Hi everyone, it's my first time writing fanfiction and I don't really read a lot of it, so this whole thing is probably a heinous crime against it, but I hope you'll bear with me. This is simply a collection headcanons I have for post-Reichenbach and their eventual reunion.
And I sang oh what do I do?
What do I do without you?
On the morning when I woke up without you for the first time,
I was cold
i
John and Mrs Hudson are watching telly downstairs. He's had a long day working in the hospital and had gone to sleep as soon as he got home, forgetting he had shopping to do. Ever patient and understanding, Mrs Hudson has made them both nibbles and they're eating off trays, flicking through channels, the film they were watching having just finished.
BBC news flashes onto the screen and a muffled alarm in the back of John's head goes off, snapping a part of him to attention. Whenever Sherlock had gotten irritable with boredom, they had avidly watched the news together in hope of a case. John still went to the police with advice sometimes. He'd never be Sherlock Holmes but he knew more about this stuff than anyone, except perhaps Mycroft. Most times he just had to avoid Lestrade and the memories wouldn't hit him so bad.
A school flashed up onto the screen, a wind-ruffled reporter walking through the playground with a microphone as she squinted at the cameras tracking her. Mrs Hudson perked up suddenly, putting her tray down on her lap.
"Ooh, that's the school I donated..." she paused and looked at John nervously "...his science equipment to."
John massaged his forehead. There was no question of who Mrs Hudson was speaking but he didn't want to say or think his name either. Three years, one month and two days. Nine hours, he adds mentally as he looks at the digital clock beneath the tv, and forty six minutes. He never did stop counting the days. When it had reached the first month he had told himself to stop, yet here he was all this time later, doing his best to lock his grief away, and he still knew exactly how long it had been since Sherlock had left him behind. He watched the television set intently, trying to focus his whole mind on what the woman was saying. It didn't work though, all these years and it never worked.
"Seemingly without explanation, Mullern Grammar School for Girls was broken into last night," the woman said, sounding bored and emotionless. "A bizarre selection of science equipment was stolen from a typically well guarded lab, leaving no trace for the police to follow. The equipment was very valuable but the school were lucky enough to have been donated it a few years ago by a local. Head-teacher, Graham Owens says-"
John's shocked gaze mirrored Mrs Hudson's as she stared in horror at the television set.
"It's horrible!" she said in a scolding tone, as if the burglars were her children, standing guiltily before her. "What people will do for money these days. The thieves probably won't even use the stuff, probably don't even know what it's for! Mind you, neither do I..." she trailed off and then quietly said "I always wanted to ask him. I quite liked all that chemistry what-not in school."
John smiled and nodded. In between the chemicals spilling in his coffee, he'd always wondered what it was all for too. How Sherlock made all these deductions from an eyebrow hair or something ridiculous like that. But these were things John had only really ever thought of after Sherlock had gone and he reasoned that he would not give a damn what it all meant if there were test tubes in the washing up now. Strange what you miss about a person.
"Local police are utterly baffled as to who took the equipment and how the thieves got in, but Sergeant Grace states that 'there have been lots of school equipment thefts in the last few years and it is mostly likely to be found being sold on e-bay'."
John got up and switched of the television. "Bastards," he muttered, and went to bed.
