The night finds me under stars, always under stars.

It seems I spend most of my time watching them, reading them, walking under them

I am constantly reliving that morning, not simply because it is firmly ingrained in my memory, but also because it lies but a hand’s breadth away, and if I so chose I could reach out and touch it, I could step into that moment and see it again. Not to relive, but simply to watch. For that is the nature of my being. I watch. I witness.

It seems I will never be able to let go of it.

She’d slumbered and I’d not slept a wink. In a strange way, it was the least I deserved, to watch our last moments together, to watch her in peace, to spend my own in torment. I think she knew better than I what it all meant – I think she knew

He does the same now. Sometimes he touches her face as she dreams, and he thinks he has an inkling, an intimation of who and what she truly is.

I have seen and studied so many translations of her existence, and I still don’t understand her. I still can’t pinpoint any single thing about her that makes her what she is, both to herself and to me.

I’ve had ages to figure it out, and yet, ironically, not enough time to do so. Never enough time. After all, I have a purpose, and my purpose dictates certain…limitations, shall we say. I go where I am needed. I meddle where meddling is needed. And if I’m lucky, I’ll catch a glimpse of her along the way. She’s always and never the same. Wherever, whenever she is, she’s always out of arm’s reach.

Perhaps it’s better that way.

There are some that have called me a puppet master, because I have been known to pull strings, but I can’t say it’s ever truly been for my own personal benefit. I suppose, if what Roma said were true, I could send everyone dancing to my own tune, but I’ve never been interested in that. It was a trait Sinister found less than appealing in me. to me, power was, like so many other things, something to gamble with and throw away. I’m a thief. I work by stealth and sleight of hand. The might of the iron gauntlet was never for me. the serfdom of worlds was never appealing. who might I gamble it all away to? There are any number of cosmic beings who’d make a better job of despotic rule than I. I’ve always been a simple man, with simple tastes. It makes it all the stranger then, I suppose, that I should have pursued a complicated relationship with a more than complicated woman.

I don’t dream much these days, but when I do, I see her. Time and Fate – two sides of the same coin. Helpless markers of the multi-verses, the timelines streaming on towards the dreadful ‘end purpose’ all the cosmic entities are so afraid of. Threads, she’d called them. She saw them, but she never really spoke of them. looking back, maybe she’d seen the end purpose that Roma was so keen on making her own. Maybe that’s why she let me go. Maybe that’s why she delivered the threads into my hands. So that I can weave them together and make something better.

Honestly – I’d rather not know.

Still though, I am puzzled by this thread. 616. The golden thread. There it rests, in my hands, and I still haven’t figured out what to do with it.

Maybe that’s why I’m here tonight. Maybe it’s in the vain hope that she’ll help me find out.

Or maybe I just want to see her again.

She’s standing in the garden of the house that, ironically, Destiny left her. that woman always had a legacy to leave, often of varying degrees of importance. I still haven’t figured her out either. But for now, the mysteries of Irene Adler will have to wait. Her foster daughter is out walking in the early hours, the moonlight caressing her face,