Hades and Persephone sat down on their thrones while Lestrade and Aphrodite just stood in front of them on the marble floor. Lestrade saw a young man with winged sandals and a golden hat with wings was sitting beside the king and queen with a typewriter on his lap.

'Who is he?' she asked Aphrodite.

'The one with winged sandals? That’s Hermes, messenger of the gods and the one who led souls to the underworld. Now he’s the stenographer.'

'Report your name, please,' Hades asked Lestrade politely. Hermes started typing.

'Beth Lestrade.'

'Where are you from?'

'New London, England.'

'Purpose of coming here?'

'To claim my good friend’s life back.'

'What’s your good friend’s name? Give the full name, please.'

'William Sherlock Scott Holmes.'

Hades and Hermes groaned. The ladies stared at them.

'What are you guys groaning for?' Aphrodite demanded.

Hades cleared his throat and answered, 'Because he’s the most difficult soul we had ever met! He kept on insisting that his life is not over yet and he don’t want to come here with us. It took us a long time to get him here. So....'

'So?' Aphrodite asked.

'....You can’t claim him back.' Hades finished.

'Why?!' both Aphrodite and Lestrade demanded.

'Simple. Because his life is over. You can’t just claim him back, just like that! If everyone came forward to claim their friends’ lives back, the world would be in chaos!' Hades explained.

'What about Orpheus?' Aphrodite asked.

'He’s different! The Fates told me that Eurydice would come back to the underworld immediately after Orpheus had claimed her back, because Orpheus would break his promise by looking back at Eurydice before they got back to Earth. So the world is NOT in chaos,' Hades answered back.

Aphrodite whispered to Lestrade, 'The Fates are the three goddesses who determine the lifespan of man. They know the past, present, and the future.'

Persephone suddenly thought of something and she whispered to Hades. Hades thought for a while, smiled and said to Lestrade, 'Well, you could get him back.'

'Really, Your Majesty?' Lestrade asked, but she sensed that she couldn’t get Holmes back that easily.

'Yes, on one condition.'

'I knew it,' Aphrodite muttered under her breath.

'You must exchange your life with your good friend’s -- which means he'll go back to the mortal world, you’ll stay here. For eternity.'