"If you must die, sweetheart, die knowing your life was my life's best part."
-Keaton Henson
In a faceless graveyard just outside London (or maybe just inside it), there are two tombstones.
One reads John Hamish Watson, Beloved Husband, Father and Hero. Died November 23rd, 2063. If you bothered, you could subtract the year of his birth and find out that he was 85 when he died.
The next one, right beside it, reads exactly the same excepting the name and date. The name reads Sherlock Holmes, and the date reads November 30th, 2063. He died at the age 80.
If you were walking through this graveyard, you wouldn't notice these two tombstones. Probably wouldn't connect them even if you did, just two odd men with similar lives (because there are lots of husbands, lots of fathers, lots of heroes) who died a week apart, probably of old age and nothing more exciting.
You would be correct on some points. Two odd men, definitely, but throughly connected, married to each other, with their implied son living in Soho and rarely finding the time or the inclination to visit these stones. You can hardly blame him. That's all that's here now, two cold slabs of polished stone, with engraved metal plaques screwed on to the faces. Whoever these men were, whatever they were to each other, wherever you believe they've gone, it cannot be argued that they are no longer here. You can feel it in the air, almost as if you knew them; there's a sucking emptiness in the air, a very firm sense of nothing except two small pieces of stone.
Except that's a lie. If you look, really look, you'll find a note on John Hamish Watson's stone, folded tightly and slid in between the rock the metal plaque. And if you have some time, or a morbid curiosity, or even just a particularly nosey disposition, you may slide this note out from it's place, sit down in the cold grass, and read it. And as you read it, you'll realize that you were only half right when you assumed that these men died of old age. Only one died of old age. The other died of a broken heart.
My one and only John,
You are such a fighter. I don't suppose there's anything in the world that could convince you to stop fighting when there is something to fight for. No, I know. There's nothing. But I find myself wishing that there was something out there in the world (or in any of the possible worlds) that could make you stop fighting. Because maybe if something had made you stop, there would be something I could say to make you take up the fight again.
You've stopped fighting, John. You've stopped fighting and I'm scared.
You've seen the best doctors in England, one of them a top specialist recognized world-wide, and they all shake their heads sadly. But they've done that to you before, John, when you had a limp that wouldn't go away, a shaking left hand, an infection that almost cost you use of your arm (you courageous idiot - digging the bullet out with a muddy Swiss Army knife? You're lucky the infection wasn't worse. You could have died before I even met you). You've gotten more pitying looks from doctors than you can remember, and you've always fought through them. You're tougher than they are, you're smarter than they are, you're a better doctor than they are. You know better than they do, and you knew you would be fine, so you fought through it.
You're not fighting through this. You're not going to be fine, are you?
Don't answer that.
Every day I wish I had had more time with you. Everyone says fifty years is a long time, and when I write it like that it certainly seems so, but John, it went so fast. Fifty years years is really not a long time at all, not when you blink and a year has gone by, or two, or ten.
It was an eternity, too. It takes three days to form a new habit, and I had fifty years to get into the habit of being with you. Did you know that when I woke up on the morning of our wedding, I decided that I would make you laugh at least once every three days? I would have succeeded, too, had I not gotten that horrible flu that laid me up for a week. Other than that week, my resolution held.
I'm not a fighter. I'm also not someone who has the blissful ability to shy away from reality. You are dying, and soon, and there is nothing I nor anyone else can do to stop it. And I know you'll be furious at me for this, but John, I'll follow you. I'm not even sure it will be intentional, but I know I will. Even now my heart isn't beating. It works in stops and seizes. I can't breathe properly, my lungs are full of fluid and tar (do you remember the night you caught me sneaking out of the flat to smoke? You were livid), and my stomach keeps trying to expel the thin traces of water and saliva inside. (Have you ever thrown up water? It's disgusting.) No one can live like this, John. You're still here with me and I can't keep food down.
I'll follow you. I don't see any way to avoid it, nor do I have any inclination to, honestly.
I have to apologize, now, because I know that I'll never give you this letter (you would worry). Still, I have a few more days to make sure you know that I love you. That you're the best thing that ever happened to me, because you lead to all the other great things - hearing your laugh at least once every three days, Hamish Watson-Holmes (you wanted to name him Andrew, but trust me, Hamish is better), fresh honey for breakfast in Sussex.
Your life will always be the best part of my life.
And I'll see you soon.
-SH
When you're done reading, you'll fold the letter back up and tuck it back in where you found it. You'll worry about it, because it's kind of a treasure and you don't really want to leave it out here, exposed to the elements and other curious people. You'll think that it ought to be somewhere safe, but at the same time, you'll know that the letter is obviously John's that the thought of taking it away from him, even if it's not him here anymore, leaves you feeling guilty.
So you'll walk away. Out of the lives of the two odd men with matching headstones and back into your life.