Yup, I cried. Cried like a little bitch. Thank you.

I so wish I could play the violin. It's such a lovely instrument that people don't mind when they hear others practice it. Instead I play the horn, which is so loud the others in my apartment building complain or applaud, however they're feeling.

Music is so powerful, and the fact that Sherlock uses it to show "all of the feeling he seemed unwilling or unable to express in other ways" is so touching. In the original Doyle stories it always struck me that Sherlock would remember John's favorite songs, and would play them when he was having a bad day. In many ways he is so cold, condescending, and inhuman, but with music he can communicate as others do, just for a little while.

Lovely, lovely story. Of course, I'm partial to it, being a music teacher, but it's a gorgeous statement of the friendship between Sherlock and Lestrade regardless. Well done.

Thank you for this beauty. Your writing is not unlike Sherlock's music.

I can't ! I can't ! I am in love with this ! I laughed so hard At the yarder picking his nose! I just love Sherlocks way, he just wants to fix problems and most people wouldn't see at first how much he cares. Everything about this story was just a joy to read !

Beautiful.

Sherlock being empathetic...will wonders never cease? The Lestrade-Sherlock interaction here is so interesting, and the violin...thanks for posting!

This was excellent. It is just Sherlock being Sherlock yet showing how he cares for Lestrade, which I am sure he does. I loved the dynamic between them. I always see Lestrade as kind of a fatherly figure for Sherlock. Great job

Absolutely exceptional. Thank you for giving Lestrade and Sherlock a tender moment without breaking their characters by being too maudlin or sappy. Completely perfect. So glad you've written this - I hope you stay in this fandom for a long time. :)

I feel a right bastard for zooming along and devouring your stories without reviewing; I will go back and try to pick up those I missed later. In the mean time, iwanted to review this. Lovely, lovely story. Angst and comfort in the manner of "show, don't tell". You have a knack with not over-verbalizing thoughts and emotions (a habit I am fairly poor at overcoming with my own writing).

I very much liked the title, as not only appropriate for the story, but I am also a huge Tori Amos (singer) fan, and one of her songs has this line prominently in the chorus. The song is "China" off the album "Little Earthquakes".

I don't know how much you read fic vs write, but you remind me some of my buddy ("jackwabbit" on here) who writes mostly short, well-distilled, generally off-the-beaten-path fics. She hasn't done much Sherlock (yet) but has Stargate and Firefly and I believe a couple Voyager and some others sprinkled in.

Aw, man, this was supposed to be a quick read between courses and now I'm hiding in the library- emotionally drained, weeping about Lestrade and his kindness, his humanity and his loss. And I marvel at your pre-series-Sherlock, who is not quite as alone as he thinks. Although I would never inflict that kind of pain upon Lestrade I kinda wish this were canon. Very well done!

"You don't need to say how brilliant it is, Mangaluva has already said so in every form available to the English language."

I might be paraphrasing a little, but this is kinda how I'm feeling as I plunge through my binge of Sherlock-fic :P I like your take on how Greg and Sherlock met; it would explain why Greg puts up with Sherlock so much and Sherlock seems to like him so much more than the other cops :P The almost father-son tone to parts of this one was really sweet :')

This was so lovely and touching, and perfectly in-character. *sniff sniff*

Oh! You are good. A Proper Genius you are! And thanks for reminding me to include the violin in my own story. Just for this and that last story of yours I read I'm adding you to my fav author's list. I warned you didn't I?

I've read this story before, but I've never reviewed it. Shame on me! DX Here's a long review to make up for it!

This story inspires me and is one of my very most favourites (if not my favourite, next to the Sofie series). I can think of so many instances where this has appeared in my writing, a testament to how your work has become an integral part of my head canon for these two. The lock-picking, Jenny, the late nights helping a struggling addict... everything is so real that I can't imagine these two any other way.

And now for some favourite parts:

The first four paragraphs open this so beautifully. They give an impression of the suffering Lestrade goes through without having to spell out all the details (though we do get some later).

"On the worst days, it felt like a solemn responsibility. On the best, a rare privilege." This is speaks volumes. Lestrade definitely gets to experience both during this piece.

"His ugly divorce from recreational drugs." I love this phrase. It works so well. And this- "Sherlock might have fled the posh grounds of every private rehab facility to which his brother sent him, but he had come willingly – and returned repeatedly – to Lestrade's far humbler door." It shows how he trusts and respects Lestrade more than his own brother. So well done.

This exchange cracks me up every time:

"If I'd wanted you here, I would've given you a key," he said without heat.

"If you hadn't wanted me here, you would've changed the lock." XD

"I'm not, but I am purposefully, willfully headed in that direction." -I feel so badly for Lestrade, but I do love this line. So much. I really want to use this sometime in real life. No one will know where it's from, but I will have had the satisfaction of quoting you. I am determined to see this through. XD

This- "Disappointment, however, was something else entirely. It implied expectation." and this- " 'On the contrary, boring is very much like you. Pathetic isn't.' Biting. Wounded." so wonderfully illustrate the side of Sherlock that we very rarely see but can definitely believe is there. Sherlock couldn't work with Lestrade the way he does or have come clean without it.

I love this description so much. It speaks volumes, at least to me: "Sherlock raised an eyebrow, eloquent in his wordless scorn."

