother?"

"Mhmm," Sherlock murmured into John's chest. "Albert. He was older than John but younger than Harry. Can you reach the papers on the coffee table?"

John looked behind him and twisted to grab the papers Sherlock was talking about. The top page was a census taken in 1860. Henry and Violet Watson, three boys, Harry, Albert and John. The second was a letter written by the army letting Violet know that Bertie had died and that John had been wounded and was being sent home, dated July 1880. The last piece was a faded photograph with two men in the 5th Northumberland regimentals. He looked closer and he could see the smiling face of Bertie Watson, his arm slung over the shoulder of the other man. A man that looked startling like the current John Watson.

"Holy hell, he looks like me," John swore. "Or rather I look like him, but shit. That's uncanny."

Sherlock chuckled. "It can happen sometimes with families." He pulled another photo out his jacket breast pocket. He handed it to John. There holding a pipe, hair slicked back, and in Victorian style dress was a spitting image of the man John was currently sitting on. Down at the bottom in a untidy hand, read Sherlock Holmes 1880.

"Well then," John laughed.

He set the pictures and papers aside. He slid off Sherlock's lap and pulled him to the side, dragging them both down to the sofa. "Mysteries solved."

"Mhmm," Sherlock agreed, licking into John's mouth. Kisses became heated and soon they were lost to the world.

Just the two of them against the world. Like their ancestors of old, like it was meant to be. Lost souls no more.