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The first time he heard that song, Sherlock thought he had found Heaven.
It was a quiet winter morning of the year 1986 —Christmas’ morning, in fact—, and Mycroft was babbling about something he had read on the newspaper. The newspaper! How could someone as well-read and educated like his brother be interested in what those journalists had to say about the world? Why did he even care about the rest of the world? It was absurd. With the intention of ignoring Mycroft better, Sherlock turned on the radio that sat on his mother’s countertop, and tuned a station that only transmitted classical music. But the last musical chords of Tchaikovsky’s ‘Swan Lake’ that resonated in the kitchen barely covered Mycroft’s words.
Sherlock grumbled, and when he rose his hand to change the radio station, a new melody began to play, filling the warm air of his’ parent’s house. Surprised, Sherlock discovered that he wasn’t able to recognise the melody: his young ears had never heard that before. So he closed his eyes, letting the beautiful melody slide into his mind and conquer it.
The musical notes started to draw graceful silhouettes in the black canvas his head was. The figures danced slowly, jumping randomly, dying and resurrecting over and over again. All of the sudden, the melody started an amazing crescendo, and the figures developed wings and rose from the ground. They looked like angels flying towards a wide, blue sky. And in the deeps of the sky, the Gates of Heaven were open to receive those graceful creatures.
Of course that he, the boy who would latter become the Great Detective, had never believed in such absurd things like Heaven or God… But that day, the first time he listened to Vivaldi’s composition, ‘Summer’, he felt something so powerful growing inside his chest, something amazing, something that he couldn't explain nor understand if there really wasn't a Superior Creature responsible of it.
Thirty one years had passed since that warm, glorious morning, when Sherlock placed his violin between his shoulder and his chin, closed his eyes, and played the first Cs of the song that had bewitched his soul.
It started slowly, like a whisper, as if the violin was shy and didn’t want to share the notes. But then, things changed. The melody turned more shrill, powerful, and started to rise, like those angels who flew to the Gates of Heaven. The notes ascended in ethereal circles, and then they fell... they let themselves fall from the highs, because that's what they were supposed to do.
Sherlock opened his eyes carefully, not knowing what he would find behind this eyelids.
The Woman looked fascinated, her blue eyes wide open and her cherry lips slightly parted.
He closed his eyes again, as the bow slid upon the violin's strings.
Sherlock’s song resurrected from it’s ashes, the angels resembling to phoenixes now. It grew wilder, burning everything in it’s path. Burning Sherlock’s hands, his chin, his shoulder, starting a massive fire inside his chest. It didn’t matter how many times the melody forced Sherlock to lower the intensity of the notes, the angels kept dancing around him majestically. Nothing could stop them now… Nothing except from the end of the song, which was inevitable. But the angels had reached the Gates of Heaven by then, and none of them fell to the ground.
When Sherlock opened his eyes, he saw Irene sitting in front of him, burning. Maybe one angel had never rose from the ground, after all.
His whole life, Sherlock had been convinced that there wasn’t in all Earth a masterpiece comparable to ’Summer’, but the last few years something new had been growing inside his old soul, and he couldn’t bring himself to ignore it. He had tried, though. Of course he had. But one night he came to the wise conclusion that a man like him could never compete with a goddess like Irene Adler. And while not even in his wildest dreams would he had imagined he would end up dedicating that song to another human being, there he was. And there she was. And she was Heaven.