"Excuse me if I don't model ideal behaviour for you every single moment of my life. I may be pathetic, but I'm not irresponsible. The day I show up drunk at the office or a crime scene, you have my permission to feed me my warrant card." Poor Lestrade. You have to feel so badly for him at this point. He's just about at the end of his rope, but he still is trying to help someone else. So very true to his nature. And the following exchange makes me smile. (you have so many great conversations in here. Honestly. ;D)

The flash of relief on Sherlock's face rebounded on Lestrade, who managed to scavenge something of his characteristic humor. "Or try to, anyway. Not going to happen."

"Your showing up drunk, or my feeding you your warrant card?"

"Yes."

Sherlock can be such a child at times, as evidenced in this line: "I came here to see if you had anything for me. Anything new. Even the rumour of anything new. Or the memories of anything new to me. I'm bored. And you're no help at all."

These lines make me want to hug the man. If I were a crier, I'd probably have teared up by this point. "He was fraying. Christ, he needed to hold himself together, at least until he had the luxury of breaking down without an audience.

He drew a deep breath, sighed it back out like a prayer, inhaled again. 'The fridge is reasonably full. Get something to eat. Several somethings – God, look at you. Go hack my computer or reorder my bookshelves or do whatever it is you do. Please.'... Lestrade softened his words and turned them into a reassurance, summoning the voice of the father he'd never had the chance to be."

I love Lestrade's instructions to Sherlock. He's the fed up yet still loving father figure. The man is too wonderful, and no one ever can truly appreciate all that he does. Sometimes it's just not fair. DX

"If humans could perish of their own dullness, you'd be long since buried, Lestrade." Oh, Sherlock. Dear, dear Sherlock. XD You're such a child, as shown here as well:

"After several seconds and a pretentious sniff, Sherlock purposefully rearranged himself to face the opposite direction, turning his long, narrow back to his audience of one. And then, without preamble, he began to make the most haunting music Lestrade had ever heard."

I love Lestrade's initial reaction: "Oh." It's not a bored "Oh" or a disappointed "Oh." It's a "I'm so overwhelmed by this unexpected genius that I can't come up with anything else." And I love the description you give here- it's the same as I pictured when he and Kameko play: "Sherlock didn't play the violin: he breathed life into it; he communed with it." "communed" is such a great word. I love the connotations it has- communicating with something magical and inhuman.

This description stands out to me, too: " restlessness bled out from Sherlock's frame. In place of the manic former junkie stood a virtuoso, fluid and graceful and consumed by inspiration." Especially the first sentence. Usually "bled" had a negative connotation, but in this case I take it as positive. It's melting, slowly releasing Sherlock from its hold, freeing and fueling him at once.

This section is so touching: "How mad, Lestrade thought, that Sherlock would choose this empty shell of a home as the place to abandon himself to his genius. How incomprehensible, that Sherlock would decide to share this startling and intimate beauty with, of all people, an exhausted and heartsick copper – one who couldn't, despite his damnedest efforts, keep any of the people around him from dropping like flies." Lestrade is the humblest man in the series, in my opinion. He's the one who probably needs (and deserves) this most, but he wonders why such a piece of genius is played here. I love the next section, too-

"Not a corpse with a needle in its arm, cold in some gutter. No longer curled into a miserable, sweating knot in the tangled sheets of the spare bed, or heaving over Lestrade's toilet, vomiting up strangled breath.

Sherlock was alive." I can see this playing out so clearly. So many hard nights trying to fight his way to being clean, with Lestrade beside him every step of the way.

"The violin beckoned Lestrade from a distance, drawing him in and away, far away, from the shadows encircling him." So visual, yet as someone who is addicted to listening to the violin, I can just imagine how it feels to have such beauty "beckoning" him from his troubles. And the fact that it's "An offering, meant for him" is so incredibly touching, as is "The violin spoke. Lestrade understood its message." Both phrases are short and sweet, yet they speak volumes. I can not only see but feel Lestrade "surrender[ing] himself to the sound." Glorious.

And the last bit- Sherlock's "parting gifts." So adorable! The man seriously reminds me of the children I care for. XD I especially love the comparison of the wharf rat to a child's finger painting on proud display and the books being rearranged "according to some obscure logic that he couldn't begin to fathom." Sounds like something I'd do. XD

"His heart felt full now rather than simply heavy." Do you know how much I love this? SO much. XD It's so simple yet so powerful. It's so true that these are very different feelings even though they ought to feel the same according to their dictionary meanings.

"The pale grey glow of a rainy morning shone through the window like a promise as he waited for the kettle to boil." I love this kind of weather, especially at this time. For me, it stimulates creativity and calms my spirit. Unlike London, I live in a desert, so mornings like this are few and far between, so perhaps I appreciate this imagery more because I can romanticize it more. :P I especially love that he's doing a rather mundane activity. It shows how he's so down to earth.

Okay, last one, I promise: "Echoes of remembered music filled the emptiness around him." I absolutely adore how you combine the senses- I can see, feel, and hear this all at once. In other words, you're writing, to me, isn't just writing. It's not a little movie we readers can sit back and watch in our heads. It's an EXPERIENCE. We can live and breathe, weep and die with the characters. You fully immerse us in your lyrical masterpieces.

You are a truly gifted craftswoman. You will never realize how much your work means to us readers.

HUGS! (Sorry, I just had to ruin the sappy atmosphere with that XD)

3 Eiko

Again, utterly beautiful. The way you write music is incredible- like one who truly feels and understands what it means. Inspiring.