He’d wanted a very specific brand. Being in Germany, of course, the boy behind the register had more than a bit of digging to do in the storeroom. Ever since the incident, it had become a habit of Sherlock’s to envy the lives of everyone around him, and as the boy grumbled and closed the door behind him, Sherlock could only wish a picky customer was his biggest worry. He put down a few extra Euros for the trouble, cursing his own sentiment. He then headed to the park, where he’d made an appointment, and opened the pack.

The flood of fear and pain in his mind was too much to bear. Each hit he took put up another wooden board against the acid flood and shrouded him in his dismissal. But no matter how much smoke passed from the paper to his lungs, drops seeped through the boards and welled up under his feet. He regretted so much it could kill him, if the cigarettes didn’t first.

—

Wisps of smoke writhed in the cold Ingolstadt air. A healthy-looking young German was seated at a bench with a cigarette, staring past the banks of the Danube river. His blond hair caught specks of moonlight and his gorgeous hazel eyes showed no sign of misery.

But, as Molly Hooper knew so well, looks can be deceiving.

She took her place at the other end of the bench, almost worried she’d approached the wrong man. She risked a comment. “No patch this time?”

Sherlock took a slow drag from the cigarette, then met Molly’s gaze. Despite being the wrong color, his eyes retained some of that old character dead in London. “Here,” he sighed, fishing the remainder of the cigarette pack from his pocket, handing it to Molly before he could change his mind, then editing out the world around him once again.